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particians question
- Thread starter Glow
- Start date
No it does not overly stress the disc to have multiple partitions. Again the answer is no regarding Vista running faster.
You will only see a speed in access time for programs when residing a discrete physical disc separate from the OS.
You will only see a speed in access time for programs when residing a discrete physical disc separate from the OS.
No it does not overly stress the disc to have multiple partitions. Again the answer is no regarding Vista running faster.
You will only see a speed in access time for programs when residing a discrete physical disc separate from the OS.
I got to say thats interesting, if both drives were the same speed you'd figure since the data is right there it would be a bit faster guess not thanks thats interesting
enyceexdanny
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2003
- Messages
- 2,618
Partitions are simple to create and maintain, espcially in Vista.
Also, it's not all true that it doesn't affect performance.
Having multiple (not too many) partitions are actually beneficial in alot of ways.
For instance, if you don't have too many drives in your pc - you can partition a large drive for optimal performance.
For example, lets say you have a 500gb drive only and you have your OS, applications, games, documents, music and etc. With multiple partitions within 1 drive, you can configure it in a way that the heavily accessed files stay on the outer edge of the disk. So basically your pagefile can go on the first partition, then your OS with your program files and finally all the rest, such as music, documents and etc.
Here's how I have my partitions and drives set up.
- OS and applications on a single 150gb raptor
- 2x200gb RAID0 with
-- 1st partition (outmost track) as paging file drive (20gb)
-- 2nd partition cache drive (50gb) for photoshop scratch disk
-- 3rd partition with documents & music files
- 250gb for movies & games
- 500gb with
-- 1st partition of work files
-- 2nd partition of application backups
-- 3rd partition Miscellaneous
Also, it's not all true that it doesn't affect performance.
Having multiple (not too many) partitions are actually beneficial in alot of ways.
For instance, if you don't have too many drives in your pc - you can partition a large drive for optimal performance.
For example, lets say you have a 500gb drive only and you have your OS, applications, games, documents, music and etc. With multiple partitions within 1 drive, you can configure it in a way that the heavily accessed files stay on the outer edge of the disk. So basically your pagefile can go on the first partition, then your OS with your program files and finally all the rest, such as music, documents and etc.
Here's how I have my partitions and drives set up.
- OS and applications on a single 150gb raptor
- 2x200gb RAID0 with
-- 1st partition (outmost track) as paging file drive (20gb)
-- 2nd partition cache drive (50gb) for photoshop scratch disk
-- 3rd partition with documents & music files
- 250gb for movies & games
- 500gb with
-- 1st partition of work files
-- 2nd partition of application backups
-- 3rd partition Miscellaneous
By default, Windows knows best when it comes to pagefile placement, but you can improve the performance when the pagefile is accessed by setting a static size (same size minimum, same size maximum). Creating a "special pagefile partition" at the beginning of the drive is not the most efficient way of doing things, actually.
Windows by default will place a pagefile (even a statically sized one) in the middle of the system partition - not at the end, and not at the beginning. The issue here is that people think "at the beginning of the drive" means the inner area, near the drive spindle which is of course backwards. Data on a hard drive starts at the outer edges (the actual beginning of the drive's space) and moves inwards (to the end of the drive's space).
As already noted, the outer edges (beginning of the drive) are where the maximum read and write speeds are achieved, which is completely true, but the pagefile doesn't get hit every single second the drive is spinning. Putting a "special partition" at the beginning of the drive (outer edges) just forces the read/write heads to have to make that trip all the way back to the outer edges of the drive for a few bytes of code when paging happens - and paging happens, period.
Another misconception is the paging file = virtual memory. It's true to some degree and in some respects but, basically overall it's false. The pagefile is just one component of the virtual memory subsystem in Windows - it's not all of it. And you can't turn it off as commonly believed; you can set a pagefile size of 0 minimum and 0 maximum, yes, but Windows will still create a pagefile, usually a small one of about 20MB or so in the Windows directory even without you knowing it.
Why?
Because Windows operating systems can't function without one, that's why. So all the hubbub about "Ok I've got 4GB of RAM, I'm turning my virtual memory off" is pure bullshit, plain and simple. You can't turn it off, regardless of how much RAM you have, and even when you THINK you have it off, Windows just laughs at you behind your back and creates a pagefile anyway. So don't bother, just let it alone. Windows does know what its doing.
Static pagefile = minor improvement because the pagefile will not fragment afterwards (but it's a good idea to do a total defrag of the system partition including the pagefile after you create a static one; most modern third party defraggers will defrag a pagefile and MFT in an offline pass for you).
The only other improvement is placing another pagefile on some other physical hard drive - not on the same partition, it must reside on a totally separate physical hard drive, preferably at the beginning (outer edges). If you do this, and you keep the pagefile on the system drive also, Windows will then be able to read or write from one physical drive and still be able to access (read or write) the other drive at nearly the same time. This is a big difference from one drive which limits you to a read or write operation at any given moment.
That's practically a doubling in performance by allowing the multitasking to occur - ok, so it's not perfectly double, I admit that, but I'd rather have two hard drives working together (no I don't mean RAID) at the same time then making one drive do all the work by itself which is drastically inefficient.
Hope this helps...
Windows by default will place a pagefile (even a statically sized one) in the middle of the system partition - not at the end, and not at the beginning. The issue here is that people think "at the beginning of the drive" means the inner area, near the drive spindle which is of course backwards. Data on a hard drive starts at the outer edges (the actual beginning of the drive's space) and moves inwards (to the end of the drive's space).
As already noted, the outer edges (beginning of the drive) are where the maximum read and write speeds are achieved, which is completely true, but the pagefile doesn't get hit every single second the drive is spinning. Putting a "special partition" at the beginning of the drive (outer edges) just forces the read/write heads to have to make that trip all the way back to the outer edges of the drive for a few bytes of code when paging happens - and paging happens, period.
Another misconception is the paging file = virtual memory. It's true to some degree and in some respects but, basically overall it's false. The pagefile is just one component of the virtual memory subsystem in Windows - it's not all of it. And you can't turn it off as commonly believed; you can set a pagefile size of 0 minimum and 0 maximum, yes, but Windows will still create a pagefile, usually a small one of about 20MB or so in the Windows directory even without you knowing it.
Why?
Because Windows operating systems can't function without one, that's why. So all the hubbub about "Ok I've got 4GB of RAM, I'm turning my virtual memory off" is pure bullshit, plain and simple. You can't turn it off, regardless of how much RAM you have, and even when you THINK you have it off, Windows just laughs at you behind your back and creates a pagefile anyway. So don't bother, just let it alone. Windows does know what its doing.
Static pagefile = minor improvement because the pagefile will not fragment afterwards (but it's a good idea to do a total defrag of the system partition including the pagefile after you create a static one; most modern third party defraggers will defrag a pagefile and MFT in an offline pass for you).
The only other improvement is placing another pagefile on some other physical hard drive - not on the same partition, it must reside on a totally separate physical hard drive, preferably at the beginning (outer edges). If you do this, and you keep the pagefile on the system drive also, Windows will then be able to read or write from one physical drive and still be able to access (read or write) the other drive at nearly the same time. This is a big difference from one drive which limits you to a read or write operation at any given moment.
That's practically a doubling in performance by allowing the multitasking to occur - ok, so it's not perfectly double, I admit that, but I'd rather have two hard drives working together (no I don't mean RAID) at the same time then making one drive do all the work by itself which is drastically inefficient.
Hope this helps...