Size of OS partition for max performance

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Kryogen

Gawd
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Feb 3, 2002
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What should be the max size of the OS partition for best performance?
Any real world difference? Or just split the HD 1/2 1/2? (wd 6401 aals) 640 gb

OR it's better lets say 200 OS / 440 storage ?

Thx
 
I wouldn't bother with multiple partitions, you'll just end up with too much space on one and too little space on the other, unless you want a small OS partition for ghosting/backing up, in which case, you'll have to decide how much space you'll need for the OS (I would leave 25GBs for Vista) plus whatever apps/games you'll be installing, which no one here besides you is gonna know.
 
Get HDTach or HDTune. Run the basic test for read speed on the drive with either or both applications. Keep an eye on the level at the beginning of the drive, it should be quite high in read speeds. At some point it will begin to taper off and slope downward - as the heads move to the inner parts of the platters, read speeds will decrease (this is simply how physical hard drives work).

On most hard drives, they'll maintain a fairly level read speed to about 20-25% into the capacity of the drive (not the platters, not partitions, but the entire content/capacity of the drive) and then begin a downward slope.

My recommendation is watch that reading and find the point where it begins to taper off and use the amount from the beginning of the drive to about that point to determine the space you should assign for the system partition. The rest of the drive you can do whatever you want with, but by following this relatively simple guideline, you ensure that you're using the very fastest section of the drive for the OS itself.

As for partitioning strategies, let's not turn this into a freakin' battlefield. There are pros and cons for partitioning, there are pros and cons for not partitioning, so in the long run it comes down to personal choice and not much else.

Good luck...
 
a single NTFS partition will always be faster than any orientation of multiple partitions. Why do you want to partition things anyways?
 
I usually partition cause it's easier for me to separate the OS from the music, movies, and everything.
If only one partition is better, I'll just create a Storage folder then, and use the 2nd HD for backup.

Only one partition or 2????
 
The first smaller partition on the hard drive will be in the area that travels the fastest speed so DTR is faster.
For this reason and that a smaller partition is much quicker to defrag/gets less fragmentation + Virus scans etc are quicker, I'm currently using a 50GB partition for Windows (on a 1TB drive).
The rest of the drive is rapidly filling up with my Blu Ray/HD-DVD collection, ouch big!
 
The only reason I would make an extra partition is to store my OS backup. The days of dividing up a drive into partitions are gone, unless your working with a server. You also do it so you can wipe a partition without wiping the whole drive, and really, that's probably the only reason.

But if you must know, generally the first half of the drive is the fastest. But that doesn't matter if your drive isn't full because the data will be on the first half.

As for performance, just install the OS on the full 640 because even if you make a second partition, it's only logical. If you did a 50/50 partition, it doesn't go to the 320GB mark then start the data there. So your gaining nothing except for the reason I pointed out already. It's still going to write the 2nd partition data right next to the 1st partition data, it will just show it on another drive.
 
Kryogen said:
I usually partition cause it's easier for me to separate the OS from the music, movies, and everything.
If only one partition is better, I'll just create a Storage folder then, and use the 2nd HD for backup.

Only one partition or 2????
Click to expand...

One partition, unless you have a special reason for more, and you would know if you did.
 
I would definitely put the OS on a separate partition.

As far as how big it should it be, well your going to have to be the judge of that.
I have Vista x64 with all your standard stuff.....no games on a 32gb partition. its currently using about 23gb of it.
 
TechieSooner said:
You do realize that's not a real backup, right???
It's still stored on the same physical disk.
Click to expand...
You do realize that some people just like keeping a clean image that they can restore from to set the OS back to default, but also keep an external hard drive for backed up data, right??? :rolleyes:

Anyways, I don't do that, was just saying it's the only reason I would use a 2nd partition. If I wanted to format the OS volume, but keep my image on the same disk, I could do that with a second partition.
 
bigdogchris said:
You do realize that some people just like keeping a clean image that they can restore from to set the OS back to default, but also keep an external hard drive for backed up data, right??? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
It's in the details I guess, but how the hell would I have known that from what you posted???

Also, the OP never said anything about an external hard drive, just a second hard drive being used for backup (Which is why again it seems crazy to double up on backups when one will suffice).
 
I think it's always a good idea to have a separate OS partition just so you can ensure that all system files will be confined to the fastest part of the disk and not have a chance to get fragmented all over, as well as making maintenance tasks faster, and also making it convenient and quicker to format or image and restore the OS partition without affecting the whole drive. At least it would be good to have a second partition for file storage at the end/slowest part of the disk, where you can keep and install all your drivers and other software without having to rely on a second physical disk.

