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Why would somebody make different partitions anyway?
Authored by: deleted_user18 on May 30, '05 02:45:18AM

What is the point in making different partition for data and software? Isn't this why we have /Users?



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Why would somebody make different partitions anyway?
Authored by: gvitale on May 30, '05 03:14:34AM

If you have /Users on a different partition you can happily reformat the Root partition without loosing your personal data; say for instance that you want to reinstal the System for Tiger upgrade: this can be cleanly done by reformating the Root partition and doing a fresh install: you can later on rescue ALL your user(s) data just by soft linking /otherpartition/Users with /Users.



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Why would somebody make different partitions anyway?
Authored by: madamimadam on May 30, '05 06:34:37AM

Could just use archive and install

If the need somehow arose, you could always format and recreate your home folder from your back up.



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Why would somebody make different partitions anyway?
Authored by: gvitale on May 30, '05 07:02:29AM

Archive and instal is not clean instal.
If the backup strategy is good for you, go for it, but having an untouched partition with all your data is way easier...



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Why would somebody make different partitions anyway?
Authored by: madamimadam on May 31, '05 07:08:05AM

How can you say "way" easier when you have to do the clean install, re-link the "old" home folders to the new OS and then delete the new home folders when you could just start a copy back onto the drive and grab a cup of coffee or start work again straight away?

Yeah... WWWAAAAYYYY easier



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Why would somebody make different partitions anyway?
Authored by: gvitale on May 31, '05 07:16:15AM

You just don't want to get the point: fine with me



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Why would somebody make different partitions anyway?
Authored by: jesboat on Jun 20, '05 04:06:16PM

I think the point wasn't that you had to restore from backups with a clean install, restore of /Users, etc. but that you could clean install if you wanted. I find the separation useful when I want to do a new install (typically with new major versions of OS X). Then, I can wipe my system partition, clean install the new OS on it, create my account, symlink /Volumes/Users to /Users, and be done with it.

The advantage for backups (again, IMO) is that you can backup different partitions using different methods. For example, for me, /Volumes/Users is small (1 GB), so I can back it up very regularly to my USB flash drive. I can back up / less often, because I know I don't have any critical data on it, and /Volumes/Media, my last partition (symlinked to ~/Movies, ~/Music, etc.) I can back up very infrequently, because it doesn't change often.

Jesboat


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With no walls or fences on the 'net, who needs Windows or Gates?



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Why would somebody make different partitions anyway?
Authored by: tim-wood-MacOSXH on May 30, '05 11:54:38PM

A few years back, I had to salvage a webserver that died. It turned out that a blackout had outlasted the powerbackup, crashing the server, when an automatic update was happening, completely corrupting the entire partition. It would no longer boot. And the corruption was not fixable. And the backup hadn't been functioning properly. And it was a production webserver for about a dozen domains. Gulp. But, when I set up the server, I had partitioned the drive. The data (the websites, the email, the databases, etc) was on two partitions that did not hold any programs or the OS. I backed up the data, installed a new drive, reinstalled stuff, copied the data back and everything was back online. Painful, but partitioning was the extra little bit of insurance that saved the day.



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Why would somebody make different partitions anyway?
Authored by: deleted_user18 on May 31, '05 09:38:58AM

The black out could also easily hit your data partition. You just had luck.

You need a proper backup strategy. A backup partition which just is backuped to is no backup. What happend to you can happen evertime, the computer dies while the backup is made and you have two corrupted copies of your files. Because of this you should make different backups.



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Why would somebody make different partitions anyway?
Authored by: jesboat on Jun 20, '05 04:09:05PM

Certainly, his data partition could have been wiped too, but with his strategy, there's also the potential for it to be OK. The point isn't to forgo backups and proper protection because "my separate-partitions-ness will save me", but that, should everything else fail, there's one more hope.

Jesboat

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With no walls or fences on the 'net, who needs Windows or Gates?



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