hdd strategies

[noob200150]

so i have a 200 gb i was going to put windows 7 on same hard drive split into 40 gb for windows and micrsoft programs and i was going to put rest 160 gb steam all my games and files is this a good idea???

 

[LokutusofBorg]

Partitions are so 90's... They end up being a PITA. Spend $20 and buy a second hard drive if you have valid reasons for having your stuff split. If you have to ask for good reasons to use partitions, then you don't.

 

[Blain]

Partitions are so 90's... They end up being a PITA. Spend $20 and buy a second hard drive if you have valid reasons for having your stuff split. If you have to ask for good reasons to use partitions, then you don't.

You said it brother!
The only partitions I make anymore is a 4GB at the end of a drive.
Stuff I put there are drivers, EXE's of free apps I always load and leave the rest for someone to toss some data onto.
I cut a 4GB partition so that someone can simply burn the whole thing to a DVD-R if they want to.
Other than that I don't play the spinning partition wheel of fortune.

 

[Emulex]

partitions existed to negate the effect of FAT32 inherent ability to turn files into air. NTFS (the version on windows 7/2008+) can self heal on the fly these days.

also to locate your swap at the optimal location - which is irrelevant with SSD.

but it is not a bad thing since win7/2008+ can hot grow/shrink a partition without shutting down.

With multi-threaded i/o capability you could in fact increase performance in some cases with a partition or better yet multiple real drives since you can dispatch threads on more cores to do i/o. which is SQL server 101 on why you create a 'ton of mount points or drives if you are so inclined to store your database(s),tables within, logs for, and tmp. if you have 4 cores and only one I/O path then you'll dispatch 1 core to do the i/o and wait. if you have a program that can dispatch those to separate paths (logical or physical i guess it doesn't matter much). its likely those unused extra cores can dispatch i/o.

Much like how hyperthreading works - even if its 10% gain it is gain over not having it. and sometimes it is not gain at all - just depends on the application.

I'd just have two ssd drives or more in jbod given the state of raid controllers (really does it really take a year or two to do trim in intel matrix? they could bust that out in a day since its software raid).

so you have old tech; and new tech that is now at consumer level - to consider.