Submitted by Joshua_j on Wed, 03/10/2010 - 11:05
Hello everyone,
How much disc drive space for windows should be partitioned when setting up bootcamp? I am not a gamer and wil be using it for ripping right now. I might be using it for ripping blue rays and dvd's later. Thanks.
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
mac os x 10.6
200 GB HD
Thank you
Joshua
You haven't provided any info about what you do on the OSX side, nor where you plan to store your working files or results from ripping. If as your posted info suggests, you have a 200GB internal hard drive, I'd suggest upping that first; I'm writing on business travel from a 15" MBP with 640G internal drive. But due to the amount of work I do on OSX and how much data storage I need for it, I only have a 128 GB windows partition. That will hold all the programs and data I need (mostly PCB CAD and MathCAD, plus LspCAD for speaker design)
If you don't plan on increasing the size of your HD, you may find matters a bit cramped for either your Windows or OSX partition- for example, if you plan to rip Blu-Ray, doing the initial extraction locally before copying else where, that can require 25-50 GB of working space.
The newer unibody Mac Pros like I have are very easy to upgrade the hard drive- the non-unibody ones are more difficult; I've done it, but unless you're something of a tech, you might want to hire someone else for that task- there are outfits available online that will do that work quickly. Use Super Duper or Carbon Copy to create a bootable copy of your existing drive onto a new HD; do this before setting up boot camp, then setup boot camp after the new drive is installed. Boot camp with Snow Leopard (V 3) includes NTFS support under OSX AND HPFS support under Windows with the 3.1 update- this alone is enough reason in my mind to upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard- in other words, from the Windows Boot camp setup after drivers are installed, you can read the OSX partition and copy files from it when needed.
A strategy you'll probably want to consider if working with large files externally is using an external drive with a Firewire interface; there are many drives sold with combo interfaces supporting USB and Firewire. Another possibility if your MBP has the express card slot like mine is to get an eSata adapter and use an external drive assembly with eSata, though in my experience that's not much faster than Firewire 800, and the latter is much more flexible about cable length.
I do some specialized work with high resolution audio requiring large files, but I found it simpler just to get a "low end" Mac Pro (basic Nehelam quad core, not the 8 core version), and fill up the drive bays (comes with 1 SATA drive, three more bays available). That way I have large capacity enterprise grade drives (hopefully more reliable as advertised) with the ability to dedicate drive volumes to specific tasks.
Hope this helps...
thank you very much for the response. sorry that it has taken so long to respond.....I was in Vegas with my family celebrating my 40th birthday...
I will be digesting all of your advice in step and start making some improvements.
Thank you,
Joshua