Partition external hard drive?

[NapalmHeart]

I just bought a 160 gig external hard drive that I plan on using to store
music and video files on. Would I want to and/or how should I partition
this drive?

Ken

 

[philo]

I just bought a 160 gig external hard drive that I plan on using to store
music and video files on. Would I want to and/or how should I partition
this drive?

Assuming you are using Win2k or XP
you'd want to set the drive up as NTFS...
unless you have any specific reason for doing otherwise...
you might was well just make one large partition using the whole drive.
(it will be approx 150 gigs)

 

[NapalmHeart]

Assuming you are using Win2k or XP
you'd want to set the drive up as NTFS...
unless you have any specific reason for doing otherwise...
you might was well just make one large partition using the whole drive.
(it will be approx 150 gigs)

I am using XP. You have confirmed my feelings about how to set-up this
drive. I'm far from expert, slightly above novice.

Thanks,

Ken

 

[philo]

I am using XP. You have confirmed my feelings about how to set-up this
drive. I'm far from expert, slightly above novice.

In a few weeks you will be an expert!

 

[kony]

In a few weeks you will be an expert!

Many experts feel it's not a good idea to use the whole
drive as one partition though... makes segregating files,
backups, and general performance worse. Ideally one would
at least constrain the OS partition, the size of which can
depend on how many and the size of the apps but for XP, 15GB
is often an good upper limit unless the user has a lot of
games that *need* to be installed on the OS partition (most
do not).

 

[philo]

Many experts feel it's not a good idea to use the whole
drive as one partition though... makes segregating files,
backups, and general performance worse. Ideally one would
at least constrain the OS partition, the size of which can
depend on how many and the size of the apps but for XP, 15GB
is often an good upper limit unless the user has a lot of
games that *need* to be installed on the OS partition (most
do not).

Note: the OP said *external* drive!

 

[kony]

Note: the OP said *external* drive!

DOH!