Dude, he was trying to help...I appreciated the time he spent on his post, even if it might not be totally correct in your eyes. I'm trying to get as much information as possible, and what he wrote definitely helped
I have WinME and Win98SE. WinME's user interface has been cleaned up, a few new features have been added, support for the latest round of hardware has been built it, and of course all the security updates, IE5.5, etc. that are available from the MS Windows Update site have been integrated. WinME boots faster and handles crashes better as well (Message boxes of death instead of blue screens of death... lol). If you could choose I would choose WinME, the $40 upgrade from Win98SE doesn't cost that much.
I also enjoy not having to carry the WinME CD around all the time when I change network settings or install new hardware. During install, it copies the CAB files to the hard drive for quick access. Sure, it takes up more hard drive space, but a few hundred MB on a 45GB hard drive is nothing to be concerned about.
The next big thing, however will be Whistler. I can't wait...
I also enjoy not having to carry the WinME CD around all the time when I change network settings or install new hardware. During install, it copies the CAB files to the hard drive for quick access. Sure, it takes up more hard drive space, but a few hundred MB on a 45GB hard drive is nothing to be concerned about.
The next big thing, however will be Whistler. I can't wait...
Uhhh.... Stealth, I think you got the wrong thread.
Descend492:
Though Modus typed a lot, his post is inaccurate when dealing with the drive size you have. Also, it's NTFS (New Technology File System), not NTSF.
Descend492:
Though Modus typed a lot, his post is inaccurate when dealing with the drive size you have. Also, it's NTFS (New Technology File System), not NTSF.
Well, there are arguments for and against partitioning.
Isn't there some sort of limit on how many folders/files can be put into the root directory of a drive and nesting limits?
What I personally do is have just 3 partitions - one for the OS/my docs, one for apps, one for games. This works well for me.
Seasons greetings
Greg
Isn't there some sort of limit on how many folders/files can be put into the root directory of a drive and nesting limits?
What I personally do is have just 3 partitions - one for the OS/my docs, one for apps, one for games. This works well for me.
Seasons greetings
Greg
Until I can get some Drive Image software that will let me burn an Image to a CD on the fly, I will always have 2 partitons on my hard drive.
Modus is correct in what he says, however I still need the 2nd partition to make my clean install backup. If you use WinNT then cluster slack doesnt amount to anything because all clusters are only 512 bytes big.
Descend492,
If you are using WinNT 4 or Win2k, and have a Drive Image program that can burn your image to a CD on the fly, format the drive as 1 large 46 GB NTFS partition. (also do this if you dont care to have a clean install backup image)
If you dont have any Drive Image software that will burn to a CD on the fly, split the drive into 2 partitions. Which size each is, is up to you, but make sure that your 2nd partition is either FAT16 or FAT32 so that your Drive Imaging software can make the image.
Modus is correct in what he says, however I still need the 2nd partition to make my clean install backup. If you use WinNT then cluster slack doesnt amount to anything because all clusters are only 512 bytes big.
Descend492,
If you are using WinNT 4 or Win2k, and have a Drive Image program that can burn your image to a CD on the fly, format the drive as 1 large 46 GB NTFS partition. (also do this if you dont care to have a clean install backup image)
If you dont have any Drive Image software that will burn to a CD on the fly, split the drive into 2 partitions. Which size each is, is up to you, but make sure that your 2nd partition is either FAT16 or FAT32 so that your Drive Imaging software can make the image.
C drive - Surprising how much debate can be found around such a basic concept as partitioning.
Ext2 Linux native (primary) - Partitioning is a personal thing, as you can plainly see. There's no right or wrong - it's what works best for the (individual) user. I merely detailed what I would do, as I have plenty of experience partitioning drives - big ones, small ones, IDE, SCSI, FAT16, FAT32, EXT2, etc. I currently have 6 hard drives in my system - 3 ATA & 3 SCSI - drive letters to Q (not counting CDROM & burner). My 45-gig IBM 75GXPs are busted up into 3 15-gig partitions .. but I don't boot from them. I have a 3x5 card taped to the side of my monitor, telling me what physical drives have what logical partitions. Works for me.
Linux swap - One big partition doesn't work for me - except for drives dedicated for video/AVI files (dedicated capture drive) .. but it obviously works for some others. If you really want to find what works best, try different partitioning schemes. You're the one who has to live with it.
