Partitioning HDDs for Mac OS X

[Dave2002]

I'd like to reorganise several of my hard drives, and I've now got enough drives and spare space on each to do this.

I can see how to resize partitions, hopefully non-destructively for files, using Disk Utility, but what I'm not sure about is whether this only works if the drive is already partitioned with an appropriate number of partitions. Not such a big deal for a couple of drives - one of which I unpacked and tested yesterday. Looking at it I probably only created a single partition on it - perhaps I should have created a minimum of two - e.g Main1 and Spare, even if the Spare isn't very big, as I think both could be resized, and I also think the Spare could be split into a futher two and so on.

The partition on the new drive is formatted as Mac OS X extended (journaled).

Actually the requirement for reorganising non-destructively is not strictly necessary, as the files on the new drive were simply dumped on there for testing that the drive works to avoid having to send it back later to amazon as DoA or invoke any special pleading. I could simply reformat that drive again, erasing all the files, and put whatever new partition arrangement I'd want on to this one.

[Anastasius]

No, you can partition to your hearts content.

Have you not realised yet that OSX will tell you when you are trying to do something that it doesn't like ?

[MrGongGong]

Have you not realised yet that OSX will tell you when you are trying to do something that it doesn't like ?

Like trying to copy your own music
iTunes ? Bag o'shite

AVOID

[Dave2002]

No, you can partition to your hearts content.

Have you not realised yet that OSX will tell you when you are trying to do something that it doesn't like ?

You guys crease me up probably as much as I do you.

Today: Having decided to try out Mail rules instead of Smart Mailboxes - as suggested earlier by one of you (Anastasius) - got some of my own mail messages to appear with different colours and backgrounds. Also one of them sent a Notification when received - but that's a joke as a Notification is always sent, so rule seems redundant.

Then - tried to delete test messages from mailbox.

Look at Trash box - mail from AN.Other is in there, so revert it back to original mailbox, and try again to delete my test messages.

Again mail from AN.Other is trashed. So - NO - Apple software does not always do what you want or expect, and is NOT ALWAYS SAFE!

Right now I'd say that Smart Mailboxes are better than using Rules, though do slightly different things (which may be more or less useful - probably less in my case) - but the following sentence contains a caveat.

Some things work, and seem to work until they get broken, and other things do not. The problem is finding out which are which.

Now you wonder why I ask if it's OK to partition a drive. Ha Ha.

[Word]

Like trying to copy your own music
iTunes ? Bag o'shite

AVOID

On a Mac?
I believe it's a Bag O'Shite™ on Windows but that's just to maintain a consistent user experience on that platform

You can find where iTunes stores your music by looking at the 'iTunes Media folder location' on the Advanced tab of iTunes Preferences. It's usually in the Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder under your user home directory (though it can be changed to another location such as an external drive or network share if you so wish).
Somewhat annoyingly iTunes also creates folders for Films, TV Programmes, iTunes U and just about everything else under 'iTunes Music' but it also creates a folder per artist, within which there will be a folder per album, within which will be the actual MP3s and MP4s/AAC music files.

If you navigate to the appropriate place in the Finder you can freely copy those files and folders, to back them up etc. (not forgetting to keep the 'alt' key pressed when dragging to another location on the same volume if you want to create a copy rather than move the original file. Should you move the original the Undo option off the Edit menu is very handy ).
You can also drag copies of songs to the desktop or wherever directly from within iTunes. That will always make a copy rather than move/remove the original.

If you want to copy songs to iTunes you're better off dragging and dropping them onto the iTunes app (or using the Add to Library... or Import Playlist... options) so that it can organise them correctly.

HTH.

[MrGongGong]

On a Mac?

On anything
Why would I store music I had composed and recorded in a lossy format that is incompatible with just about every other audio device I might need to copy it onto?

[Dave2002]

On anything
Why would I store music I had composed and recorded in a lossy format that is incompatible with just about every other audio device I might need to copy it onto?

It is possible to use lossless formats, though admittedly iTunes makes it a bit harder to use FLAC.

Alac seems OK and it is possible to convert to and from FLAC.

Where there may be more difficulties is in handling higher bit rate files with higher sampling rates greater bit depth, but for CDs it is manageable.

What sotware do you use, then? We know you do use Macs.

[MrGongGong]

It is possible to use lossless formats, though admittedly iTunes makes it a bit harder to use FLAC.

Alac seems OK and it is possible to convert to and from FLAC.

Where there may be more difficulties is in handling higher bit rate files with higher sampling rates greater bit depth, but for CDs it is manageable.

What sotware do you use, then? We know you do use Macs.

I don't store a "library" of music on a computer
I have lots of CDs, MDs, LPs, Cassettes and files on various hard drives and computers

For me ( and I'm NOT typical) I need to be able to play audio in multiple formats and to be able to drag and drop it between machines and applications.
So, even though I use Mac computers I don't use much of their software at all as it's far too clunky and is likely to cause problems. Time Machine being the perfect example but iTunes, iMovie etc are all the same .... in fact anything with "i" in front of it is likely to be crap (maybe with the exception of " 'm a lumberjack" or "Robot" !)

[Dave2002]

So (a) do you use Windows or Linux/Unix with Bootcamp, and (b) are you a Foobar type of person then - or some other unusual software system. Maybe the DAWs which we discussed some while ago are what floats your boat.

[MrGongGong]

So (a) do you use Windows or Linux/Unix with Bootcamp, and (b) are you a Foobar type of person then - or some other unusual software system. Maybe the DAWs which we discussed some while ago are what floats your boat.

I do use OSX which seems stable enough for me
and

Audition
Max MSP
Ableton
Audiomulch
Open Office
Sibelius
Photoshop
Premiere
Firefox
Spear
Thunderbird

And a few other things from time to time