Also, when instal Win XP on reformatted harddrive 80Gb, should be partitions
selected for OS and data, or use just one partition?
Hi, Alonzo,
In this case, I disagree with Messrs. Lipman and Meddick. Probably
because I work with older and slower computers, and I come from the time
before there were hard drives, and when they came into existence, they
were miniscule in size from today's drives.
Back then you were taught how to maximize the use of the hard drive's
space, today they just tell you to spend more money on a bigger hard
drive. Think about it, would you rather spend that money on your
wife/girlfriend/significant other, or a hard drive? ;-) Which choice
would get you the most brownie points???? ::big grin::
When I'm redoing an old computer, I *always* partition the hard drive if
the drive is @30GB or more. One of the first things I did was partition
the drive on this Mac when I bought it. (In fact, I'm thinking of
adding a 3rd partition, and using it to install Linux in some flavor.
Why?
1. Computer infections almost invariably attack system files. But can
you really trust that somehow none of your data files are now safe?
2. If you have your data on a different partition from the boot
partition, should you choose to reinstall the OS, you *don't* have to
sort out your data for safekeeping, you've already done that! If your
data is on the same drive/partition as XP, you need to make sure it's
not infected, and then copy that data to another drive or partition.
Don't move, just copy, you have no idea exactly what a particular
infection may be doing. Even then, you are still hoping things are fine.
I also redirect My Documents to store everything on the data
partition.
3. The only sure way to remove an infection is by formatting the drive.
This is what I'd believed for years, although was chided from all
sides for doing so. Then I found this Microsoft Technet article,
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc700813.aspx and no longer
feel bad about partitioning.
4. Let's say you did partition your drive, 20GB and 60GB. When you go
to reinstall XP, for whatever reason, you only format a 20GB partition,
not an 80GB drive. Which is going to be faster?
5. If you partition the drive, you can analyze the average size of your
files, and choose an alternative allocation unit (aka sector) size that
makes more efficient use of the available storage space.
Let's say that all of your files are 3072 bytes in size. And you
format your hard drive so each sector is 4096 bytes in size. You cannot
use just part of a sector, it's an all or nothing situation. After
storing 4 files, you've used up 16,384 bytes. But in actual data,
you've only stored 12,288 bytes. That means you have 4096 unused bytes
that is unavailable to use. Enough space to store a 5th file, had you
formatted the sectors to 3072 bytes.
Extrapolate that idea out over 60GB, how much more data could you
store before being forced to throw something away, get a second drive,
burn a bunch of CD/DVD's, etc.?
I picked those numbers just to illustrate the point, *not* to
indicate they are the ultimate values. Any value chosen by you depends
on your hardware and the types/sizes of files you generally use. And,
there's nothing wrong with having a partition for large files, and a
partition for small files, i.e. C:\, D:\, and E:\. (That also used to
be a recommendation.) It's called a *personal* computer for a reason.
If two partitions, which size for OS would be OK?
I always start with 20GB for the boot partition. Whether or not I leave
it at 20GB depends on the size of the HD, and how much space is taken up
on the partition after installing the software, leaving room for more
software and other items to be installed, plus leaving 20% free space
for Windows to operate correctly. 15% is the required amount of free
space for Windows operation. When everything is all but done, and I
want to change the size of the boot partition, I use partitioning software.
If the drive is less than 30GB, I don't partition at all. :-( There's
data storage space used by the system to keep track of what's where,
etc., and eventually you can be too stingy and actually slow things down
and decrease the amount of space available to you.
It's a juggling act.
--
Ken
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