HDD and Partitions

[Muttman]

Hello again.

Quick question.

What are the benefits of creating partitions on your HDD?

Ive currently got a 18gig hdd, it was prepartitioned with 2gig as C: and the rest as D:

I'm asking this as I am embarking on my first "home built" system, and wondered if creating a seperate C: partition was beneficial.

New hdd is 46 gig. so if partitioning is the way to go, what sort of size would be optimal?

[Boycee]

If u ask me, i had the same as you and it go soooo annoying, as drive C: got full too quick (even when installing to drive D:), so in the end i brought a new disk (30GB) and its just one big disk.

The reason it would have been prepartitioned would be as the disk which is 2GB is not FAT32, It is FAT 16 which means you can use non FAT32 compliant OS's such as linux.

If ur going win 98/ME/2000 then i reckon one big drive is fine, and a partition of anything over 2GB means that it is just to make it easier for yourself to store your files as it would still be FAT32.

[Dr_kazza]

I agree - I tried to partition things with 2Gb and 28Gb windowz went on the 2 and everything else went on the 28... but it is such a pain when a program refuses to install anywhere but c:/pr0gram fylez/ cos it screws up your organisation and does fill up C: too quickly. However it does make reinstalls a lot easier.

I have given up on this now and just use 1 big partition

[Muttman]

Oooh yeah, I know about the 2 gig filling up.

First thing I did was FAT32 it, helped a bit, but like you guys say, some apps only want to know about the C:.

Maybe if I partitioned it so C: was 5/6 gig, then I wouldn't loose so much if I had to reformat/reinstall to the C:.

[Birdy]

I use a 3 gig C drive and use ghost drive image then I keep my image on the D drive so if I ever screw my PC up I can just restore the image to the c drive from D leaving all my data on D without having to waste hours rebuilding and serching for all my drivers etc etc again.

[[BA]Mo]

Me being me, I'd make a 5 and two 20's. I have a pletheora (always wanted to use that word) partitions mainly because I have multiple operating systems and all the shenanigans that comes with that. I also like to have seperate partitions for downloads/games/apps/mp3's etc etc.

Partitioning i'd say is purely personal preference, to all intents (sic) and purpose they are just directories (ssssh) but you try defragging 46gb in one big lump. Or when your comp crashes i'm sure the scandisk would be niiiice and slow. ;)

How can you guys stand one big drive? 'Drive' me mental. I had A-R at one point. :E

[Boycee]

I've got me new 30 GB IBM Deskstar as one big C:, then my old harddisk (still got win 98 on it) is a D: and E: (2GB and 13 GB)

Its all a bit of a muddle to be honest....stuff on C: stuff on D: and E:.....dunno how to sort it....maybe i should keep all me files on E:....or maybe i should get everything onto C: and format D: and E:....but i keep finding stuff on the old disks i want....ahhhhhhh....i'll just leave it....:E

[Calzor Suzay]

I read somewhere a while back on a techy site that it was a good idea have 25% of your HD as C: (minimum 2gb) and the rest as D:. The reasoning behind it was normally the first quarter of a HD is physically the fastest as the heads have to move less across the platters to read the data making your C: and OS faster and easier to defrag leaving you whatever's left on D: for eh... stuff :naughty:

Thats what I did anyway and seems to work well.

[Edited by Calzor Suzay on 03-01-2001 at 03:40 PM]

[[BA]Mo]

Aren't you meant to make a partition for only the swap file? For the same reason...because the last bit is fastest? Hehe, I dunno, who tells us all these wives tales?

Outside to in, or in to out? I know cd's go in to out and they go faster on the outside right?...

*rofl* Noooooo..this can't be happening. :E

[Boycee]

But seriously.....how much faster..it must be so small its undetectable to the computer even....its just theory....anyway the first thing you install on the disk is the os so it would still be within the first 25% of the disk...mind u i know it will become scattered over the disk but is that what WIN ME is supposed to sort out.....like putting used files together on the disk.....

The best one i heard was that if your hard disk was the size of the earth...the distance between the reading head and the disk would still only be an inch.....that is quite amazing.....:E

[Birdy]

FAT uses the 'chainlinked file system' so if it's a FAT partition, what this means is that to open one file anywhere on your hard disk the head reads through each file to get to the destination, kinda like following the links of a chain, this is where the error 'cross-linked' files comes from. The optimum working partion for FAT16 was only 250MByte. Having your SWAP file on a different partition will only be better if it's a different 'physical' drive.

[Calzor Suzay]

It's not theory it's pretty much fact, You can get really geeky and tech like over at Storage Review (http://www.storagereview.com/) in there forums about hd's, I've read some really mind bending stuff over there along with facts and figures from various test programs.

End of the day do what makes you happy :E
BTW M$ defrag utilites suck ass, ever used a 3rd party defragger to see what your HD really looks like uugh :(

[Boycee]

Calzor....i don't wanna know what M$ has done to me hard disk.....they just about muck everything up......:)

And....Calzor...u see when u get up in the morning.....and u go off to 'work' do u do any work there or just sit reading the net - and get paid loads for it..so much u can afford SB live platinium...:E

[Calzor Suzay]

Not sure how you can guage my browsing habits as I've been off work for six weeks and Only went back yesterday :E Some people have cigarette breaks so I have net breaks but yeah I get paid quite a bit and am my own boss in my job. Work gets done, look a bit pro-active and get stuff done, Boss is happy, I'm happy, everyones happy :)

[Birdy]

Me is also happy, wondered where you'd been calz.... place hasn't been the same :wink:

[werewolf_bite]

Originally posted by Calzor Suzay


End of the day do what makes you happy :E
BTW M$ defrag utilites suck ass, ever used a 3rd party defragger to see what your HD really looks like uugh :(

*grins*

I switched to Executive Software's Diskkeeper V5 about a while back, i got fed up of having Defrag take 4+hours (not including restarts because it can't work out how to fit a 3 "block" file into a space big enough for a 2 "block" file).

Takes about a 3rd the time, and is way better.
Defrag may have been fine for 10mb HDD's but is very inadiquate for 6gb drives, let alone the 30gb monster i have in my machine ;)

[Psychic Cookie]

You all seem to be forgetting about the cluster size issue when dealing with partitions above 8gb. Partitions should NEVER exceed 8GB otherwise things become very inefficent.

I've got 2 x 30GB drives in this machine with 14 partitions (although admittadly 3 of them are hidden Linux partitions)

So my 11 Windows partitions are:

C: 'Main' (4GB)
D: 'Swap File' (1GB (although my swap file is only 256mb))
E: 'Games 1' (5.4GB)
F: 'Games 2' (5.4GB)
G: 'Games 3' (5.4GB)
H: 'Games 4' (5.4GB)
I: 'CDRW' (2GB)
J: 'Win/Linux Share Files' (1GB)
K: 'General' (7GB)
L: 'Graphics' (7GB)
M: 'Misc Files' (4GB)

The rest of the space is taken up by my Linux partitions. I all works a treat :)

[Calzor Suzay]

Originally posted by Psychic Cookie
You all seem to be forgetting about the cluster size issue when dealing with partitions above 8gb. Partitions should NEVER exceed 8GB otherwise things become very inefficent.
I assume you mean on Fat32 partitions, I use NTFS :E

[Boycee]

Ops...welll....i made a mistake then....i have a 30.7 GB drive as single partition... ahhhhhh...... FAT32....... ops........... wheres that warez site that had partition magic :E