Partitioning Mac HD

[Scatcat]

At the college I was at last year all the Macs were "deep frozen" - this means that all the programs and system info was on one HD and then there was a Student HD which you could save files to.
there was also some shit that just wiped anything on the desktop or not in one of the designated folders when the computer turned off (think that's the frozen bit)

Anyways, I got a new Macbook, want to use it exclusively for production, and want to split my Mac in a similar way that they did it at my college except without the deleting everything.

Also anything else you ca do to optimize ur mac for logic. (not in Logic but in the Mac itself)

[Russla-DJ]

Google woulda been a good place to start on this, not really anything to do with production on partitioning side.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage...ing_tiger.html

For optimizing, keep your HDD clean, organised, and install as little amount of other programs as possible

[greenflydnb]

All you have to do mate:
Search in spotlight for 'Disk Utility', Select your HDD on the left, on the right there should be a 'Partition' tab, all you then have to do is select how much of the HDD you want to partition by clicking the plus button, and dragging the little slider up or down, or simply just type it in the Size box and make sure its format is 'Mac OS Extended (journaled), then click apply.

[Scatcat]

cheers mate.

Any idea how to make sure that it splits programs/system and personal files/folders?

[greenflydnb]

Its not that easy to be honest mate,

What you could to do is either just simply drag and drop from one HDD to the other, you should be able to see the different partitions on the desktop. If not just make sure finder is selected, in the tab at the top, select finder > preferences, then tick the box under the general tab that says Hard Disks. If it was me all i would do is either get a memory stick or an external HDD and just copy the files over, definitely the easiest way.

That what you mean?

[lostnthesound]

Honestly, I would keep your internal hard drive unpartitioned and purchase an external drive to partition.

I've never been a fan of partitioning a system's boot drive personally, as I've always viewed it as something that shouldn't been modified since it's essentially the core of your system. By using an external drive that's partitioned, if shit were to ever hit the fan you would still have your core system drive in tact.

I don't have any hard evidence to back up my M.O., I'm just a believer that the "work horse" hard drive should always be kept in its factory state.

Just my .02.

[msmith222]

could also just set up two users? one for production and one for everything else? then just turn on fast user switching...

[Riisu]

I read this as "Patronizing Mac HD." That is all.

[greenflydnb]

Honestly, I would keep your internal hard drive unpartitioned and purchase an external drive to partition.

I've never been a fan of partitioning a system's boot drive personally, as I've always viewed it as something that shouldn't been modified since it's essentially the core of your system. By using an external drive that's partitioned, if shit were to ever hit the fan you would still have your core system drive in tact.

I don't have any hard evidence to back up my M.O., I'm just a believer that the "work horse" hard drive should always be kept in its factory state.

Just my .02.

Partitioning the HDD doesnt cause any problems to the HDD at all, just splits the size. I would just use an external just for backup. If you are talking about storing your samples, bla bla bla, on the external whilst using logic it will make the whole workflow slower.

[lostnthesound]

Partitioning the HDD doesnt cause any problems to the HDD at all, just splits the size. I would just use an external just for backup. If you are talking about storing your samples, bla bla bla, on the external whilst using logic it will make the whole workflow slower.

Not sure I agree, but I could be mistaken.

If you store your samples on the boot/main drive, doesn't this mean that the CPU will not only be handling the processes of running your DAW, but in addition have to handle the extra processing when previewing/processing/playing your audio samples (and sampler instruments for that matter)?

If you're using a secondary internal drive @5400RPM with a low cache or an external USB 2.0, the performance increase may not be mind blowing. But connecting via Firewire800, eSata or thunderbolt will definitely make a difference and put less strain on your main drive.

Personally, I keep all of my content on dedicated secondary drives (dedicated Firewire 800 drives, daisy chained):–one for projects, one for audio samples, one for kontakt instruments/sampler instrument samples.

A couple articles regarding the topic of dedicated hard drives & audio production:
Studio Corner
Steinberg
Recording Revolution
KVR

Cheers.

[Scatcat]

cheers for the replies guys.

From what I've gathered over the past couple is that there's not much point partitioning the main HD unless ur gonna invest in a much more powerful (e.g. solid state) HD to replace it. Seeing as these are ilk £800 odd, I'm doubting the suitability.

Way I look at it is, I ain't prodding at a high enough level yet to really care bout this. the lap-tops fast enough, especially if I only use it for Logic & Traktor - much better to spend the money on some decent plugins methinks.

cheers for the sites lostnthesound

[lostnthesound]

cheers for the replies guys.

From what I've gathered over the past couple is that there's not much point partitioning the main HD unless ur gonna invest in a much more powerful (e.g. solid state) HD to replace it. Seeing as these are ilk £800 odd, I'm doubting the suitability.

Way I look at it is, I ain't prodding at a high enough level yet to really care bout this. the lap-tops fast enough, especially if I only use it for Logic & Traktor - much better to spend the money on some decent plugins methinks.

cheers for the sites lostnthesound

Your welcome, glad I could assist.

BTW, I buy all my drives from OWC.. There is no finer manufacturer of hard drives, and the prices are quite fair.

Cheers.