HD partitioning strategy required.

W

Witchsmeller

Hi,

I've got a 1.8 GHz P4 with 256 Meg of RAM, I use the machine for playing
music, ripping CDs & DVDs, accessing the Internet & Newsgroups (binary &
text), etc but not for playing games.

I've just bought a Seagate 120 Gig Baraccuda HD as my current 40 Gig master
& 30 Gig slave drives are almost at capacity. Can anyone recommend a good
partitioning strategy for me?

My current idea is to have a small C: drive solely for Win XP Pro, a D:
partition solely for applications / programs & E: & F: partitions for data
& backup; all NTFS formatted. It's going to be a big job so I want to get
it right first time.

Also if anyone can warn me of any gotchas I'd appreciate it, I'm removing
my current master HD intact so I can always just swap that back in if I
forget something. The one problem I can't find a solution to is how to
transfer my existing Norton Antivirus (2003) updates subscription to my new
box as it's got several months to run, do I just have to write it off &
reinstall from scratch?

TIA, Jase.
 
J

JAX

Only real suggestion I have is: Allow at least 6 Gigs for your OS partition,
unless you're really into file shuffling. It really takes around 3 Gigs for
XP to live comfortably. Once you add a few things you want in the same
partition, first thing you know, you will be crowding 6 Gigs.

As far as the question about Norton

LOL, JAX
 
W

Witchsmeller

Only real suggestion I have is: Allow at least 6 Gigs for your OS
partition, unless you're really into file shuffling. It really takes
around 3 Gigs for XP to live comfortably. Once you add a few things
you want in the same partition, first thing you know, you will be
crowding 6 Gigs.

As far as the question about Norton

LOL, JAX

Thanks for the info, I suppose the NAV subscription isn't a big problem,
I'll get 3 months free updates with a fresh install anyway.

J
 
T

Torgeir Bakken (MVP)

JAX said:
Only real suggestion I have is: Allow at least 6 Gigs for your OS partition,
unless you're really into file shuffling. It really takes around 3 Gigs for
XP to live comfortably. Once you add a few things you want in the same
partition, first thing you know, you will be crowding 6 Gigs.

Hi

Thinking about what e.g. new service pack installations need of free disk space
on the OS partition when they install (temporary files while installing, backup
files, the Servicepackfiles folder etc.), I would not recommend anything less
than 10 GB at least to avoid problems in the future. Also note that a lot of
applications just installs to the OS partition without any options to redirect
the installation to another drive.

As the OP has 190 GB disk space, I would have used at least 15 GB for the OS
partition just to be sure...
 
J

JAX

Hi Torgeir,

You are absolutely correct. If you notice, I said "at least 6 Gigs."
Actually, I use 10. With only 6, I found that I had too much file shuffling
to do to keep comfortably within the 6. When I installed the software that
came bundled with a new printer, I found that it took over 1/2 a Gig and
offered no option on the path to install.. Moving files around is not one of
my favorite pastimes so, I wound up re-formatting and allowing the 10.

The only hit I see on performance with an enlarged OS partition is a little
more time taken in performing maintenance but, if that is done often enough,
the hit isn't enough to really notice.

Cheers, JAX
 
W

Witchsmeller

Hi Torgeir,

You are absolutely correct. If you notice, I said "at least 6 Gigs."
Actually, I use 10. With only 6, I found that I had too much file
shuffling to do to keep comfortably within the 6. When I installed the
software that came bundled with a new printer, I found that it took
over 1/2 a Gig and offered no option on the path to install.. Moving
files around is not one of my favorite pastimes so, I wound up
re-formatting and allowing the 10.

The only hit I see on performance with an enlarged OS partition is a
little more time taken in performing maintenance but, if that is done
often enough, the hit isn't enough to really notice.

Cheers, JAX

Is there a performance benefit to creating a separate, dedicated,
partition for the swap file? I'm going to keep a second, slave, drive on
the same IDE connector, if I place the partition there would that be any
better or would there only be a benefit if the swap file/partition was on
a HD on a different IDE controller?

Also what is the recommended size for the swap file with 256 Meg of RAM,
there's much debate about this.

Cheers, Jase.
 
J

JAX

Hi Jase,

All I know about the different partition issue is what I've read so, take it
for what it's worth. I haven't preformed any tests to verify any of it.

With some hi-end software there is a performance gain by having the swapfile
on a different partition, as long as it is on a different HD, there is a
loss if it is a different partition on the same drive. So far as the
different IDE, I don't recall any mention of that. The programs that were
mentioned were graphic animation app's, etc., not something I deal with.

