New HDD partition questions

[lilmojo]

Well, my parts are going to arrive in the next 2 days.

I've been so wrapped up in the research/ordering adrenaline rush and I just realized I haven't even planned my 80gb partition layout.

I have only used win xp a few times and know very little about it's differences from 98se.

I'm thinking
partition 1--OS
partition 2--Swap file
partition 3--Apps/Misc
partition 4--Games/Movies

What I'm not sure of here is what size the partition should be for win xp to work at max performance.

Also I was wondering if it is hard to change the SF location on win xp.

Is my partition setup ok?

[Sinister6]

one Physical HDD split into 4?
hmm

[lilmojo]

yeah, is that too many?

[animeguru]

You really don't need to partition it so much unless you prefer to keep things seperated. There's really not as much need to partition if you're using NTFS rather than FAT as your file system these days.

If you really want to partition, I'd just make 2. One for the OS and swap file and the other for your apps/games/etc.

Of course, it's up to you.

[BillLeeLee]

I went overboard when partitioning mine.

5 GB Windows Partition
Swap partition (don't really know why I made this at all...)
10 GB documents partition
60 GB applications partition
75 GB Games/Music/Fun stuff

I think 3 partitions would be good. I like to keep the OS partition separate (doesn't get fragmented as much, though that probably doesn't matter as much today with NTFS). A documents partition is very wise to keep (so you don't have to back them up everytime you format the OS partition; and then have one partition for programs and such.

[Ice Czar]

Originally posted by animeguru
You really don't need to partition it so much unless you prefer to keep things seperated. There's really not as much need to partition if you're using NTFS rather than FAT as your file system these days.


Partitioning Strategies (http://partition.radified.com/partitioning.htm) @ Radified.com

Advantages of Multi-Partition Drives
1. A hard drive containing multiple partitions allows you to *lower* your drive's effective access time, providing you with a more responsive system.

2. A drive with multiple partitions allows you to defrag only those partitions that actually need defragging. This saves wear and tear on your drive, and may even help keep it from failing prematurely.

3. A drive with multiple partitions allows you to easily create & restore images using programs such as Norton Ghost or PowerQuest's Drive Image.

4. Multi-Booting

5. Security The vast majority of people install Windows to their C drive. Hackers (and Virus writers) know this and target the C drive. You are less likely to be hacked if Windows resides on a drive other than C. And you will need more than one partition to get a drive letter other than C.


and I'll add six
your less likely to fubar multiple partitions
thus the data on those that arent fubared is accessable
(from a parallel OS, or multiboot)

In the best case senerio your first partition (with the highest sustained transfer rate) would be the swapfile
(ideally on a seperate fast drive) or with multiple drives (http://www.storagereview.com/php/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=MultiplePagefiles)

Virtual Memory in Windows XP (http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php)


keep in mind that you can have 4 primary partitions or 3 Primary and 1 Extended Partition (that is dependent on the previous Primary) with its own additional Logical Drives (In Windows per HDD)

my personal call would be to keep your OS and any aps\games that are registry dependent together, and your data, backups\images, nonregistry dependent aps, ect on other partitions and a seperate partition for any P2P downloading, which fragments to hell and back

a few more links (careful complexity isnt always your freind especially when it comes to rescue and repair)
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/install-guide/ch-partitions.html
http://zapwizard.com/Partitioning/How-To.html

[blue_heart71]

some people do not agree with what said that maltiple partitions boost performance.

however i am linking you to a site (http://forums.storagereview.net/index.php?showtopic=14024) where i posted recently similar question (although i used 2 drives) but i hope it will give you enough information

if you will be using one drive, then i think

C: OS+program files+(fixed pagefile size) (20gb)
D: games and movies (60gb)

[Ice Czar]

Originally posted by blue_heart71
some people do not agree with what said that maltiple partitions boost performance.


then I would say to them they fail to comprehend how a HDD works, by confining the information to areas that have the best access and transfer rates, your boosting performance, but then youd have to understand your typical access


Advantage #1 (http://partition.radified.com/partitioning_2.htm) A hard drive containing multiple partitions allows you to *lower* your drive's effective access time, providing you with a more responsive system.

