>>> Does it make for a more stable system? Are you prone to fewer crashes and
>>> conflicts? It seems to me like overkill, but I'm always grateful for new
>>> ideas and will try anything that will makes my computing environment
>>> friendlier and more trouble-free.
>>
>> Well, that's what it's meant to do. I don't know if it's really necessary.
>
> I'm not sure that it is. Or if it is really an effective palliative.
It does not reduce crashes and it does not reduce conflicts.
It does reduce data loss. It minimizes must be restored in the event of a
crash-related disaster.
When things go hideously wrong, the file system most likely to be corrupted
is the file system containing the operating system.
The next most likely file system to be corrupted is the file system
containing the actual application.
The least likely file system to be corrupted is the file system containing
the data (unless, of course, the actual bug is related to writing the data).
> I too believe in keeping the OS and related files on a separate partition.
> There may be some benefit in keeping data files separate from the
> applications that created them, but regularly-performed backups of the data
> are probably more beneficial in the long run, especially since with a
> program like Retrospect, the backups can be performed automatically and
> whenever convenient, in the middle of the night, for example.
Separating the OS, the apps, and the data, it greatly simplifies the speed
of backup and restoration *while* minimizing what information is impacted in
the result of a disaster.
With the apps on a partition of their own, you only truly *need* to backup
that partition when you actually install new apps (although some work is
necessary to ensure that the apps aren't "cleverly" keeping data within
their own hierarchy). And daily incremental backups are incredibly fast.
With the data on a partition of their own, you can backup the data partition
multiple times per day if you're so inclined.
But, if your backup strategy is simple and you can backup everything to a
single unit of media, this is less important.
> In that file corruption and crashes are generally caused by conflicts
> between two or more applications (or their related extensions or control
> panels, actually),
I disagree with this posit as I, as a longtime Macintosh developer, find
that most crashes are caused by poorly written code that makes the mistaken
assumption that it doesn't have to check the error condition or every single
call. Although I will agree that these crashes are often manifested as
"conflicts".
> Someday, they'll figure out a way to make everything work together and play
> together without causing at least occasional crashes and freezes, but until
> that day comes the three most important steps you can take to keep from
> coming to grief is backup, backup and backup.
You left off actually restoring things at least once a week (okay, minimally
once a month) to ensure that the data can still be read. Nothing more
annoying that slow failure of a backup device.
Anyway, the partitioning scheme that Paul describes is just another tool to
help minimize data loss. If you use it, you will find that while you may
not crash any less frequently, the data that you lose is more limited in
scope. But then I'm biased since I pushed him in that direction. ;-)
mikel
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