Partitioning an external SSD

[KennyC]

In years past under win boxes I've always partitioned the hd installing os on one and apps & doc's on another.
I chose to order my iMac with a 256 SSD internal knowing I could add an external SSD.

Question: does it make sense to partition an external SSD so like I can use one for time machine backup, one for photos and one for music etc or does it perform better whole?

 

[MacInWin]

No need to partition, it works just fine with one volume. To separate your photos and music you can create two folders, one for each. On the boot drive is a folder called /Users and in that folder will be folders for each account on the system, one of which will be you. All of your documents will be in that folder. In addition, any customizations you choose will be kept in that folder as well, usually in hidden folders. Remember macOS is based on *nix, which is a multi-user system, so the security of the system is set up to keep one user from messing with another user's data. Hence, each user gets an individual folder and cannot mess with the other users folders or files. It's handy to create a "clean" account so that if you have any issues you can log into that account to see if the problem persists there or goes away, indicating a problem with YOUR account and not systemic.

So, when the iMac arrives, if you want to use Migration Assistant to move files from your old system, that process will create an account on the Mac and give all the files permissions for that account to be able to read and write to the files. Once it is done, you will then log into that account and all your stuff should be there, ready to be used.

Note: Although you can store stuff on an external drive just fine, some applications will default to that home folder on the boot drive and will expect it to be there with certain folders and files in it, so you cannot delete it without any thought to that. Leave it there to keep that software happy but you can move the data (photos, documents, music, video, etc) to the external just fine.

Hope that helps some.

 

[usagora]

Personally, I'd prefer to have 1 external drive for extra storage (in your case, photos and music) and another external drive dedicated as a Time Machine backup. However, if you decide to go with a single external drive (and I strongly discourage that), be sure your Time Machine partition is large enough to backup both the iMac SSD plus the other two partitions on the external SSD with lots of room to spare. Just keep in mind if that single external drive fails, you are also going to lose your photos and music since your backup of those is on the same drive. That's why I'd strongly recommend a dedicated backup drive.

 

[Rocky97]

Never done so for organisational purposes, however in contrast to with a HDD, partitioning a SSD does not provide any performance benefits as SSD's don't move

 

[KennyC]

Jake, that helps a lot. I will be the only user here. I always created a second account on my win boxes but didn't even think of doing that here. Thanks

Jonathan, thanks for the suggestion on using two drives, I really like the idea of having two. I also have all my music & photo's on dvd's that I can still read on wifes pc or my older laptop. And will probably do the same under mac when I get a cd/dvd burner.

Rocky, thanks for the tip about performance too.

 

[chscag]

@Kenny:

To go along with the good advice from Jake, Johnathan, and Rocky, you can have as many external hard drives as you desire. Nowadays, large capacity external hard drives are inexpensive, small, and fast even for those that are not solid state. I have 5 external hard drives including one SSD on my desktop.

 

[pigoo3]

I have 5 external hard drives including one SSD on my desktop.

Whoo Hoo...I have about the same number within arms reach. All are bare drives & I use one of the 2.5"/3.5"HD docks from OWC similar to this to swap them:



https://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3S3HD/

- Nick

 

[MacInWin]

Only 5? I have 10 attached all the time. And three networked server drives as well.

 

[chscag]

LOL, looks like we have a hard drive on my desktop contest going. Kenny is going to start to wonder about us "Mac guys".

 

[usagora]

LOL, looks like we have a hard drive on my desktop contest going. Kenny is going to start to wonder about us "Mac guys".

Yeah, I was going to mention the 20 I have attached as well as my server farm, but I thought that might sound a little braggadocios

 

[pm-r]

Kenny is going to start to wonder about us "Mac guys".

I'm sure he already knows about the quirks of a lot of Mac users, but he's probably wondering, as I am and a 28 year Mac user, why a "normal" Mac user would need to have so many connected and active drives available, at least for home/small office use.

And just for the record, I've always tended to partition most of my drives, at least once they got large enough to be worthwhile to do so.
But in Kenny's case, I can't really see a reason for specific partitions for, as he says, "one for photos and one for music" unless there's some specific reason to do so.