D drive - I didn't read Modus' post, cuz I had probs with his first sentence .. where he said partitioning into smaller drives isn't worth the hassle. Partitioning isn't a hassle for me .. and I wondered what part of partitioning he finds a hassle. For me, busting up a big drive into smaller logical drives makes life easier.
E drive - When I changed from FAT16 (32kb clusters) to FAT32 (4kb clusters), I got 28% more space .. similar to what Pariah mentioned.
F drive - Can't imagine anyone wanting to defrag a 45GB partition.
Ext2 Linux native (primary) - Partitioning is a personal thing, as you can plainly see. There's no right or wrong - it's what works best for the (individual) user. I merely detailed what I would do, as I have plenty of experience partitioning drives - big ones, small ones, IDE, SCSI, FAT16, FAT32, EXT2, etc. I currently have 6 hard drives in my system - 3 ATA & 3 SCSI - drive letters to Q (not counting CDROM & burner). My 45-gig IBM 75GXPs are busted up into 3 15-gig partitions .. but I don't boot from them. I have a 3x5 card taped to the side of my monitor, telling me what physical drives have what logical partitions. Works for me.
Linux swap - One big partition doesn't work for me - except for drives dedicated for video/AVI files (dedicated capture drive) .. but it obviously works for some others. If you really want to find what works best, try different partitioning schemes. You're the one who has to live with it.
D drive - I didn't read Modus' post, cuz I had probs with his first sentence .. where he said partitioning into smaller drives isn't worth the hassle. Partitioning isn't a hassle for me .. and I wondered what part of partitioning he finds a hassle. For me, busting up a big drive into smaller logical drives makes life easier.
E drive - When I changed from FAT16 (32kb clusters) to FAT32 (4kb clusters), I got 28% more space .. similar to what Pariah mentioned.
F drive - Can't imagine anyone wanting to defrag a 45GB partition.
Sorry Pariah - too many IE windows open at the same time. lol
but it still applies: "...so I might need either Windows 98 or ME..."
but it still applies: "...so I might need either Windows 98 or ME..."
Turbopit,
<<I currently have a 4.3 gig hard drive with a lot of programs on both on C: and D: that I don't have CD's for. My current OS is a kinda early version of 98. I have an IBM 45 gig on the way. What's the best way to get all my prgrams onto the new drive, preferebly under one drive letter?>>
It's a really tricky procedure, especially when there are many programs to transfer. As you probably guessed, you can't just drag and drop the program folders over to the new drive; registry settings and INI files will still refer to things using the program's old driver letter. You have to manually correct every instance of these registry keys and INI settings. It's a big job, and almost pointless considering the time it takes.
Now, a few commerical (and possibly shareware) programs have features that attempt to do this automatically, with varrying degrees of success: CleanSweep, DriveImage, Maxtor's MaxBlast drive installation program, and other backup programs come to mind. But definitely try to locate the original CD's for those applications. That way, you can simply move whatever data is on the old drive, and reinstall the program to the new drive properly.
JellyBaby,
<<Win 9x users who don't partition will enjoy a long, long, long wait everytime Scandisk automatically runs at startup.>>
Not at all. The length of time it takes Scandisk to run is entirely dependent on the amount of data on your drive, not the partitioning scheme. Besides, Scandisk on startup only happens when there's a power outage or your system suffers a hard lockup: both rare occurances. If you are Scandisk'ing enough to care about its speed, something is seriously wrong with your system and you need to look further than partitioning.
<<Defrag, under fat32 at least, is indeed a mangy dog-like beast. It might make sense to place performance critical applications (hint, games) onto a single, smaller partition so you can frequently run defrag to keep everything optimized.>>
Defragmentation is widely misunderstood to be a magic bullet for any hard drive performance woes. (See Defragmentation Explained for details.) In reality, a weekly Scandisk and Defrag of the entire drive is enough to keep any file system running optimally. Defrag is certainly not a time-critical application, in fact, it's always going to be a walk-away job anyway. So bending your whole drive management scheme around Defrag performance is pretty silly. And regardless of how you partition, it will always take just as long to defragment the entire drive.
LXi,
<<I was convinced partitioning a big drive to smaller ones are useless a very long time ago.>>
It's just a minimalist philosophy -- you can either complicate your life or simplify it. Partitioning complicates and, in the vast majority of cases, yields no tangible benefit.
