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HDD partitioning question..

N

Nintari

Senior member
Ok just wanted to make sure I am correct on this...
If you et say an 80 gig Hard drive 7200 rpm etc etc, and partition it to 20/60 gig, you use the 20 gig for os and etc, and the 60 gig for all Games programs etc. Wouldn't the transfer rates and performance be slower? Factoring in tat your running a program from the 60 gig partition, and the os and swap file is on the 20 gig area. Just a question I had is all 🙂
 
FAT32 has a partition limit of 32GB per partition. So, you have to make at least 2 for a 60GB drive if you want to use FAT32.
 
The limit for a FAT32 partition is 128GB.

Win2K/XP limit you to formatting a 32GB FAT32 partition. If you wanted a larger FAT32 partition, you have to create and format it under Win98/SE/ME.

In my opinion, any difference in performance is negligible and won't affect you materially.
 


<< The limit for a FAT32 partition is 128GB. >>



That is true. I didn't know you could use the DOS tools to get to this size. Thanks for the info. You know why 2K and XP limit it to 32GB?
 
Because NTFS is considered more efficient for building the file index on partitions that get that big.
So that is just a way for MS to "encourage" people who are already using W2000/XP to move
up to the filesystem that can better suit their needs.

I forgot about the upper limit on FAT32, becuase I usually like to keep the partitions smaller to
make it easier on backups and minor maintenance.

There is a small benefit to keeping your boot partition small, it improves initial seek times at startup
because the drive heads don't have to move as far to find the OS files and drivers to boot from.
Once the system is up though, the OS usually provides effecient enough read ahead and caching
of other files that it can compensate for the longer seeks that might occur on a larger data partition.
Transfer rates should be consistent in either case, unless the larger partition is heavily fragmented.

 
I just went through and formatted my drive with a 98 boot disk for fat 32 lol I'm glad you told me about the fat32/xp ting I would have spent a long time trying to figure that one out. I was going to get a 80 gig drive, but then considdered a 40 gig drive instead, and hope to use that money for a better video card. Right now I have a Kyro II (I bought because of te TV out, this computer is in an entertainment center) But with the Radeon 7500, 8500 and new GF3s coming out I might up to one of those. Only problem is I like the kyro because the TV out is on all of the time as opposed to having to enable it each time. I installed xp using only my tv for output. Problem is no one has shown any benchmarks under XP and the radeons seemed to suck wind under windows 2000. The kyro II did better in bechmarks under windows 2000 than windows me, but perform slower in xp lol. But that all is for anoter forum area. 🙂
 

FAT32 - Max is 2TB, but Win9.x can only handle 127.53GB. Win2k can inherit >32GB but could only create <32GB partition.
 
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