[saturn]

Hi people,
I'm a newbie to the world of Mac. Yes I'm a switcher or soon to be that is. My 12" Superdrive Powerbook will hopefully be arriving next week. I have a couple of questions to ask you fantastic geezers.

1. The hard drive is 80Gb. I know with my experiences on Windows systems, that I need to partition a HDD of this size in order for it to be efficient and also to optimise performance. Is this also necessary for MacOSX or is the OS able to efficiently manage a single 80Gb partition with ease? Is there a need for a swap partition like Linux? I'm concerned with the efficiency of the OS. Of course an 80Gb single partition would be nice if MacOSX is indeed able to manage it efficiently.
2. I'm going to be using the Powerbook around Uni and as such I'm planning to just close the lid and put it to sleep whenever my lecture finishes. Then I'll just shove it into my bag and walk around with it until my next lecture. Is this ok? I'm worried about the Powerbook sleeping and being jostled around with my textbooks whilst being vertical.
3. Also how much battery is consumed when the Powerbook is sleeping? Is it feasible to leave it sleeping for say the whole night?

Thanks you lot! I appreciate any of you taking the time to answer any of the above questions.

Cheers!

[SledgeHammer]

1. I can't help you here. I've never partitioned either of my drives (20gig internal, 80gig external) and don't know much about it. I'm sure someone here will have a good answer for you.

2. I do pretty much whenever I take my computer short distances (to school and back, etc.). As far as I know, as long as it is sleeping and the hard drive has spun down, it shouldn't cause any problems.

3. It'll definitely sleep all night. I don't know how long you can count on, but even on a three and a half year old battery that has a pretty abysmal length at full power, I would count on my PB sleeping all night.

If I'm wrong on any of these points, please clear it up, for saturn's sake and mine!

[BlueRabbit]

1. It should work fine if you just leave the 80 GB drive as is.
2. Yes, sleep is awesome. I've even put my PB through metal detectors at airports while it was asleep. In you backpack, the computer itself will be fine, although the case might not be.
3. Yes, sleep is just like turning it off, except not. It uses a bit more power than shut down. Sleep it for a week if you like; nothing bad should happen (unless you run out of battery, which should last a few days at least).

Edit: Beaten by 180 seconds!

[Luca]

1. There's no need for partitioning unless you really want to (for organization purposes or whatever). OS X tends to be rather picky about where you put stuff, actually, and having a single partition makes things easier to manage. If you're wondering about fragmentation, OS X doesn't tend to fragment drives very much, and it automatically defragments them as well.

2. You should be okay, but I'd suggest picking up some kind of a sleeve to protect it against scratches and dents. There are plenty of very expensive laptop bags out there, but if all you need is a sleeve for protection you could go someplace like Radtech or Marware. I'd probably lean towards Marware myself, as their sleeves are made of neoprene which is really good protection. They're about $30.

3. I think the PowerBook should be able to go for a couple weeks on a full battery while sleeping. At least a week. Sleeping is the way to go - it hardly uses any power (just enough to keep the RAM going) and significantly shortens startup time.

[saturn]

Thanks guys! That's answered my questions. This is a great forum!

[k squared]

I've owned 5 PowerBooks over the years and the only time they have ever been shut down was to install RAM, hard drives, or AirPort cards. Sleep is the only way to go, IMO. If I'm going out in public sometimes I'll switch to the login screen just to piss off any potential thief -- that way they would have to reinstall the OS -- unless they know my password and user name.

[defaultmike]

about the partitioning thing... I partitioned my PMac's 250Gb HDD and I regret it. coming from a Windows computer, partitioning your HDD is almost necessary, but I didn't know that OSX defragged itself everytime you instal something new. There's no need to defrag.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by defaultmike OSX defragged itself everytime you instal something new. There's no need to defrag.

Not quite.

When you install software, nothing special usually happens. Sometimes if it's an old program that uses the installer mechanism (or the program's developer isn't too bright), the last step of the process updates your prebinding. This, essentially, speeds up future application launches by "binding" the symbols needed in dynamically linked libraries. This has been unnecessary since Mac OS X 10.2 because applications automatically check and update their prebinding each time they are launched.

As for partitioning, I strongly recommend against it mostly because it's just a pain in the neck for organizing your files. Swap files are handled automatically by the OS pretty well and you're not going to see much if any benefit by putting it on another partition. Mac OS X also does some automatic defragging and data rearranging to make things move along faster. See my posts here and here for details.

Sleep is one area (among many) where Mac OS X excels. Close the lid and you're good to go. I carry my PowerBook with me just about everywhere, usually in my book bag. I second Luca's motion to get a sleeve to protect it from scratches and dings. Don't bother with anything expensive unless you're paranoid; just get something to cover it.

[ironlung]

if ur getting a sleeve..id highly recommend the zeroshock sleeve, that has shock protection in it, based on how the fibers are aligned (www.shinza.com) Its under 30 dollars..

I can not recall were I heard this so correct me if I am wrong, but sleeping for 2 hours is equal to just starting your computer. So unless you need the quick access to your computer and it will be unused for more then 2 hours then it would be better to shut it down.
I like seeing the people saying good things about the zeroshock, because I just bought the one specifically made for my 15" powerbook and hope it is as nice as the malware ones I have seen.
I have to say this is my second mac the first one was a used Emac in January. I did partition my Emacs 60 gig hard drive, but I found that with my it is a lot easier just to have the one hard drive. An advantages you get out of partition your drive aren't really there on a mac. So my powebook has stayed unpartitioned.

[Luca]

Originally Posted by zeward malware

There's a pretty big difference between malware (software that maliciously installs itself on your computer and transmits personal data to large companies) and Marware (a company that makes high-quality neoprene sleeves and cases for Apple products)!