And even if a second internal physical disk is dedicated to file storage, it should still also be partitioned to allow for a space at the beginning/fastest part of the drive for the page file or a scratch disk.

I personally make heavy use of partitioning to organize and optimize disks for multibooting and virtualization across three disks, making sure that each OS has a page file on a different physical disk, and a scratch disk partition for programs like Photoshop separate from the OS and page file physical disks. Virtual machines are also kept on the disk separate from the OS and page file.

It's a balance between speed, reliability, and convenience/manageability. You don't want to optimize for performance only by spreading the OS, applications, and data across serveral disks and have your computing environment messed up if only one disk fails.

I use external disks in a Venus T5 DAS unit to store images made with Acronis True Image.
 
Kryogen said:
I usually partition cause it's easier for me to separate the OS from the music, movies, and everything.
If only one partition is better, I'll just create a Storage folder then, and use the 2nd HD for backup.

Only one partition or 2????
Click to expand...

Want a performance boost? Run with 2..or more..hard drives. Leave each drive a single partition. Move the pagefile.sys to a hard drive/spindle other than the C drive. Having your virtual memory on a different spindle than the OS is where your good boost is.
 
TechieSooner said:
(Which is why again it seems crazy to double up on backups when one will suffice).
Click to expand...
*sigh* .... I just said that's the only reason I could see someone dividing up with partitions now, a person that may not have an external drive to store a clean image on.... quit nit picking the details, I thought you were better than that :eek:
 
"Want a performance boost? Run with 2..or more..hard drives. Leave each drive a single partition. Move the pagefile.sys to a hard drive/spindle other than the C drive. Having your virtual memory on a different spindle than the OS is where your good boost is."
Really?
 
yeah, that would help system performance.

Or under vista you could just buy a cheap USB key and use readyboost.
 
Kryogen said:
"Want a performance boost? Run with 2..or more..hard drives. Leave each drive a single partition. Move the pagefile.sys to a hard drive/spindle other than the C drive. Having your virtual memory on a different spindle than the OS is where your good boost is."
Really?
Click to expand...
No

MrWizard6600 said:
yeah, that would help system performance.

Or under vista you could just buy a cheap USB key and use readyboost.
Click to expand...
Benchmarks show there is no performance gain using Readyboost, when using more than 1GB of ram in Vista.
 
Wanna boost performance get 20+gb of Ram + RamDisk Plus and move the pagefile.sys to the ram drive :D
 
Kryogen said:
Really?
Click to expand...

No, I typed that because I was bored.

Yes...REALLY. Depends on the applications of course, those which pull from program directories heavily while in use. Quite a few of the heavier games for example...while loading maps in changing levels..some data gets written to virtual memory, your OS is doing other things in the background. Tis better to have those 2 hard drive intensive jobs split across different spindles, instead of competing for the read/write cycles of the same spindle.

Tips from the server world that can trickle down and benefit desktop PCs under heavier use.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Want a performance boost? Run with 2..or more..hard drives. Leave each drive a single partition. Move the pagefile.sys to a hard drive/spindle other than the C drive. Having your virtual memory on a different spindle than the OS is where your good boost is.
Click to expand...

I'd have to respectfully disagree.
Moving to a different physical drive, like you suggest, is a performance boost, yes. However it's really not enough of one to warrant screwing with.

Just my opinion of course, but I've seen no benchmarks that have shown moving the pagefile to a different physical disk with any reasonable performance increase.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
No, I typed that because I was bored.

Yes...REALLY. Depends on the applications of course, those which pull from program directories heavily while in use. Quite a few of the heavier games for example...while loading maps in changing levels..some data gets written to virtual memory, your OS is doing other things in the background. Tis better to have those 2 hard drive intensive jobs split across different spindles, instead of competing for the read/write cycles of the same spindle.

Tips from the server world that can trickle down and benefit desktop PCs under heavier use.
Click to expand...
There are so many other things to 'gain performance' than suggesting buying another drive just for the page file. It may have a slight loading time drop because it's not reading/writing to the same disk but it would be so insignificant.

When the game Vanguard Saga of Heroes launched, I tested it by putting the page file on a second drive and there was absolutely no difference in loading. And at this time this game was horrible with page file abuse because it was CONSTANTLY loading.
 
TechieSooner said:
I'd have to respectfully disagree.
Moving to a different physical drive, like you suggest, is a performance boost, yes. However it's really not enough of one to warrant screwing with.

Just my opinion of course, but I've seen no benchmarks that have shown moving the pagefile to a different physical disk with any reasonable performance increase.
Click to expand...

bigdogchris said:
There are so many other things to 'gain performance' than suggesting buying another drive just for the page file. It may have a slight loading time drop because it's not reading/writing to the same disk but it would be so insignificant.

