Partitons for a 500g HD..

[Woger]

Already running XP on it but what are my best Partition options, I was
thinking of 4 equal partitions, if not how big should the XP partition be..?

Plus what program that can auto select the correct partition size, I think I
used PQ Magic in the past and a Black HD but that is old now and no longer
supported

Like if I split the drive 4 ways, with say 50g for the OS or will this be to
small.



Thanks

 

[Rod Speed]

Already running XP on it but what are my best Partition options,

I prefer a single partition myself except when running multple OSs.

I was thinking of 4 equal partitions,

Thats hardly ever the best approach.

if not how big should the XP partition be..?

That the problem, it isnt possible to say how big it should be because
that changes over time basically depend on what apps are installed etc.

And its messy to change it when you discover the size is wrong
and dangerous unless you can image the entire physical drive.

Plus what program that can auto select the correct partition size,

No such animal.

I think I used PQ Magic in the past and a Black HD
but that is old now and no longer supported

Acronis True Image will do that fine and is good for backup in normal use too.

Like if I split the drive 4 ways, with say 50g for the OS or will this be to small.

Its big enough for most. Not all tho.

 

[mscotgrove]

I prefer a single partition myself except when running multple OSs.


Thats hardly ever the best approach.


That the problem, it isnt possible to say how big it should be because
that changes over time basically depend on what apps are installed etc.

And its messy to change it when you discover the size is wrong
and dangerous unless you can image the entire physical drive.


No such animal.


Acronis True Image will do that fine and is good for backup in normal usetoo.


Its big enough for most. Not all tho.

The problem with partitions that it is difficult to guess what you
require in 12 months time. Many systems have two partitions, one for
OS and programs, and the other for data. 50-100G for operating system
and programs should be fine

Rather than separate partitions for data use sensible subdirectories.

If you have 4 partitions, then the drive heads will always have to
move near the end of the disk to get to the final partition. With one
partition, the heads will only need to move that far when the disk is
full.

Michael

 

[Arno]

Already running XP on it but what are my best Partition options, I was
thinking of 4 equal partitions, if not how big should the XP partition be..?

Plus what program that can auto select the correct partition size, I think I
used PQ Magic in the past and a Black HD but that is old now and no longer
supported

Like if I split the drive 4 ways, with say 50g for the OS or will this be to
small.

Well, partitioning is mostly to partition your stuff on disk, e.g.
into OS, must_backup, less_important, scratch_space. One other
application is if you want to keep filesystems smaller, e.g. when
sticking with FAT (for reliable access with Linux, e.g.).

So it depends on what you are doing.

Arno

 

[Woger]

The problem with partitions that it is difficult to guess what you
require in 12 months time. Many systems have two partitions, one for
OS and programs, and the other for data. 50-100G for operating system
and programs should be fine

Rather than separate partitions for data use sensible subdirectories.

If you have 4 partitions, then the drive heads will always have to
move near the end of the disk to get to the final partition. With one
partition, the heads will only need to move that far when the disk is
full.

Michael

Yes but One large Partition is a problem when you wish to Defage..

 

[David Brown]

Yes but One large Partition is a problem when you wish to Defage..

Why would you want to "defage"? Fragmentation is slows file systems
down somewhat, but if you are using windows there is *nothing* you can
do about it. Running a defragmenter helps a bit in the short term, but
the next time windows makes a file, it will scatter it almost randomly
over the disk, just as before. It will do this even if the partition is
almost empty, or perfectly defragmented and compacted. And of course,
defragmenting software fails to do any significant defragmentation if
the disk is more than about 50% full.

There is only one way to get a reasonable defragmentation with windows -
you move *all* the files onto another partition, then move them all back
again. From that viewpoint, multiple partitions can be useful.
Although this obviously won't work on the system partition, it will work
if you have a separate partition for data files.

Another thing to remember about partitions is that you get better
resilience to failure with multiple partitions. Contrary to popular
belief, physical harddisk failures are relatively rare - but logical
corruption of windows file systems is easy to get during unexpected
resets, crashes, etc. (NTFS is harder to corrupt, but not impossible).
It is the system partition that is by far the most likely to get such
corruption - if you keep your data files on a separate partition, they
are more likely to survive a disaster. It is also much easier if you
later want to re-install the OS and/or programs in the system partition
- your data is left undisturbed. Ideally, of course, you keep your data
on a networked server running a more reliable OS, rather than the
windows box - but that's another story.


Of course, it all depends on what you are doing with the machine. If it
is a games machine with nothing more important than a few saved games,
you won't get any benefits from separate partitions.

 

[Rod Speed]

Yes but One large Partition is a problem when you wish to Defage..

No one with a clue defrags 500GB drives anymore.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Already running XP on it but what are my best Partition options, I was
thinking of 4 equal partitions, if not how big should the XP partition be..?

Plus what program that can auto select the correct partition size, I think I
used PQ Magic in the past and a Black HD but that is old now and no longer
supported

Like if I split the drive 4 ways, with say 50g for the OS or will this be to
small.

It's simple, one partition is all you need. Avoid partitioning as much
as you can, unless it's the only way to use the whole disk. In the old
days, some filesystem types could not go above a certain size, so you
had to split the full disk up into multiple partitions to use it all up.
If the filesystem can use it up without needing to be partitioned, then
don't partition it.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Yes but One large Partition is a problem when you wish to Defage..

Again a simple solution: don't defrag it. It's not necessary.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Woger]

It's simple, one partition is all you need. Avoid partitioning as much
as you can, unless it's the only way to use the whole disk. In the old
days, some filesystem types could not go above a certain size, so you
had to split the full disk up into multiple partitions to use it all up.
If the filesystem can use it up without needing to be partitioned, then
don't partition it.

Yousuf Khan

So when do you put your Document files and Data files.,..?

 

[YKhan]

So when do you put your Document files and Data files.,..?

I put them in wherever they fit.

Yousuf Khan