- Patrick
======

 

[MacInWin]

OK, Patrick,

I didn't intend to have a massive disk farm, I just repurpose drives when I have them. I have lost pictures because of a failure of my internal drive and a simultaneous failure of the backup drive, so I have now spread the pictures to 4-5 drives and three locations so that the risk is very small of that happening again.

Overall, I have 26.5TB of storage to store about 8 TB of data, not counting backups and duplicates. But drives are not that expensive these days, so I tend to collect them and leave a lot of open space on them for speed. The only really full drives are the TM and CCC backups, but each of them automatically manage space, so periodically they purge older backups to make room for newer. I don't partition drives because it gives a false sense of security to see two icons and think you have duplicates. But anything on one physical device is not duplicated because a hardware failure will lose all partitions. So all drives are single partition and usually single purpose (photos, music, videos, business files, etc) with backups and sometimes duplicates on other drives.

In addition, I have an old iMac that runs my home automation and has two external drives, one for CCC clone backup and the other for TM backups of that iMac. I don't want to have to rebuild the home automation if/when that iMac fails, so the two backups should let me recover to a replacement system without too much delay or hassle. Given that my home automation controls lighting both inside and outside my house on a daily basis, I don't want to have to sit in the dark while I rebuild the system! I have a recently retired 2011 MBP in the wings, with the HA software installed that just needs to be restored from one of the backup drives to take over for the iMac when the need arises. Basically, I treat my home systems like I did when I was running data centers for a living--never want to be out of service, ever!

Basically, every file I own (not counting the system files) is duplicated and backed up twice. Yes, that's four copies of each. And for the photos, there are 5-6 copies of them. Data is very ephemeral and the pictures I lost were irreplaceable.

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. I don't want to fail again.

 

[IWT]

Hear, Hear, Jake.

As the saying goes: Data is valuable and disk is cheap.

Ian

 

[pm-r]

OK, Patrick,

I didn't intend to have a massive disk farm, I just repurpose drives when I have them. I have lost pictures because of a failure of my internal drive and a simultaneous failure of the backup drive, so I have now spread the pictures to 4-5 drives and three locations so that the risk is very small of that happening again.

I see no problem at all with that Jake, and God forbid, we've certainly read enough sad posts from those who do not have any backup, and from those who did theoretically or thought they had, but never checked them.

Sure no problem having redundant current data backups as far as I'm concerned. I've only got 2 1/2 when I include my little used old MacBook Pro that has most but not all of my data, and that's pretty minimal considering none or nothing is stored off-site!!





- Patrick
======

- - - Updated - - -

Hear, Hear, Jake.

As the saying goes: Data is valuable and disk is cheap.

Ian

+1!!!





- Patrick
======

 

[KennyC]

Guys I'm speechless But thank's for all the inputs. Lot of catching up to do. lol

 

[Rod]

The only time I ever partitioned a backup was to have TM on one and CCC on the other but that was a short term arrangement.

 

[KennyC]

Rod, seems like the consensus here is using multiple drives and is what I will probably do also. Was looking at a 2T but two 1T might be the way to go.

 

[pm-r]

Rod, seems like the consensus here is using multiple drives and is what I will probably do also. Was looking at a 2T but two 1T might be the way to go.

Then you could always partition each of them as well, assuming they would have enough room.

That would sure help keeping all your eggs out of just one basket!!! ;D





- Patrick
======

 

[Rod]

I think, given you have only 256Gb storage internally I would think about a 500Gb external SSD to give you the speed, flexibility and storage it affords (although they are expensive). That means you need to backup up to 750Gb. A 1Tb external HDD would do that but nothing else because the backup will grow over time, especially if you use Time Machine.
Personally i have a 500Gb internal SSD and I clone that to a 1Tb external HDD but I store my really big files (Visual Media) on another 1TB external HDD. That one is not backed up because the movies and other files on it are not essential. This gives me about 150-200Gb free on my internal SDD all the time and a backup I can rely on should my MBP die.

 

[KennyC]

Patrick, with a larger drive that may be another good way to go too.

Rod, would like a ssd drive but they do get pricey. Do you clone and use time machine on same drive or will that fill up to fast? Using a couple drives give me one just for music & photo's which are only about 38 gb in size which are all backed on dvd too.

Thanks guy's for suggestions.