Mac Pro :: Scratch Disk Partition And Size With Disk Utility
Sep 8, 2010
My new 2010 hexacore Mac will have 24G memory, an OWC Extreme Pro 120G SSD (positioned in the lower optical bay) and four 2TB WD RE4 drives. I'll use my old Synology 209 NAS (two 1TB WD Green Raid 1 drives) for TM backups over 1000Mbps Ethernet. Yes, I'll need to upgrade to a larger NAS very soon. This will be my first Mac Pro (have MBPs and iMac) and will be used for web design and development (mostly Adobe CS5 products).
The SSD will be used for boot and application files. I plan to use Disk Utility to create a 1+0 Raid array for data files. For a Scratch disk, should I:
1) create a partition on the 1+0 Raid Array for Scratch
2) partition a chunk of the SSD for Scratch
3) attach a spare external 2.5" WD drive via Firewire 800 for Scratch
Based on my reading, it seems that option 1 makes the most sense but I'm not entirely sure if you can partition a 1+0 array with Disk Utility. I'm pretty sure option 3 is quite silly but wanted to toss out the idea. Lastly, are there any generic recommendations on scratch volume sizing?
I'm new to mac, have been using mine for only three months now, but couldn't help noticing a strange thing. When I go to Disk Utility or cmd+i on a selected partition, the size reported by OSX is incorrect. E.g. I have a 250GB disk, so I'm used to seeing 232GB as usable disk space, which is a totally normal thing. However, OSX tells me that my disk is actually 250GB. More advanced partition utilities (currently I'm using iPartition but suggestions are welcome) report the disk size correctly. So I began to doubt whether folder sizes are reported correctly or "scaled up" to match the size of the disk?
E.g. if I was an ignorant consumer and tried to put 250GB worth of data on the disk, it wouldn't fit as there is not enough physical capacity to accommodate it, is that right?
Is it the normal behaviour or I screwed something up in the system?
I have a 2TB Western Digital My Book Studio FW800 external that has 5 partitions, connected to my 2011 iMac. I had help doing the partitions and don't really remember the reasoning, but one is just for my SuperDuper! backup, one is Miscellaneous, one for movie clips off my camcorder, one for misc scanned photo's and one for my genealogy research. I back up using Time Machine to a Time Capsule and also to this WD hard drive with SuperDuper!
Recently I'm getting a pop up message that "Mac OS X can't repair the disk "Genealogy"'. And it needs to be reformatted. It's become a read only disk. When I look in Disk Utility it shows all the partitions as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" EXCEPT for the one in question. I also noticed that there are a lot of files with "date created" being the same date in 1969! These files may be letters I've written or photo's I added to that partition within the last few years.
I think I have to completely reformat the entire external hard drive to repair this, but I want to make sure. Because it's going to be a major hassle backing it all up to another external (having to get one first) and then figuring out how to make the files that have turned "read only" in that one partition, back to their original state! Does this sound right, that I have to reformat the entire external hard drive? And how do I get the read-only files back to their original state.
I had windows vista installed but suddenly the audio decided to become faulty, after spending a day trying to fix it i realized I have a windows 7 install disc so i might as well just replace vista with windows 7. I didnt take care of vista or ever register it so it became quite a task to upgrade so i just deleted the partition and went to create a new one and just do a full install of windows 7.
I made the partition but the wrong format, so i removed it through boot camp assistant and created another, except now it keeps giving me the "back up the disk and use disk utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using boot camp assistant again" Now, I'd love to do this, except I have no idea what I'm doing and WHY this error has occured. After becoming frustrated I switched from my imac to my macbook pro and received the same error when trying to create a partition. So any help on exactly what I need to do would be a HUGE help. I only use windows for music production (I know, seems backwards, but I use Sony Acid and FL Studio so I'm stuck with Windows)
Anyone knows why my external HD (USB disk connected to Airport extreme) does not show up in disk utility? (It sits on my desktop just fine and is fully functional) I' want to erase a partition but now i don't know how.
I have run the Disk Utility verify function against my system partition. It tells me there are minor issues that need fixing up and I should run the repair disk function, by booting using Command-R and using the Disk Utility to repair the drive.Problem is, when I boot using Command-R and select Disk Utility the partition is shown greyed out and the Verify and Repair options do not work.I think this could be because the partition is encrypted. The utility does not offer me the chance to unlock the partition with my passphrase.How can I repair the filesystem errors on this partition?
I have a 640GB external USB hard drive that I use for time machine currently. I would like to go in and add a partition to load movies to and plug it into my PS3. Can I use disk utility to create a new partition without erasing the stuff already on the disk?
And then is it possible to format a partition larger than 32GB as FAT?
I just got a 2nd caviar black 1tb and I'm goin to be setting up raid with another drive.. I have data on my current 1tb which is backed up with time machine. what do I have to do to get the drives workin in raid? I'm lookin to have a faster write speed since I need the raid setup. Since I will be using the 2 drives for my data and a photoshop scratch disk, should I create a partition for the scratch disk? I've seen some say yes.. Some that said no but without reason.What r the pros/cons to partitionin the drive?
