How many partition will work best?

[AllGamer]

The 1 TB (terabyte) WD HDD just arrived, so now i'm proceeding to install it.

But i was wondering if it will perform better as 1 huge partition, or several splits?

It's going to be storing mostly TiVO stuff, MP3, videos, photos, etc.

This drive is going to be dedicated mainly for multimedia stuff, TiVO recording average is 700 MB to 2.5 GB depending on the length of the show and quality.

That's the nice thing of have the ATI All in Wonder

anyways, so i just want to hear some opinions

I know by personal experience 1 huge partition, usually performs rather sluggish slow.

But not sure how many partition will work best for a monster size HDD like this one LOL


(this 1 TB WD is replacing my old 500 GB WD that just died)

-EDIT-
hmm... weird, i've added a poll to this thing, but is not showing up?

 

[OdiN]

1 partition unless you are thinking of doing virtulization and want to split off virtual machines or if you wanted to install multiple OS's.

You could do 2 - one for all your data, another for just OS/Programs - you can reload and not affect data if needed.

I have seperate drives for OS / Data myself though.

But I wouldn't go over 2.

 

[Andvari]

Why wouldn't you go over 2? I'm basically in the same situation, as I'll be getting 2 WD 500gb's and probably doing RAID 0. I too was wondering if I should partition it or anything. My current drive is OS/Data, and I was probably going to just do that again but was curious what other people thought.

I thought about using one for OS/programs, and the other for data. But there would be oodles of wasted space left over on the OS/program drive, so I figured I'd RAID them as one.

 

[Blain]

The smart thing to do is use different drives.

 

[Old Hippie]

That drive's gonna go the same speed no matter how many partitions you have. I don't see a difference between making folders, or making partitions.
I've had a ton of partitions, and a ton of folders. I couldn't see a difference.

Soo, tell me. Why do we want to partition?

The gigabyte drives are nice for storage, but I'd never use one as my only drive.

OP, how lucky do ya feeel?

 

[Jiggz]

2 at a minimum depending how much digging you want to do in Window Explorer. The reason for at least two is to separate the OS/Apps and data/downloads. By separating the two, you can always reformat and re-install windows and apps (from installation cd's/DVD's) without ever affecting data/downloads. And we all know Windows is not the most perfect OS especially when it's time to install updates.

 

[AllGamer]

as you can see from my Siggie, i've got 4 HDD
2 x WD Raptor 74
1 x WD 500 GB
and the brand new 1 x WD 1000 GB (1 TB)

so i don't really have the need to separate OS/Apps
since i'm already doing that with my 2 Raptors
Raptor 1 is for OS
Raptor 2 is for Games
WD 500 GB is for Apps
WD 1 TB is for Videos, MP3, TV recording, pictures, etc.... and that seems to be precisely why the old one died, too much activity perhaps?

the mobo still got room for 2 more HDD, when they come back from RMA
but the case is out of space, well sort of, i can use the remaining 5 1/4 space to put the 2 remaining HDD (500 GB + 300 GB on RMA)

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I'm a fan of multiple partitions on multiple drives, just for organization.
150gb Raptor on mobo(2 partition for boot & temp)
150gb Raptor on Areca RAID controller(2 partitions for games & scratch)
5x400gb RE2's in RAID 5 on Areca RAID controller (2 partitions for media & storage)

 

[Andvari]

What is the "scratch" partition I always hear mentioned?

And is it true that if you have apps/games installed on a different partition from Windows, and you reformat, you have to reinstall the apps/games anyway due to the new registry?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: Andvari
What is the "scratch" partition I always hear mentioned?

And is it true that if you have apps/games installed on a different partition from Windows, and you reformat, you have to reinstall the apps/games anyway due to the new registry?

"scratch" refers to a temp disk for misc data. In Photoshop, you define a 'scratch' disk for the program to use while it is working on a graphic. Having the scratch disk define to a different disk can improve performance due to the disk not being used by the program or OS. It is the same concept as moving the windows page file or virtual memory to another disk.

And yes, it is true that you have to install apps and games again if you reformat the boot partition / drive. This is good and bad though--bad because you have to reformat, good because it saves your save games. I have the games drive on a seperate drive connected to my RAID controller (Areca card, not mobo RAID), so it reads independly from the OS, which theoretically would / can speed up performance. Do I notice a difference, no, nor have I tried to. But it is how I like to run my system.

A note about having to reinstall everything after you reformat. One thing I like to do is image a fresh install with the OS, drivers, updates, and games installed. The games remain there after you reformat and re-image, but you have a clean install. Not sure if this saves you from all the damned Guild Wars updates though.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Andvari
What is the "scratch" partition I always hear mentioned?

A scratch "drive" helps performance because tasks can be completed faster due to two drives working.
A "scratch partition" would not help performance at all, since the app uses a portion of the drive as a cache for "scratch" anyway.