to partition or not to

[death1.1]

i have a 300g new hard drive .home use is it better to keep hole or cut up?

 

[Hiram B Culpeper]

i have a 300g new hard drive .home use is it better to keep hole or cut up?

If you mean partioning, keep it as one big partition.

 

[nass]

i have a 300g new hard drive .home use is it better to keep hole or cut up?

Best if you did to many Partitions, say one for the Music, one for the Docs,
one for the Pics and the other for Backup.
If you mean by that another HDD other than the System one!, if you
installing the system on it, best if you created more than One partition on
that Hard Drive.
HTH.
nass

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

i have a 300g new hard drive .home use is it better to keep hole or cut up?

A word on the terminology: partitioning is required, not optional.
Partitioning is the act of creating one or more partitions on the
drive. Since you can't use a drive until it has at least one partition
on it, *everyone* needs to partition.

The only question is whether you should have more than one partition.
This is not a question to which everyone has the same answer, and
you'll find different points of view. 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 on the entire drive,
then as 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.

 

[Lil' Dave]

i have a 300g new hard drive .home use is it better to keep hole or cut up?

You must have ---- 1 ---- partition.

Any more depends on how you use all your software. And, to that end, it
also depends if you have any more hard drives as well. How many partitions,
and how large depends on the amount of data intended for now and the future
on such, and your own schemes.
Dave

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

in my opinion having a
single partition is no longer
necessary, since hd's are larger
and cheaper.

further, having a single partition
is like putting all your eggs in
one basket.

in addition to the ideas
provided, i recommend
at least 3 partitions,
but more is better
whenever possible:

1) you want the main partition
to be dedicated for the system
and programs.

2) you want a partition for your
personal files, like the "my
documents" folder. (you can
easily right click on the shortcut
and move the whole thing out
of the system partition.)

in the event the main partition
crashes, the partition with your
personal documents, files, etc
will be spared from a format
and system reinstallation, if it
occurs.

3) you would also want another
partition dedicated to the
swap file/virtual memory.

this will allow the swap file
to remain contiguous as possible
if it is the "only" file in "a"
partition. (if the vm is left
on the system partition, then
it will become fragmented
along with all the program
and system files.)

------------------

having a partitioning program
makes it helpful as initially
you can create partitions of
equal sizes, then in time you
can customize the size of
each partition.

--

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..

 

[M.I.5¾]

i have a 300g new hard drive .home use is it better to keep hole or cut up?

If the drive has a hole in it, it's probably best scrapped.

 

[Ed]

Under performance->Advance tab, you can custom allocate the initial and max
size of the swap file to the size one desired.(If you do that in one
operation, it is very likely the file is contagious and near the faster part
of your disc) Many systems have so much memory nowadays, I wonder how often
those swap files are used.

Why would we need to separate out a partition just for swap file?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Under performance->Advance tab, you can custom allocate the initial and max
size of the swap file to the size one desired.(If you do that in one
operation, it is very likely the file is contagious and near the faster part
of your disc) Many systems have so much memory nowadays, I wonder how often
those swap files are used.

That's an excellent point, and one that's often overlooked. If you
have enough RAM, page file settings become largely irrelevant.

Why would we need to separate out a partition just for swap file?

You don't. In fact, doing so is counterproductive. It hurts
performance, because it puts the page file farther from the other
frequently-used data on the drive, and therefore increases the time
used for the drive heads to go back and forth between the partitions.
For best performance, you want to minimize head movement, and to do
that the page file should normally be on the most-used partition of
your least-used physical drive. For most people, that's C:.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

You don't. In fact, doing so is counterproductive. It hurts
performance, because it puts the page file farther from the other
frequently-used data on the drive, and therefore increases the time
used for the drive heads to go back and forth between the partitions.

Wouldn't intermingling swapfile fragments with data file fragments
increase the access time of both file types? If the swapfile were
kept in its own partition, fragments of both file types would be kept
closer together. And since the swapfile is effectively "defragmented"
whenever a file is deleted from it, the swapfile wouldn't impact
fragmentation of the data files.

For best performance, you want to minimize head movement, and
to do that the page file should normally be on the most-used partition
of your least-used physical drive. For most people, that's C:.

And if you have 2 hard drives, you could put the swapfile on
the 2nd hard drive to keep arm movements of both drives short.
And if you put the swapfile partition at the outer sectors of the disk,
more bytes would pass under the read/write head per millisecond,
decreasing access time.

And, of course, more RAM is the best solution of all.

*TimDaniels*

 

[mayayana]

Why would we need to separate out a partition just for swap file?

I use a number of data partitions because it
seems like an outdated and inefficient method
to put Windows on 100 GB and risk losing
everything if it goes down. I also put the swap
file on one of data those partitions and set its size
to min 200 MB / max 200 MB. That makes it a
static file that doesn't mix with the OS and
software. If I ever get a job editing movies then
I guess I'd need a bigger swap file, but for nearly
all purposes people already have too much RAM.
I only keep a swap file at all as a "just in case",
to be used in the event that I do something like
edit a very big digital camera image and want a
large number of Undo options.

Another advantage of putting the swap file
elsewhere is for disk imaging, to keep the installed
OS size down to a bare minimum for compact imaging.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Wouldn't intermingling swapfile fragments with data file fragments
increase the access time of both file types? If the swapfile were
kept in its own partition, fragments of both file types would be kept
closer together. And since the swapfile is effectively "defragmented"
whenever a file is deleted from it, the swapfile wouldn't impact
fragmentation of the data files.

Because access to the page file is largely random anyway, any concerns
over its fragmentation are largely meaningless.

The single slowest thing you can do with a hard drive is move the
heads. That happens at slow mechanical speeds, not electronic ones.
And the farther the heads have to move, the longer it takes. If the
swap file is on a separate partition on your only drive, it's about as
far away as possible from everything else, and is the slowest
scenario. That extra head movement greatly outweighs any fragmentation
considerations.

And if you have 2 hard drives, you could put the swapfile on
the 2nd hard drive to keep arm movements of both drives short.

Right. The above sentence says that. Note the phrase "least-used
physical drive."

And if you put the swapfile partition at the outer sectors of the disk,
more bytes would pass under the read/write head per millisecond,
decreasing access time.

Again, that's greatly outweighed by head movement considerations.

And, of course, more RAM is the best solution of all.

Absolutely. We completely agree on that. As I said in the part of my
message you snipped "If you have enough RAM, page file settings become
largely irrelevant."

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I use a number of data partitions because it
seems like an outdated and inefficient method
to put Windows on 100 GB and risk losing
everything if it goes down.

Your choice of course, but I think that makes no sense at all, for two
reasons:

1. The way to overcome the risk of losing everything is by instituting
a strong program of regular backup to external media, not store in the
computer. Anything less than that and you are just kidding yourself.

2. Relying on separation by partition as a means of protection against
data loss is the weakest possible protection you can provide. It is
always possible that a hard drive crash, user error, nearby lightning
strike, virus attack, even theft of the computer, can cause the loss
of everything on your drive. As has often been said, it's not a matter
of whether you will have such a problem, but when.

Those are the things you need to protect yourself against, not just
the loss of a single partition.

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

yes, there are a number of
M$ knowledge base's citing a
variety of reasons for the use
of a separate partition or harddrive
for the pagefile.

based on my own personal
experience and my computers
and with the addition of Microsoft
recommendations, i will always
recommend a separate place
for a pagefile whenever drive
space is lucrative.

your point on backups/images
is an excellent one!

no need to spend time
imaging a pagefile or the
cost of additional media.

no need to spend time
defragging a system drive
that includes pagefile
fragments.



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