If you create a partition at the outer/leading edge of your drive (*1), and install your operating system & applications there .. and use the inner/slower parts of the disk for storing files that don't require access during normal system operating (i.e. downloads, drivers, back-ups, Ghost images, etc.) .. you'll limit/restrict your drive's seeks to the fastest part of the drive.

(*1) - the first partition you create on a drive will automatically take the outer/leading/fastest edge. Here's a photo of a hard drive's intenals, for those of you who are visually-oriented:

-------------------------------------------------------------
In other words, the drive's read/write heads won't have to travel (seek) to the far end of the drive (during normal system usage, anyway). This will provide you with a more responsive system by decreasing the drive's effective seek/access time.
-------------------------------------------------------------

You can verify this by partitioning your drive as I described. A much quicker method however, would be by using the hard drive benchmarking utility HD Tach, which contains a setting called Advanced Size Check (ASC). If you put a checkmark in the ASC box, HD Tach will benchmark your *entire* drive. But .. if you remove the check, HD Tach will *truncate* the test at the first 8GB.

In other words, HD Tach will only benchmark the first 8 gigs. Notice how your *reported* access times are improved (lower) when HD Tach truncates the test at the first 8 gigs. This is cuz the read/write heads don't have travel all the way to the far end of the drive (inner tracks).

A drive with a larger capacity will notice a more dramatic 'truncating' effect. For example, 8 gigs is roughly 40% of a 20-gig drive. But it's less than 7% of a 120-gig drive. In other words, you can limit your drive's travel (seeks) to the fastest 7% of a 120-gig drive by creating an 8-gig partition and storing only your operating system & applications there. It's common knowledge that a drive with the same amount of data will 'feel' more responsive on a *larger* drive than a smaller one .. even tho both drives may have *identical* manufacturer's performance specs.

This is cuz the data on the larger drive will be limited to a smaller area. This is also one of the reasons why larger drives feel faster, even tho they have the exact same manufacturer specs as the smaller one. It's cuz the larger drive has a lower effective seek time.

This is also why disk management utilities such as Norton's SpeedDisk, which comes with Norton Utilities (which comes as part of Norton System Works), places the swap file at the drive's leading edge. The engineers at Norton/Symantec know that's where the fastest part of the disk is located, and they realize that putting your swap file there will improve your system's performance.

If you install your operating system to a single, large partition, there's nothing to prevent both system & program files, over time, from winding up at the far end of the drive (Windows updates, program updates, driver updates, etc.).

System and program files that wind up at the far end of the drive take longer to access, and are transferred at a slower rate, which translates into a less-responsive system. If you look at the graph of sustained transfer rates (STRs) from the HD Tach benchmark posted here, you'll see clearly that the outermost sectors of the drive transfer data the fastest.

In this case - that of a 120-GB IBM 120GXP, the transfer rate is roughly 50MB/s at the outer edge. But it's less than half that, or ~20MB/s, at the inner tracks. This is because the linear velocity of the discs are faster at the *outer* tracks. If you've ever played on a merry-go-round, you understand this concept. You move much faster standing at the outer edge, compared to the center.

Faster linear velocity means that more data passes under the read/write heads per unit time. This is another way of saying higher data transfer rate (which is simply another way of saying 'faster').
More >
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Random Access (http://www.lostcircuits.com/hdd/hdd3/3.shtml)

and the whole series As the Disk Spins @ Lost Circuits (http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=699246)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Positioning Performance (http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/perf/spec/pos.html)
and

Platter Size (http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/op/media_Size.htm)
Improved Seek Performance: Reducing the size of the platters reduces the distance that the head actuator must move the heads side-to-side to perform random seeks; this improves seek time and makes random reads and writes faster. Of course, this is done at the cost of capacity; you could theoretically achieve the same performance improvement on a larger disk by only filling the inner cylinders of each platter. In fact, some demanding customers used to partition hard disks and use only a small portion of the disk, for exactly this reason: so that seeks would be faster. Using a smaller platter size is more efficient, simpler and less wasteful than this sort of "hack".

[lilmojo]

thanks for the info

[animeguru]

Leave it to Ice to kick a guy in the balls when he's already down. ;)

[ST|FFY]

Originally posted by BillLeeLee
75 GB Games/Music/Fun stuff
what do u mean by fun stuff :p ;) :D