[709]

I haven't partitioned a disk in years and years but I have an iMac whose HDD is about to give up and I thought I'd try to squeeze another year or so out of it. I'm planning on throwing a 4TB drive in and thought I'd give 3 partitions a shot since I'd like Snow Leopard (because Rosetta), Windows 7 and Yosemite.

So my questions are:

a) Is partitioning still a thing that a lot of people do? If so, does 3 seem unsafe?

b) What's are reasonable yet smallish sizes for W7 and SL? I was thinking maybe 250GB each? They're really only there for the odd Windows-only app/Steam and Castle Wolfenstein/Halo:CE, respectively, but I've never 'Boot Camped' before (using Parallels now) and want to make sure I have enough room for it to live comfortably.

Thanks for any replies.

[Ebby]

The number or partitions doesn't really mater much safty-wise. I have 2 on my laptop and a OS install drive with 6.

I generally give most space to the OS I use the most. For example, if you use W7 for steam but that's all, have some 15GB for the OS and about 10 per game. You can do a rough calculation and add a few extra GB for wiggle room but I tent to vastly overestimate necessary OS space for my setups. All the rest goes to OSX.

[alcimedes]

The only caveat I'd give about the Windows partition is that if it's too small and you need to resize it, there's a good chance you'll end up having to reactivate windows.

I just got done spending about 4 days off and on moving a Bootcamp install from an internal partition to an external TB drive. Took a bit and I had to re-activate windows for a second time at the end of it, but I have a 2TB drive for gaming now, whereas before I was trying to share a 256GB SSD.

[709]

Thanks guys, that puts my mind at ease a bit.

I'll still be running Parallels on the Mac side for most Windows stuff, so the Bootcamp will be 99% Steam/Origin/etc. I may boost it a little just to be safe though.

[709]

So cracking the iMac and fiddling with the guts is probably the most terrifying of any upgrade I've done in my life. And I've been fiddling with a lot of guts over these past decades.

But I've taken the advice to heart. SL gets 350, W7 gets 500 and the upgrade gets the rest.

I had to jump through a few frustrating hoops, but it all looks well. Thanks for the advice.

[alcimedes]

glad it worked!