hdd partitioning question

[hungrypete]

I have an old 17gb hard drive that is constantly full. I have 5 partitions all <= 4 gb. Does this give a filled hdd a performance advantage over, say, if it was 2 or 3 partitions of a larger size, but equally full? I'm going to format soon to get the last of my retired savage4 out for good, and thinking about redoing my partitions. What sizes would get the best performance out of my poor old hdd?

 

[blurredvisionx]

I would say 3 partitions would be sufficient. This is of course based totally on your own wants or needs. This is only my opinion, I really have no performance issues to back it up with.

 

[hungrypete]

^ anyone known about performance?

 

[Zigggy]

You didn't mention which O/S your using. If it's Win95A, you will save space by using smaller partitions. If Win95B or Win98 then just make 1 or 2 partitons.

 

[luvrambus]

Assuming you are using FAT32 (Windows 95 had FAT16 and it would not recognize partitions larger than 2 gigs; if I remember correctly)there is no performance gain from using multiple partitions in Win98 because windows demands to be on your primary Dos partition on your primary drive and this is where it will run and make its swap files. If you use other partitions they are just for your convenience. Some people like to have at least two partitions: One for windows and the other for backing up your stuff...like that you can format your windows partition and and keep all your stuff without having to back it up to other media such as CDR's. Other people just make them to organize their stuff better. Beware though the stuff you backup on a different partition of your primary drive is only safe from a registry crash, if it's a physical hard drive crash you're screwed.
Now, if you're using linux or multiple operating systems that is a totally different case...

 

[Cougar]

luvrambus...

That's not entirely true. Windows itself can rest on any partition you see fit, but the boot files (io.sys, msdos.sys, command.com) have to be on the primary (c:\) partition. If you were to make two partitions and installed windows on the d: partition it would automatically put the boot files on the c: partition and it would work just fine.