Partition or not?
 

I have an iMac G5 with about 55GB of data that I backup every night to a 250GB external LaCie drive using SuperDuper. I'm about to substantially increase my video usage and want to use the LaCie drive for editing and storage. Does it make sense to partition the external drive, or simply dump all the video onto the single partition on the external? If I chose the second route, would that screwup the backup every evening, or is the backup only one way?

You definitely don't want to store data and backup on the same partition, so if you plan to store both on the same drive you should definitely partition it.

Thanks for the quick response. Can you point me to a source that would explain how to do this. I've never partitioned before. I just want to divide my 250GB LaCie drive in half.

Unfortunately, Apple doesn't provide documentation on how to use their own tools. (Grr.) So (and remember this WILL DELETE ALL DATA ON THE DRIVE):

• Open Disk Utility
• Select the drive in the pane
• Click the partition tab
• Choose "2 partitions" in the pop-up
• Size them as desired
• Click "options" and make sure the partition type is "Apple Partition Map"
• Click Partition

That should do it.