Swapfile size,....You're right, "there's much debate about this". The
formulas of the past never made since to me. They say you should have a
swapfile "X" times the size of the RAM. Really, the more RAM you have, the
smaller the swapfile needs to be. Most of the time, It's best to let Windows
manage the swapfile but you can set it to whatever you want and Windows will
let you know if it needs more via an "insufficient memory" warning.

For your purpose, "I use the machine for playing
music, ripping CDs & DVDs," You would probably get the best performance hit
by going to 512 RAM.

IMHO, JAX
 
M

Markeau

I just installed NAV03 on a new drive in a notebook (upgraded it to
XPpro, too). I had 3 months to go on the subscription (it was
installed on 98SE) and I was properly registered, but the new install
gave a full 12months.
 
W

Witchsmeller

I just installed NAV03 on a new drive in a notebook (upgraded it to
XPpro, too). I had 3 months to go on the subscription (it was
installed on 98SE) and I was properly registered, but the new install
gave a full 12months.

You're right, I was getting confused with some new PCs that have NAV pre-
installed with 3 months subscription. Of course re-installing from the
original disc will give me 12 months.

Thanks, Jase.
 
W

Witchsmeller

Hi Jase,

All I know about the different partition issue is what I've read so,
take it for what it's worth. I haven't preformed any tests to verify
any of it.

With some hi-end software there is a performance gain by having the
swapfile on a different partition, as long as it is on a different HD,
there is a loss if it is a different partition on the same drive. So
far as the different IDE, I don't recall any mention of that. The
programs that were mentioned were graphic animation app's, etc., not
something I deal with.

Swapfile size,....You're right, "there's much debate about this". The
formulas of the past never made since to me. They say you should have
a swapfile "X" times the size of the RAM. Really, the more RAM you
have, the smaller the swapfile needs to be. Most of the time, It's
best to let Windows manage the swapfile but you can set it to whatever
you want and Windows will let you know if it needs more via an
"insufficient memory" warning.

For your purpose, "I use the machine for playing
music, ripping CDs & DVDs," You would probably get the best
performance hit by going to 512 RAM.

IMHO, JAX

JAX,

Thanks for all your advice. I think the possible benefit in putting the
swap file/partition on a drive that's on a different IDE controller is
that the drives can work in parallel. Whereas if the file/partition is on
a drive on the same controller they work serially which is slower. I'm
not sure if this would offer a noticeable benefit though, I think I will
add some extra memory shortly.

Cheers, Jase.
 
J

JAX

I would imagine you're right about the secondary IDE being preferable, but
that is just my guess, and I try to avoid much guessing when attempting to
help someone else.

Cheers, JAX
 
G

Guest

I've been experimenting with different partition sizes just as you described, and one interesting solution I came up with is to use the Computer Management tool in XP to create different partitions. Using this tool, you can label a partition as a folder rather than as a separate drive. This tool is located in Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management. In the left-hand pane, select Disk Management under "Storage". In order to do this smoothly, put the drive you want to change the partitions on as the slave before starting, and then you can work on that disk without worrying about corrupting your "good" hard drive with the working OS

Creating partitions with this tool is pretty intuitive. Right click the space in the right-hand window representing the disk, and you will see several options. When you choose to create a partition, you will go through a wizard that lets you select the file system, size, etc. One of these choices will be how the partition is labeled. If it is contiguous to the C: partition, you can select to give it a folder name instead of a new drive letter. It will then be treated as a folder in the C: partition

So using this tool, one strategy would be to create the first partition as the C: partition, and choose a size from 6 to 15 gig (whatever you're comfortable with). You will later use that partition to install the OS into. Create a second partition that is as large as you want your Program Files folder to be, and instead of giving it a new drive letter label, give it a folder name label, and use the name "Program Files". Create as many other partitions as you want, labeling them as drives or folders as you see fit

When you are ready to install the OS, take the newly partitioned drive and make it the master. Install from the CD, and install into your root partition. The installer will recognize that there is already a folder called "Program Files" in that directory (even though it's really a separate partition), and it will automatically put its program files into that directory. Now what's cool is, whenever you install new software, even if it doesn't give you the option of where to put it, it will usually default to the "Program Files" folder, which you have already set aside as a separate partition

I only discovered that this was possible two days ago. If anyone sees any gaping holes in this idea, I'd love to hear about it

Mar
 

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