Drive Partitioning

Hi there,

I am looking for some advice regarding drive partitioning as I am confused!

I have recently purchased the new iMac quad core with 1TB internal HD (7200rpm) and 4GB ram and also own an old MacBook Pro 15 inch core 2 due with 120GB internal HD.

I own an external LACIE powered 1TB USB 2 (7200rpm) HD, external LACIE powered 250GB (5400 rpm but quite old!) HD and a LACIE portable USB powered 500GB HD. I want to use my iMac mainly for Logic/ Reason, Ableton & Traktor but I also use Word, Excel, Photoshop, Go Live, iPhoto, iTunes etc on a daily basis. I have installed Parallels to run Outlook in Windows so I have a small partition (64GB) which Parallels has automatically created for me. I presume this is part of my main system application size though as it is not shown anywhere so guessing it’s a virtual partition within Parallels?

I currently have about 300 GB used up on my new Imac for applications, current samples, current Logic projects and iTunes etc. The drive on this is not yet partitioned.
On my MacBook Pro I use this for Traktor so this is manly full with audio to play live DJ sets. I also use Reason and Ableton on it occasionally for creating loops and ideas whilst on the go. I have around 10GB spare. The drive is not partitioned.
On my 1TB external hard drive I have used around 600GB for backing up music, photos, documents and my work bits. The drive is not partitioned.
My 500 GB portable drive have around 70 GB spare on it and is used mainly for my work bits so I can use between office and home and music that I use with my MacBook Pro as well for live sets. The drive is not partitioned.
My 250 GB drive has just been formatted whilst I work out the best way for audio performance!

When running logic I keep getting a system overflow error when samples are about to be triggered and Logic halts and I have to hit play again. I used to get this on my laptop occasionally but only when a plug in was triggered and never with audio samples so I am presuming this is to do with where my music is stored on my harddrive? I would have thought though that on a new iMac quad core it would be able to cope with triggering 10 different samples at a time?

I have read various articles and looked on forums which say that I need to have my current audio project data as close to the outer part of the hard drive as possible. Does this mean that I need to format my iMac and start partitioning from scratch and then reinstall the OS and Logic, Reason, Ableton and all my other apps so I can have my audio partition at the out part of the drive? If so how much should I partition? I read an article saying you should use 25GB for current audio projects and then going into the drive use 500GB for streaming samples, 225 for system then the innermost part of the drive for other non speed specific documents like word and excel? However if I did this wouldn’t this make the whole system slow if the 225GD for the system is so close to the inner part of the drive? Another suggests using 2 drives but then if I use my external 1 TB for audio project, streaming samples and other bits where do I back up? Will I need to get another drive? It seems a bit excessive?! I am so confused!

Do you have any advice on how to partition my drives and make my new iMac perform to its best capabilities?

I want the most efficient way to work without any crashes/ halts. It seems strange the most powerful computer that I have ever had cannot handle triggering more than 10 samples at the same time without falling over?

I hope someone can help?

Thanks

Matt

Hi there,

I am looking for some advice regarding drive partitioning as I am confused!

I have recently purchased the new iMac quad core with 1TB internal HD (7200rpm) and 4GB ram and also own an old MacBook Pro 15 inch core 2 due with 120GB internal HD.

I own an external LACIE powered 1TB USB 2 (7200rpm) HD, external LACIE powered 250GB (5400 rpm but quite old!) HD and a LACIE portable USB powered 500GB HD. I want to use my iMac mainly for Logic/ Reason, Ableton & Traktor but I also use Word, Excel, Photoshop, Go Live, iPhoto, iTunes etc on a daily basis. I have installed Parallels to run Outlook in Windows so I have a small partition (64GB) which Parallels has automatically created for me. I presume this is part of my main system application size though as it is not shown anywhere so guessing it’s a virtual partition within Parallels?

I currently have about 300 GB used up on my new Imac for applications, current samples, current Logic projects and iTunes etc. The drive on this is not yet partitioned.
On my MacBook Pro I use this for Traktor so this is manly full with audio to play live DJ sets. I also use Reason and Ableton on it occasionally for creating loops and ideas whilst on the go. I have around 10GB spare. The drive is not partitioned.
On my 1TB external hard drive I have used around 600GB for backing up music, photos, documents and my work bits. The drive is not partitioned.
My 500 GB portable drive have around 70 GB spare on it and is used mainly for my work bits so I can use between office and home and music that I use with my MacBook Pro as well for live sets. The drive is not partitioned.
My 250 GB drive has just been formatted whilst I work out the best way for audio performance!

When running logic I keep getting a system overflow error when samples are about to be triggered and Logic halts and I have to hit play again. I used to get this on my laptop occasionally but only when a plug in was triggered and never with audio samples so I am presuming this is to do with where my music is stored on my harddrive? I would have thought though that on a new iMac quad core it would be able to cope with triggering 10 different samples at a time?

I have read various articles and looked on forums which say that I need to have my current audio project data as close to the outer part of the hard drive as possible. Does this mean that I need to format my iMac and start partitioning from scratch and then reinstall the OS and Logic, Reason, Ableton and all my other apps so I can have my audio partition at the out part of the drive? If so how much should I partition? I read an article saying you should use 25GB for current audio projects and then going into the drive use 500GB for streaming samples, 225 for system then the innermost part of the drive for other non speed specific documents like word and excel? However if I did this wouldn’t this make the whole system slow if the 225GD for the system is so close to the inner part of the drive? Another suggests using 2 drives but then if I use my external 1 TB for audio project, streaming samples and other bits where do I back up? Will I need to get another drive? It seems a bit excessive?! I am so confused!

Do you have any advice on how to partition my drives and make my new iMac perform to its best capabilities?

I want the most efficient way to work without any crashes/ halts. It seems strange the most powerful computer that I have ever had cannot handle triggering more than 10 samples at the same time without falling over?

I hope someone can help?

Thanks

Matt

Ok first I apologize, but most of that post is just rambling on about what drives you have and I already have no idea what you posted ... and a bump is better to be done by just posting a single word and not the whole post again

anyway ...

you don't really need to worry about saving files to the outer rings of your drive, just let the OS manage the filesystem ... that's just my opinion though

also don't worry about partitioning your internal drive, seeing how many externals you have and like them so much, why make a mess on your internal drive with several partitions and haggling with space here and there all the time

you mentioned Parallels and a "small" partition of 64 gigs for Outlook ... made me laugh to be honest, but again, that's just me ... and to clarify, that is not a partition, from the host system (your Mac OS) it's just a big file stored somewhere in your Documents and then passed off as a partition to the virtual system

if you have problems with performance, I suggest keeping more free space on your hard drive, it is used to swap memory and especially when you're running virtual Windows, those swaps will get big and a quad-core won't save that ... also giving too much resources to your virtual system will cause dramatic performance drops, and seeing you consider a 64gig space for outlook small, you might want to recheck your virtual system hardware settings as well