When the game Vanguard Saga of Heroes launched, I tested it by putting the page file on a second drive and there was absolutely no difference in loading. And at this time this game was horrible with page file abuse because it was CONSTANTLY loading.
Click to expand...


While it may not be enough benefit to warrant an additional drive purchase, but would be worth it IMO if you have an extra drive laying around.
When the Pagefile is on a separate spindle the OS can access it at the same time its accessing the OS drive, and there is no disk contention. Although not a huge performance booster it will boost performance during heavy multitasking.
 
Wow, such a big conversaion over something simple. I have 2 partitions on my 640. One is 100 gigs since that's more than enough for OS/Apps/Games and the other is just under 500 gigs for media files/documents/etc. I also change the location for the documents/video/music/favorites/saved games to the 2nd partition. I like to reinstall Windows a lot it appears so I just format C: and install and everything on D: is still intact.
 
lathode said:
Wow, such a big conversaion over something simple. I have 2 partitions on my 640. One is 100 gigs since that's more than enough for OS/Apps/Games and the other is just under 500 gigs for media files/documents/etc. I also change the location for the documents/video/music/favorites/saved games to the 2nd partition. I like to reinstall Windows a lot it appears so I just format C: and install and everything on D: is still intact.
Click to expand...

Now see I have never understood why people do that??

the Pagefile is still on the same drive however you moved it to a slower part of the drive.
If your going to have a single disk....leave the pagefile in its default location.
 
Geez, so much disinformation around here. My original suggestion stands, and testing will show that most hard drives, even the fastest ones, can maintain the same level of read performance to about 20-25% into the capacity and then it'll taper down as I said in the post above.

With respect to the multiple hard drive scenario, the person that first mentioned it was entirely correct with one caveat:

Having multiple physical hard drives in a system - and here's the caveat - putting a page file on each of them will enhance system performance overall as it allows for proper multitasking at any given moment. Having the pagefile only on the system drive (not just the system partition) means that drive, regardless of how it's partitioned, can only be read from or written to at any given moment of time. Even SATA can't get past that issue - only one operation can happen at a time.

But... tada, having a page file spread across separate physical drives will enhance performance when a read from a pagefile is necessary and a write can be done on another, or read/read or even write/write simultaneously. Anyone that thinks just one drive at a time can be better overall than two working in tandem for read/write operations needs to give up their membership here and go back to THG. :D

With enough RAM, putting the page file on a RAMdisk can and does show significant performance improvements, much to the chagrin of the naysayers that simply think having a ton of RAM and disabling it helps - Windows was designed from day 1 to use virtual memory as every modern OS does, so crippling the basic functionality of the OS by turning it off (even if you have tons of RAM) is a bad idea. If you've got that much RAM, assign some of it to a RAMdisk and put a page file on it - not all RAMdisk software allows for this, but the better ones do.

As for the partition splitting war (I did ask nicely not to let it turn that way): it's easier to start over with a smaller imaged partition than having hundreds of gigs of stuff you'd need to move someplace so you can start over. My system partitions are never larger than 35GB, regardless of the OS in question. I can image that after a clean installation of the OS and my most common applications in a matter of minutes safely, and if I choose to start over again for whatever reason, it's usually done in under 2 minutes. Lemme see you do that with an image file that's 100GB or larger... ain't happening.

Bleh... MrsOldMX has the right idea, give or take a few percentage points... ;)
 
Paritioning makes perfect sense for any average user, especially for a person with only one drive in a lower power-consuming/quiet system. Modern drives are huge, and there is no sense in mixing a large collection of archived data in the same partition as system files, where it displaces newly written system files to a slower part of the disk as more archived files are stored.

On a large disk, it's best to make at least a partition for the OS/apps/page file/frequently accessed data, and then another partition for archived data like video/music/drivers and installation files, etc. You can then image/restore/format the system partition separately from the data partition, and you ensure that all system files stay on the fastest part of the disk where they are more easily managed for scanning and defragging.

What is so detrimental about this approach? I don't see one reason why a large disk should not be partitioned.

In a multi-disk system, it still makes sense to use the fastest part of each spindle for system/page file/scratch data, and then the slower area for data.

Partitioning is useful in most situations.
 
nitrobass24 said:
Now see I have never understood why people do that??

the Pagefile is still on the same drive however you moved it to a slower part of the drive.
If your going to have a single disk....leave the pagefile in its default location.
Click to expand...

I never said I moved the pagefile. It's on the default location.
 
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