Partitioning of a drive - single or multiple?

LandyMan

LandyMan

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I got my 500Gb Seagate this morning, for Media files. Connected externally to my MacBook Pro ... What would be the better way to go: 1 Partition of 500Gb, or multiple smaller partitions?

Thanks
 
For a external drive you don't really need more than 1 partition
 
I would never recommend partitioning your drive. Keep it as a one big drive. Some people like to partition their drive so that they can put their data on separate "Drives” (music on E:, backup on G: etc etc). I do the same, with plain folders on one "drive". Although if you want to format the drive, you can only format the whole thing now, and not just the partition giving you the problems.
The only place where I can see partitioning being useful is when one drive is being used on multiple platforms, e.g. Windows, Mac and Linux. Maybe there are some other advantages of partitioning that I’m not aware of.
 
The only reason I partition one of my drives is to keep Windows and my data seperate, so I don't have to wipe my data when I reformat Windows
 
I decided to go for 1 partition. Current setup:

MacBook Pro with internal 120Gb ... only MAC software
100Gb Firewire external drive:
- Partition 1: Mac OS with Windows Virtual Machine
- Partition 2: FAT32 for documents and sharing between WinXP VM and OS X
500Gb USB2 external drive: Media files
 
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