First some background info. I recently purchased a 1TB hard drive for my 13" MBP, and I am about to do a clean install of OSX 10.6 and Win7 64bit on separate partitions.
And I want to setup the partitions before I install using Disk Utility. The reason for this is because I'm under the assumption that when creating a NTFS partition its better for the disk to be blank so it can put the MFT(Master file table) and MFT Mirror wherever it wants instead of some random spot on the disk (that way disk writes will be faster). The MFT thing was true when converting a FAT32 disk to NTFS. Nativity formatted NTFS disks were always faster then ones converted from FAT32, because the MFT was spread out instead of at the start of the disk.
I'm worried that installing OSX and then using the bootcamp utility will cause the MFT on my NTFS partition to end up in a un-optimal place and disk Reads/Writes will be slower.
Ok, so here's my questions.
1.) Should I be using a GUID Partition Table or Master Boot Record(Remember OSX 10.6 and Win7)?
2.) Should I use Disk Utility to Create a the OSX partition and then leave the second partition as Free Space? / Or should I use a third party utility and make the OSX partition and the NTFS partition at the same time?
3.) If I do create the partitions Manualy, will bootcamp still work correctly?
4.) Should I Use Journaled or Case-Sensitive Journaled on my OSX partition?
I know all of the questions were stupid, but there isn't any info on the web about it.
I forgot the name of a small app that allows to browse a disk and calculate folder sizes in order to clean a disk. I think the icon was a disk with a broom over it.
I own an iMac with a 250 GB HDD along with a Macbook that originally had a 120 GB HDD. So when I purchased my 1 TB external HDD this summer, I partitioned the external so I could back up both my iMac and Macbook via Time Machine. Seeing how small the Macbook HDD was, I allocated roughly 300 GB of my external to it, with the iMac getting the rest.
Originally I had 2 partitions on the internal 500gb hd in my MBP, one was 455gb the other was 10gb that I used to mess around on. I do not remember what format the small partition was in last, it may have been FAT32. I wanted to delete the small partition and consolidate into one partition. My OSX partition is formatted macos extended. I went to Disk Utility and deleted the small partition by selecting it and clicking "-." There was grey space where the partition used to be. No problems here. Most of the options in Disk Utility are greyed-out.
I cannot select a different partition scheme. When I try to resize the partition either by dragging it to cover the grey space or by manually typing in a larger size, there is no way to apply the changes. The "Apply" button is continually greyed-out (See Image). If I try to resize the partition and then close the window, Disk Utility alerts me that I have an operation in progress and that unsaved changes will be lost. Disk Utility is not letting me resize my main OSX Partition, it appears that I do not have appropriate permissions to make this change - I am the only user/admin of this machine.
I having trouble resizing an external harddrive of mine. It is a 500gb Lacie drive, and inside it has two partitions: time machine (250gb) and my stuff (250gb). I want to make time machine 150gb and make My Stuff occupy the remaining space. However, when I enter Disk utility, there is no dot between the partitions that I can drag. When I pull the corner, the disk gets smaller, but after resizing there is still a blue rectangle outlining where the old disk was. The partition "time machine" is used for time machine backups, but I have deactivated backups in Preferences, and Time Machine is currently "off". I have included an image for clarification. How can I resize the partitions the way I want them?
i am trying to format a brand new 120 GB hard drive via an external USB 2.0 enclosure. About 25 minutes ago, I selected the "erase" option and slected the Mac OS Extended (Journal) Volume format. For the last 25 minutes, disk utility has been saying that it's creating a partition map. It's doing nothing.
I have reason to believe my enclosure may be faulty. (I had a similar problem on an old hard disk and thought that the problem was with the disk; now I know.) I need to know: How do I disconnect/eject the hard disk without damaging it? The eject option in Disk Utility is grayed out. If I attempt to quit Disk Utility I get a warning telling me I could leave my disk inoperable.
I installed Ubuntu on my iMac, and it made 2 new partitions: DISK0S3 and Linux Swap. Here's what my disk utlity looks like: When I try to remove Linux Swap, it says that the partition (map is too small. When I try to remove DISK0S3, nothing happens and it keeps running forever before I press +Q to quit.
I would like to know the difference between the options 'erase' and partition' in disk utility. Under 'erase' there are several options: under 'security options' there are 4 options: don't erase data, zero out data, 7-pass erase and 35-pass erase.
I have installed 2x Intel X-25M Gen2 (SSDSA2MH160G2C1) 160GB SSDs in RAID 0 (striped) in my 17" uMBP. Second SSD was installed using a MCE Optibay in place of CD-ROM. I used the OSX Disk Utility to create the stripe partion with no problems. I currently have 10.5.8 loaded and will be loading 10.6.0 tonight and doing some simple GeekBench benchmarks.
I have a Mac Mini and on the internal drive I have Snow Leopard installed on the first partition and I'd like to install Snow Leopard Server on the same drive on another partition (I'm new to Mac, this is my only machine and my only drive, and this is only for testing purposes, so don't bother with stupid questions about why etc).
