Level 1

8 points

Boot Camp Partition Question

New Mac user and getting ready to set up a Windows partition for my Windows applications and want to know if the partition is movable with time?

That is, with only a 250gb HDD (like 220 available I think?) and for the moment only intending to have the Leopard OS and Apple FCP Suite 2 installed on the OS drive with all the audio/video media on an external drive I was going to set the partition as:

Apple = 80 to 90 Gb
Windows = Balance (~100 to 140)

However, with time I see myself maybe going deeper into the Mac arena as I get more and more experienced with it and wondered if this partition is movable without having to do a reboot or ???

Thanks in advance to all who respond.

MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.5.4), Boot Camp Windows Also

Posted on Jul 23, 2008 7:53 AM

30 replies

Penn-Ohio Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 23, 2008 7:01 PM in response to Scott Radloff

The MacPro I got yesterday had two purposes in mind:

1) Replace my dying Windows platform diehard Toshiba laptop that is used for business and web design (Q-Books, M$ Office & Front Page 2003)among other things like some picture editing (absolutely love M$ Windows Photo Editor for ease and simplicity).

2) Use for email, internet browsing, and business communications and scheduling where we have to have M$ Outlook to sync with our Sprint Cento unless we can find something in the Mac that does that :o)

3) Have within my grasp the ability to do "some" moble editing with Windows Only Edius Brodcast (again only some, I have two HP XW8200 dual xeon machines for all the Avid and also Edius television and movie production) and to learn and get proficient with FCP Suite 2 and start to gear up to some heavy work wherein I would look into a G5 or it's predecessor at the time. And hopefully while also making money in the process :o)

I actually had purchased three PC laptops with higher power capacities and larger hard drives and even one with dual drives but all had short comings with where we are going in longer term (FCP hopeful :o) and none had bluetooth which the Mac did. Thus with bootcamp we decided we could have our cake and eat it too while learning the Apple/Mac/FCP system learning curve without demand on our back (like a G5 would for a start) AND more importantly get our audio recording capabilities back (Garage Band) which we lost with the sale of our HP XW800 that will go up for sale next week as we move some of these workstations outta here :o)

So there is more insight as to our need and what we are trying to accomplish :o)

LukeD

Level 4

3,153 points

Jul 23, 2008 7:35 PM in response to Penn-Ohio

Just a quick comment, Fat 32 will not support files larger than 3.5 GB. If you are planning on serious video editing, you will experience trouble. Avid has a NTFS requirement. We have the Avid Symphony, Avid DS, and other Avid products that we have used from the beginning.

Penn-Ohio Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 23, 2008 7:56 PM in response to LukeD

On the Mac we are not going to install Avid on the Windows side, only Edius Broadcast.

Avid will remain on both the HP XW8200 dual xeon desktop machines as we will be phasing out all our Avid stations over the next year. We disassembled one this past week and sold the license that was on an older HP XW8000 and are not replacing it since adding a faster and smoother workflow with Edius Broadcast. Moroever, since Avid announced dropping both our products this spring we are migrating to Final Cut.

LukeD

Level 4

3,153 points

Jul 23, 2008 8:00 PM in response to Penn-Ohio

We have initiated a similar migration too!

Final Cut is an exceptional product!

Good luck!

Message was edited by: LukeD

Penn-Ohio Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 23, 2008 8:12 PM in response to LukeD

We actually had it way back about V2 or thereabouts and we went with something that was just easier, had everything bundled in one package, and switched. I didn't use it actually just managed the crew that did. But because of format issues on our Avid we have had to use a local guy with Mac's to help us convert to something our Avid could use when it occurred to me . . hmmmm, why not just go Mac ourselves :o)

Penn-Ohio Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 23, 2008 9:26 PM in response to Penn-Ohio

Just studied our Mac HDD and it has 214gb available and thus with our current 40gb extended Windows apps/files with at least 50% "windows working room" I think I'd be safe at 100gb for Windows and 114 for Apple. That will provide (MacDrive says 18 used + estimated 45gb for Final Cut Suite = 63gb) allows for about (214 - (63 + 100)) = 53 extra on the Apple side; then 63 + 53 = 116gb total.

Pretty good plan. And as others have mentioned, I could put the "extra" material from FC Suite to the media drive but I sort of like the idea of just straight on the drive since the media drive will be pretty busy rendering and storing/editing.

Thanks all for the input. Solved.

Penn-Ohio Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 23, 2008 9:34 PM in response to Penn-Ohio

The solution was:

1) Plan out the partition plan carefully;
2) Don't plan on moving the partition although it can be done;
3) Moving the partition later invloves saving off the Windows partition content via a restorable method and then removing the partition and then resetting a new partition point using the disk utility assistant and then restoring the Windows content via the restorable method chosen;
4) Leopard uses less than 20gb and FCP Suite 2 uses about 45gb of space.
5) To conserve space and to protect the partition plan, use a large external (preferably firewire) drive for speed and Time Machine either on the same or other drive for backup plan security.

Thanks to all who helped!

