disk partitioning

[Joseph O'Brien]

I know there is always a lot of opinions when it comes to disk
partitioning schemes, but I would like to get some advice from those
who know.

If I were to put an extra drive in our web designer's computer and ask
him to save all his files to that, wouldn't there be a significant
delay since everything needs to be copied to the new drive? I'm not
just talking about moving a huge number of files. Things as simple as
downloading from the web to working with PhotoShop scratch disks are
all going to take place on the primary drive, right? So if he needs to
download images from a site, he will have to move them manually to the
secondary drive.

I thought about putting Documents and Settings on the secondary drive,
but I read somewhere that Microsoft does not support this
configuration. I know that I can redirect My Documents, My *whatever*,
Desktop, etc, but that doesn't really help me since so much personal
data still ends up being stored in the user's home directory.

It seems like people do all kinds of elaborate partitioning schemes,
but at this point, I just fail to see the advantage (at least with
XP). Can anyone set me straight? I might be completely off-base with
my assumptions about this.

Thanks.
Joseph

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?_db_=B4=AF`=B7.._=3E=3C=29=29=29=BA]

honestly, your web designer
would be in a better position
to let you know the benefits
or not.

from my perspective, if the
web designer ask for the extra
harddrive, then "get" it.

designing and experimenting
with design concepts and the super
large files and the multiplicity of
them would be better to do and
have on a non system partition.


--

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..

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I know there is always a lot of opinions when it comes to disk
partitioning schemes, but I would like to get some advice from those
who know.

If I were to put an extra drive in our web designer's computer and ask
him to save all his files to that, wouldn't there be a significant
delay since everything needs to be copied to the new drive? I'm not
just talking about moving a huge number of files. Things as simple as
downloading from the web to working with PhotoShop scratch disks are
all going to take place on the primary drive, right? So if he needs to
download images from a site, he will have to move them manually to the
secondary drive.

I thought about putting Documents and Settings on the secondary drive,
but I read somewhere that Microsoft does not support this
configuration. I know that I can redirect My Documents, My *whatever*,
Desktop, etc, but that doesn't really help me since so much personal
data still ends up being stored in the user's home directory.

It seems like people do all kinds of elaborate partitioning schemes,
but at this point, I just fail to see the advantage (at least with
XP). Can anyone set me straight? I might be completely off-base with
my assumptions about this.

Thanks.
Joseph

Creating a data partition on your hard disk has several
advantages but speed is not one of them. In other words,
it makes no difference whatsoever.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I know there is always a lot of opinions when it comes to disk
partitioning schemes, but I would like to get some advice from those
who know.

If I were to put an extra drive in our web designer's computer and ask
him to save all his files to that, wouldn't there be a significant
delay since everything needs to be copied to the new drive?

No, no copying will take place.


I'm not

just talking about moving a huge number of files. Things as simple as
downloading from the web to working with PhotoShop scratch disks are
all going to take place on the primary drive, right?

No, wrong. They will take place on whatever drive you tell them to.

So if he needs to
download images from a site, he will have to move them manually to the
secondary drive.

No, just download directly to the second drive. Where (what drive and
folder) to download to is your choice.

I thought about putting Documents and Settings on the secondary drive,
but I read somewhere that Microsoft does not support this
configuration.

Not correct. Doing so is not only possible, but also a good idea for
many people. See below,

I know that I can redirect My Documents, My *whatever*,
Desktop, etc, but that doesn't really help me since so much personal
data still ends up being stored in the user's home directory.

What do you mean by "the user's home directory"? What do you mean by
"so much personal data"?

It seems like people do all kinds of elaborate partitioning schemes,
but at this point, I just fail to see the advantage (at least with
XP). Can anyone set me straight? I might be completely off-base with
my assumptions about this.

I think many people over-partition, but that doesn't mean it's always
bad to have more than one partition. My view is that most people's
partitioning scheme should be based on their backup scheme. If, for
example, you backup by creating a clone or image of the entire drive,
then a single partition might be best. If, on the other hand, you
backup only your data, then the backup process is facilitated by
having all data in a separate partition.

Except for those running multiple operating systems, there is seldom
any benefit to having more than two partitions.

 

[JS]

1) Once he has everything setup/moved properly on the second drive there
will not be any delay and in fact may be a bit faster.
2) The location of the Photoshop scratch disk can be changed to any drive.
3) The location of file downloads can be specified prior to or at the time
of the download depending on what applications he is using.
4) I have two computers each contain three drives and both have the
'Documents and Settings' folder unchanged.
5) My Applications (except some AV software) are installed to the second
drive, speeds up loading slightly and since most applications are not
updated frequently the need for creating frequent image backups of the
Applications partition on the second drive are reduced. Image backups of the
Primary/Windows drive are made as needed, usually before installing the
latest Windows Updates.

JS

 

[dobey]

I know there is always a lot of opinions when it comes to disk
partitioning schemes, but I would like to get some advice from those
who know.

If I were to put an extra drive in our web designer's computer and ask
him to save all his files to that, wouldn't there be a significant
delay since everything needs to be copied to the new drive? I'm not
just talking about moving a huge number of files. Things as simple as
downloading from the web to working with PhotoShop scratch disks are
all going to take place on the primary drive, right? So if he needs to
download images from a site, he will have to move them manually to the
secondary drive.

I thought about putting Documents and Settings on the secondary drive,
but I read somewhere that Microsoft does not support this
configuration. I know that I can redirect My Documents, My *whatever*,
Desktop, etc, but that doesn't really help me since so much personal
data still ends up being stored in the user's home directory.

It seems like people do all kinds of elaborate partitioning schemes,
but at this point, I just fail to see the advantage (at least with
XP). Can anyone set me straight? I might be completely off-base with
my assumptions about this.

Thanks.
Joseph

Maybe you should clarify - when you refer to "drives" you mean partitioning
a single disc, and not adding a physical hard disk to the machine?

When you partition a single disk there isn't really that much to be gained,
except for your own organisational purposes.