The problem I have is that I can't seem to create the necessary partition in Disk Utility. I have shrinken the Snow Leopard partition to get some free space and I've created a second partition for Server but for some reason I can't choose the options button to select GUID. The button is grayed out, see attached image.
What am I doing wrong? Or is it not possible to have two OS partitions on the same internal drive?
I just bought a 1TB Lacie d2 Quadra and want to partition it in 2 partitions. As said in the instructions, if you want more than 32 GB on my "PC" partition I need to use Mac's disk utility. The thing is I don't have the option to partition in NTFS, only MAC OS extended (journaled, etc..) and FAT32. But I need a lot more than 32 GB for my PC stuff. Now how can I do that? I need to backup some stuff from my Windows XP (bootcamp) really soon! And I want to be able to plug it in another PC and be able to transfer both ways. How can I get the NTFS partition option with disk utility? or is there other softwares for that? In all what I want is about 500 GB for MAC and 500 GB for PC (NTFS)!
First off I am new to Mac's and I am trying to repartition my harddrive. i did it once before and was successful and when i tried to adjust the size, windows kept getting errors.
On the advice of my friend he told me to completely wipe out my machine and reinstall Mac OS 10.4. I have since reinstalled SL 10.4 and downloaded bootcamp. However, I do not see a boot icon in my applications or utilities folder, but I do see a disk utilities icon.
When I click that and click the only hard drive that is there and try and partition it, the slide bar will not work for me to divide the hard drive into the size i want and none of the fields or dropdown boxes will work.
I just restore my Mac OS to a single partition and then I tried re-partitioning but it's giving me an error. I've tried several times, tried using different sizes every time. My HD's capacity is 250GB, and I've got 108.95GB free. So I am sure that making a new partition of 35 - 40 GB is not a big deal. I also tried using Disk Utility, both from the Mac OS install disc and while using the Mac OS itself, but it keeps giving me this error. I do not want to format my Macintosh HD's partition because I don't have an external HDD on me at the moment so I will not be able to back up. I have a lot of important data that can not be deleted.
after i erased the partition in the list in left i couldn't delete a partition in disk utility "File system resize support required, such as HFS with Journaling enabled" error, i think it came with REfit program!?
I installed Ubuntu on my Macbook but it didn't really work for me so I deleted it. I used Disk Utility to delete the Ubuntu partition, but when I want to delete a Linux-swap partition I made while installing Ubuntu nothing happens. I press the minus button and it will delete it. But after deleting it just stays there, and I can't change the partition in any way. How can I delete the partition?
This is what get when I go into Disk Utility and I want to delete the partition Macintosh 2. I see these 3 things. The "Logical Volume Group" and the 2 partitions. Where is my main hard drive? How do I get rid of the Macintosh 2.
Info: MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
I have a Mac mini with a 55 G internal hard drive with a 750 G One Touch Maxtor drive (actually just 698 G) attached via firewire. Later this month I'll be upgrading from Tiger to Leopard, and I'm assuming a clean install makes most sense. I'd like to partition the Maxtor drive to provide general storage as well as Time Machine backups. Although it's not vitally important, I could envision having a partition to handle Windows. Should I create three partitions: one for approx 55 G to handle the current contents of my internal drive for the upgrade; one for approx ?? G to handle potential Windows; and the remaining space to handle Time Machine.
- How large should a Windows partition be? There are some apps that would be useful to have, but highly unlikely it will be an important part of my routine. Should I be stingy? Can I get a Windows install in about 10 G? 20 G? - Can I partition the Maxtor while it has data? Currently there is about 25 G of files. Many are expendable. - Disk Utility seems to default to PPC settings, though the mini has an Intel processor. I'll want a GUID Partition Table for at least one partition, correct? - Does it make sense to install Leopard on an external partition in case the internal drive ever fails? Or is that a waste of space for now? (One assumes I'd be able to rescue the machine via the install disks.) - I suppose everyone's experience with Time Machine is different based on how they use their computers, but is there a rough guideline on how much space to devote to Time Machine?
I partitioned my disk using Terminal's diskutil. I decided i didnt need the partition anymore, so i deleted it (using Disk Utility.app) and added the free space to my mac partition. Basically, Finder and Terminal dont show the free space added back, and Disk Utility shows the space added back to the disk. I tried restarting, repairing disk (which coincidentally had an unrelated problem), repairing permissions, but the problem is still happening
I bought a new 2TB Time Capsule, and had problems completing the initial backup. I finally sourced the problem to files that were buried deep in a stack of folders, which seemed to make the file name/path too long. Anyway before I realized that I tried to reformat the Time Machine, and this seemed to work ok. However Airport Utility is now reporting the Time Capsule Disk Size as being 1.8TB, rather than 2TB.
I think before I reformatted the disk it showed as being 2TB in this menu, but I cannot be sure. I am worried that I have somehow formatted it wrong and lost some data space? If I go into Disk Utility, it does say there that the Data partition is 2TB, so it seems strange that Airport Utility shows it at 1.8TB. Can someone else who has the 2TB Time Capsule let me know whether in Airport Utility it shows as being 2TB or 1.8TB?
