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MacOS - Separate users vs. separate partition

Wunderhorn

Senior Member
Since music is not the only thing that is happening on my machine, I have set up a separate user account on the machine that is dedicated to just the music production with the goal of cutting out a variety of things (startup items, drivers, fonts, extensions etc.) that are not needed for it. I wanted to lighten the load a bit so to speak and maximise the computer's power. However, not all things seem to be possible to separate out completely, Adobe's malware cloud crap still creeps up after startup, and audio drivers are showing up in both accounts as well.

I am therefore considering partitioning my internal drive to have a separate system with only audio related components installed. But this poses other obstacles e.g. moving licenses (for some things additional licenses e.g. system or privacy related helpers), not being able to use communication like mail in the same way etc.

I wonder if anyone here has pondered the same kind of thoughts and could share some advice or insights?
 
Hi Wonderhorn,

I'm guessing you're on a Mac? For windows I can't help because I have little experience with it.

I would recommend a clean extra partition, even better a separate disk only for system and audio applications. Librarys would also be swapped out to their own disk, not to the system volume.

As you have already noticed, there are applications that run in the background independently of the user services you have created. It's too tiring to configure the background services of applications I don't need for audio applications so that they don't interfere. A clean installation exclusively for the audio applications is always preferable.

It's a little tedious with the licenses, but it's worth it. Dongle for such cases have an advantage in terms of flexibility.
Moving Kontakt librarys is a bit annoying depending on the number, but that works.

If you have have further questions, you're welcome.
 
Hi Wonderhorn,

I'm guessing you're on a Mac? For windows I can't help because I have little experience with it.

I would recommend a clean extra partition, even better a separate disk only for system and audio applications. Librarys would also be swapped out to their own disk, not to the system volume.

As you have already noticed, there are applications that run in the background independently of the user services you have created. It's too tiring to configure the background services of applications I don't need for audio applications so that they don't interfere. A clean installation exclusively for the audio applications is always preferable.

It's a little tedious with the licenses, but it's worth it. Dongle for such cases have an advantage in terms of flexibility.
Moving Kontakt librarys is a bit annoying depending on the number, but that works.

If you have have further questions, you're welcome.


Yes, Mac, Mojave on a Trashcan, maxed out with 128GB. All sound libraries are already separate on external SSDs, so this is not part of the consideration.
I moved a bunch of things from library/Application Support from the general (all users) to their respective user accounts (those that are only needed by one or the other) which does already help and as you can guess from that, I am not afraid of going a bit below the surface to figure things out. I just would like to know if there is more specific information on separating out user accounts this way - or why it may not make sense at all in the long run.

The bottom line reality is that during times I may have music production going on I am getting questions and requests that I can only answer/deal with from the other account even if I do not have to open big memory hogs like Photoshop etc. so in case there is such an "emergency" I can quickly switch and at least hope I don't have to restart the machine when I return to the music production account.

It's a quandary... How much do I actually gain by separate start volumes or partitions vs. just have separate user accounts...
 
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