Jul 23, 2008 9:35 PM in response to Penn-Ohio

drdimento,

Just FYI, the G5 went away long ago. Its successor is the Mac Pro (your purchased a Macbook Pro). The current Mac Pro offering, the "base" model, is an 8-core 2.8 GHz Xeon machine. There are four hot-swappable drive bays which would have you "sittin' pretty" as far as additional storage goes, as well as booting into Windows (you could have a dedicated drive for that). But nahhhh, it probably wouldn't make your work any faster, would it? 😉

I'll tell you, I really like the WD Mybook Studios. They have a triple interface, FW 400/800, USB, and eSATA, and come in 500 GB and 1 TB capacities. You can get a whole lot of bang for the buck, without going further than Best Buy. If you pay attention, you can generally pick one up while it is on sale. I'm not going to nay-say the drive you have linked, but I would rather spend that $$ on something that would give me more. Now, the Mybook is certainly not portable, or not as much as the one you linked. If you are dead set on truly portable external drives (and I consider this incompatible with serious video production), you'll end up spending more for less. Don't get me wrong, I have at least one small portable (bus powered) drive myself, but I couldn't see myself using it for serious media storage and manipulation.

Scott

Penn-Ohio Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 23, 2008 9:47 PM in response to Scott Radloff

Wow Scott, that does sound like one whopper of a machine. Whew! I could handle that :o)

BTW, will the Apple license allow the install of the FC Suite to both a laptop and a Desktop at the same time so long as only one is in use at a time? The Avid software and Edius both allow that which is a nice feature.

The whole moble idea is purely a capability plan as we do often do a lot of our mini work and commercials in the field and drag in a small desktop and we want to replace that workplan with a more feasible idea . . plus . . we want to be able to take the plan straight to the net for upload in the presence of the client which means we walk out with a check. We do this live edit and ftp now and it works great just a pain on the packin power. Then if we could do some treaking with Garage Band and sound work, which we don't have on the small desktop, it would be a sweet combo, especially that "tweaking effect" that GB has to tweak up one's voice :o)

Jul 23, 2008 10:57 PM in response to Penn-Ohio

drdimento,

The whole moble idea is purely a capability plan as we do often do a lot of our mini work and commercials in the field and drag in a small desktop and we want to replace that workplan with a more feasible idea . . plus . . we want to be able to take the plan straight to the net for upload in the presence of the client which means we walk out with a check. We do this live edit and ftp now and it works great just a pain on the packin power. Then if we could do some treaking with Garage Band and sound work, which we don't have on the small desktop, it would be a sweet combo, especially that "tweaking effect" that GB has to tweak up one's voice :o)

Definitely, you will be happy with the Macbook Pro. Out of curiosity, did you get the 17" MBP with the LED-backlit 1920 X 1200 ("Hi-Res," an upgrade) display? At any rate, it should be just what you need.

I do have one more recommendation for you, though. Regardless of what you go with for external/peripheral "stuff," you're going to need a good solution for toting everything. Have a look at the options open to you with a Brenthaven bag. There's no better way to carry, and protect, your new Macbook Pro.

Scott

Penn-Ohio Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 24, 2008 8:24 AM in response to Scott Radloff

Actually I got the 15.4" screen and am a little concerned that I can hardly read some of the print on the scren and wondering if I should have gotten (or should go back and get) the 17"? Or, just go ahead and get the MacPro biggie and just get my dying video card toshiba which still has the 15" non wide screen repaired and thus have both a mac/windows power machine to replace our rapidly aging HP XW8200's because I'm really worried about the size of the screen print especially on websites, although I loooooove the MacBookPro size physically and especially the compactnes :o)

Jul 24, 2008 9:37 AM in response to Penn-Ohio

drdimento,

Hmmm, if you have trouble with the pixel density of the 15", you don't even want to consider the 17". The Hi-Res 17" would be even worse.

Scott

Jul 24, 2008 9:42 AM in response to neuroanatomist

neuroanatomist wrote:
Welcome to the Forums!

Bootcamp partitions cannot be resized without wiping the drive. So, I'd recommend that you choose carefully and plan well 😉 (There are 3rd party utilities that can resize partitions on the fly, but they dont' work with Bootcamp partitions.)

Main factor is where you will keep your 'other' media (e.g. if you have music/photo libraries, and will keep those on the Mac side, you may want to reverse the sizes you are proposing.

Just my $0.02.

You might have a look around the Boot Camp Forum.

Drives can be resized but you need to defrag them. i recommend using iDefrag and use the compact algorithm.

Once both drives are defragged, you can use Disk Utility (from Leopard DVD) to resize)

Penn-Ohio Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 24, 2008 10:56 AM in response to OneOrangeTree

neuroanatomist - Really? And I wouldn't have to worry about losing my Windows side materials? Also, I wouldn't have to defrag the Apple side right; that is, it doesn't defrag or defrags all the time or?

Scott - Really? So the 17" will be even harder to read? I was thinking that since the display was larger it would have larger easier to read/see? If this were the case I'd probably forget the whole moble idea altogether and take the MacBook Pro back and exchange for a MacPro because we ARE going FC Suite and then just go with a powerful PC and use Edius as our only moble editing solution.

Aug 4, 2008 9:02 AM in response to Penn-Ohio

drdimento wrote:
neuroanatomist - Really? And I wouldn't have to worry about losing my Windows side materials? Also, I wouldn't have to defrag the Apple side right; that is, it doesn't defrag or defrags all the time or?

Scott - Really? So the 17" will be even harder to read? I was thinking that since the display was larger it would have larger easier to read/see? If this were the case I'd probably forget the whole moble idea altogether and take the MacBook Pro back and exchange for a MacPro because we ARE going FC Suite and then just go with a powerful PC and use Edius as our only moble editing solution.

You would (or should) defrag both partitions. Otherwise you wont be able to resize to the size you want.

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Boot Camp Partition Question