[MortySnerd]

alanx, on Aug 17 2004, 05:48 PM, said:

Quote

What if he partitioned the 160GB drive in half (or fouth), and used the first half (or fourth) for all normally used files, such as O/S, programs, dat, and reserved the second half for infrequenly-used files, such as downloads, back-ups, drivers? Wouldn't that prevent the drive from seeking to the far end of the disk during normal system operation, thereby minimizing seek/access times and speeding things up?

This sums up my question exactly.

For the record, I will be using Windows XP SP1 with all other critical and recommended updates installed.

It seems to me that if my C:\ is only 10-20 gigs, instead of the 40+ gigs it is right now with MP3, video, etc stored on it, that typical day to day seek times/etc should be faster. I'm not sure if this is true or not, and that's what I wanted to clear up.

So, here's my question in an easy to answer format:

Q: Which set up will make windows and applications load faster?

1) A C:\ with about 10-20 gigs and a D:\ of 100+ gigs for video, movies, etc
2) One single large partition of 160 gigs for Windows, Apps, and Media
3) Neither one, they will both result in equal speed for Windows and Applications.

[Maxtor storage]

Olaf van der Spek, on Aug 17 2004, 05:55 PM, said:

Screwdriver, on Aug 17 2004, 10:40 PM, said:

What would happen if he ran a copy of windows prior to XP SP1?

Pre-SP1 versions only see 128 gb and no amount of partitioning solves that.

And he should upgrade anyway.

There is no way of getting past it?
Time for me to test this.

[blakerwry]

if you're using the drivers included with windows... if you have 3rd party controller/drivers that support LBA you're fine... these drivers have to be using the SCSI base IIR.

[Mad hatter]

I can't believe this is only now being addressed. I've always used a controller, on 5 and 6 yr old Macs (Beige and Blue G3) and run SCSI mostly but also SATA and some 160GB 7K250 PATA as well. All running OS X.

Before installing the OS, I tend to map out a 4-8GB chunk, then after installing, remove the file "holder" so there is lots of room on the outer tracks, as well as no trouble using partitions and even my "new" two year old MDD G4 has native support for a 250GB drive (OS 9 only supports 195GB though

[rfarris]

HisMajestyTheKing, on Aug 18 2004, 01:20 AM, said:

And to keep your OS and software on one partition and data on another.  Makes it easier to reinstall the OS from scratch if something goes horribly wrong.

That's a good theory, but would you explain to me exactly how to keep data off of the OS partition?

[rfarris]

MortySnerd, on Aug 18 2004, 09:22 AM, said:

1) A C:\ with about 10-20 gigs and a D:\ of 100+ gigs for video, movies, etc
2) One single large partition of 160 gigs for Windows, Apps, and Media
3) Neither one, they will both result in equal speed for Windows and Applications.

Technically, 2. Practically speaking they will be very similar except for the small differences (in scenario 1) when accessing the data on the D: partition caused because the heads are guaranteed to have to skip over the C: partition to get to the data.

It's not a bad idea to have a D: for your data, and maybe even an E: for your tmp and swap files, but they need to be separate spindles (drives) in order to gain the advantages of simultaneous multiple locality.

--Rick

[Tiberius]

actually
you want a small windows partition (you don't need to seperate swap off of it though)

if you just use a big partition many system files will end up having their sectors spread over a very wide range of cylinders as they're replaced or appended to or rewritten
and as a result the average latency of accessing certain windows system files will be (much) greater
using a ~4gb partition for \Windows and seperate partition for Program Files is ideal
using 4gb of 160gb for windows means when booting or whatnot the maximum access latency will be the interface and processing latency plus rotational latency plus 4/160ths of the seek latency... it works out to like ~4ms vs ~12ms. definite improvement.
use the windows partition for swap but make sure you remove it defrag and then set it for a fixed size otherwise it'll resize itself and frag your shit as well.

if you use photoshop or rip dvds it generally helps to create an additional partition roughly the size of the scratch space you need to avoid the scratch files/dvd image being fragmented by and/or fragmenting your data partition (and if its a scratch file limiting the range of cylinders by using a partition will improve performance via random seek latency)

end barely coherent rant

[Tiberius]

also p2p software is horrible for fragmenting your drives
a seperate p2p scratch space partition is advisable (and move it from that partition to your data partition when the transfer finishes or whatever)

partitions are fun

[rfarris]

Tiberius, on Aug 18 2004, 11:48 AM, said:

if you just use a big partition many system files will end up having their sectors spread over a very wide range of cylinders as they're replaced or appended to or rewritten and as a result the average latency of accessing certain windows system files will be (much) greater

Those are good "thought experiment" statements, but practically speaking, an occasional defrag solves the "problem" which isn't even a problem because any system file that is accessed often will be in the cache.

Partitioning a hard drive is not necessarily rude and evil, but it is stupid.

-- Rick

[alanx]

I think you mean "multiple partitions" because you can't use a hard drive without partitioning it.

Speaking of stupidity, have a gander here:

http://www.anandtech...ewfaq.html?i=43

I vote for "A".

I know we're supposed to be talking about SPEED here, but a drive with a separate system partition allows you to reformat and reinstall your O/S should some thing there go wrong with Windows, without having to lose all your other data/files on the drive.