Advice needed on partioning HD for XPPro

[A Colwood]

Hi,

I am about to install Win XP Pro on a system presently running Win ME. I
would appreciate if anyone can advise me about partioning a large HD in XP.

My current arrangement is as follows:

Drive 0: Maxtor 120GB

C: 18GB Windows and application programs
D: 2GB Windows swap file
E: 50GB Data
F: 50GB Data

Drive 1: Seagate 20GB

G: 20GB Backup files

(The swap file is on a partition on drive 0 because I figured it is still
faster than putting it on drive 1 which is older and slower.)

All partitions are FAT32. The system has 512MB of memory and the swap file
is set to a minimum size of 512MB. (It only really uses much swap file when
I'm really pushing the system with PhotoShop and GoLive.)

The Microsoft site recommends partitioning as one huge NTFS volume which I
don't really like the idea of. MS also suggests that the paging file in XP
should be on the same partition as the OS for efficiency.

Would a sensible compromise be to combine the C: & D: partitions as a single
NTFS volume for the OS and page/swap file and application programs and keep
my separate Data partitions?

Also, should E: & F: be converted to NTFS or can they be left as FAT32?

I hope I haven't been too long winded with this query.

TIA

 

[Guest]

You should convert the drive(s) all to ntfs in xp,its more efficient file system
MS specifically doesnt recommend the page file on the hd with the os,if you wan
specific details to that,try search at microsoft.com,type:mcfedrie
He wrote the bookower techniques for microsoft windows xp-by microsof
Try,optimize virtual memory for performance

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,

I am about to install Win XP Pro on a system presently running Win ME. I
would appreciate if anyone can advise me about partioning a large HD in XP.

My current arrangement is as follows:

Drive 0: Maxtor 120GB

C: 18GB Windows and application programs
D: 2GB Windows swap file
E: 50GB Data
F: 50GB Data

Drive 1: Seagate 20GB

G: 20GB Backup files

(The swap file is on a partition on drive 0 because I figured it is still
faster than putting it on drive 1 which is older and slower.)

All partitions are FAT32. The system has 512MB of memory and the swap file
is set to a minimum size of 512MB. (It only really uses much swap file when
I'm really pushing the system with PhotoShop and GoLive.)

The Microsoft site recommends partitioning as one huge NTFS volume which I
don't really like the idea of. MS also suggests that the paging file in XP
should be on the same partition as the OS for efficiency.

Would a sensible compromise be to combine the C: & D: partitions as a single
NTFS volume for the OS and page/swap file and application programs and keep
my separate Data partitions?

Also, should E: & F: be converted to NTFS or can they be left as FAT32?

I hope I haven't been too long winded with this query.

TIA

I would never run a system with just one single partition.
At the very least I would do this:
- Drive C: Operating system, Applications
- Drive D: Data

In some cases, extra partitions may be required.

WinXP will happily run with FAT32 and NTFS partitions.
The differences are:
- FAT32: No security, easier to access when things go wrong.
- NTFS: Good security, hard to deal with when problems arise.

I seem to recall that FAT32 partitions are limited to 32 GBytes
but I'm no sure if this applies to WinXP.

In spite of what other posters say, NTFS is slower than FAT32.
For folders up to around 2000 files, the difference is barely
noticeable. When accessing large folders (10,000 files), NTFS
runs at around half the speed of FAT32.

 

[Jim]

RE: FAT32 being limited to 32GB

You can't create a FAT32 >32GB in XP, but you can use other utilities, such
as BootIt NG, Partition Magic, etc., to create >32GB, and XP will happily
read and write to it.

Jim

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thanks for the update.

RE: FAT32 being limited to 32GB

You can't create a FAT32 >32GB in XP, but you can use other utilities, such
as BootIt NG, Partition Magic, etc., to create >32GB, and XP will happily
read and write to it.

Jim

which in

 

[A Colwood]

Hi,

I am about to install Win XP Pro on a system presently running Win ME. I
would appreciate if anyone can advise me about partioning a large HD in

XP.


Thanks for all the advice, guys!

 

[Mike Kolitz]

Having your swap file on the same physical drive as the operating system,
but on a separate partition is not the best way to go. Doing this will only
make the drive head have to move more to do the same job, and will actually
decrease performance. That's why Microsoft recommends it stay on the same
partition as the OS (which really isn't necessary - if you move it to
another physical drive, you may get a performance increase, depending on the
speed of the drive).

--
Mike Kolitz MCSE 2000
MS-MVP - Windows Setup and Deployment

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