<<Also, I'll be getting a 40GB drive pretty soon, it will be for storage only. But Im going with Win2K so Im not so sure if I NTFS is right for me. I heard that their clusters are actually 64KB, but you said its 512byte, is it worth the hassle getting NTFS?>>
Yes, NTFS clusters are 512 byte, basically negating any cluster slack. Unlike FATxx, NTFS is designed to deal with the enormous amount of clusters that would result when each is only 512b long. It implements a binary search tree to locate clusters faster and make up for the larger file allocation table (FAT). Theoretically you could have FAT32 with 512b clusters but it would be unbearably slow.
Descend492,
<<So you're in favor of one huge 46 gig partition (assuming I'm going to have Linux on a separate drive)? Also, which file type do you recommend (FAT32 or NTSF)? I seemed to think NTSF.>>
Yes. One large NTFS partition and throw Linux on the second drive. NTFS is more advanced and Win2k likes it better. Only thing you might consider is that some Linux kernels can now read FAT32 volumes (not sure about NTFS), so maybe if you stick with FAT32 for Win2k, the Linux OS will be able to access files from it. It's up to you.
<<Somebody else mentioned you can specify what cluster size you want, but you said 512 bytes is the default...is this the best cluster size (maybe I should say most efficient)>>
Yes, stick with the default 512b for NTFS.
Rigoletto,
<<Modus, do you have OCD or PPD?>>
Not too funny if you know some one who suffers from it.
<<It's Christmas day, go and get laid or at least kiss your granny under the mistletoe... instead of posting long obsessive arguments as long as they fly against received logic!>>
Received logic? When does that arrive? Does the Fedex guy make you sign for it?
<<Sucks to Modus, I partition big hard drives and I always will>>
Translation: "My mind is made up, don't try to confuse me with the facts."
Pariah,
<<If you dual boot and share your apps between the 2 OS's, you can wipe one out and still have everything you need for the other. The benefit there is obvious.>>
Not quite. You can only wipe the partition that doesn't have the applications on it -- big deal.
<<Your analysis of FAT32 slack is not particularly accurate. And is basically inaccurate when applied to drive being discussed in this thread.>>
The only reason it doesn't apply to the drive in this thread is that Descend492 is going to be using NTFS, where cluster slack is even less of an issue as it is in FAT32. But the analysis of cluster slack is definitely accurate. See below:
<<Once you hit 16GB you have 16KB clusters which isn't very efficient, when you hit 32GB, your cluster size increases to 32KB clusters which is the same as a 2GB FAT16 partition, which is as bad as it will get for a FAT drive.>>
But how bad? Not bad at all. The key point to remember in all of this is what I said in the original post: "People with drives occupied by the relatively huge files of MP3's and graphics waste very little space."
See, almost of all the cluster slack data partitioning advocates rely on is from three or four years ago, when FAT16 gave us 32k cluters on 2G drives. What took up the bulk of hard drives back then? Programs. And what fills up our drives now? Digital audio and video. So what's the key difference between the two data types? Programs are characterized by large numbers of small files, whereas digital media is characterized by large numbers of large files.
The fact is that a single file on a hard drive will never waste more than the size of one cluster. Now, when you have lots of small files as in the folder of a Windows application, that's a relatively large amount of space being wasted, because the average file is not much bigger than a cluster. But when you have a folder full of 1000 4M or 5M MP3 files, each file will still only waste a maximum of one cluster. So assuming 32k clusters, you'll waste at *most* only 32M out of 5G. That's nothing. It's completely insignificant.
But we can easily put this to rest. Simply have everyone do this test, and report back with their cluster size, total file size, total occupied space, and wasted space:
Go to My Computer, double click on C:\, press Ctrl-A, and click File>Properties (ignore any message about the hidden files in your root directory, they're insignificant). A window will pop up showing you some important numbers. First, a count of the files on this drive. Then, under "Size", two numbers: the first will be the total size of all your files, and the second will be the total space occupied by all your files including wasted clusters. The second number will always be a multiple of your cluster size, and it will always be large than the first number. (For your cluster size, type CHKDSK at the DOS prompt, and read the size of each allocation unit.) By subtracting the first number from the second number, you get the exact amount of wasted space on the drive.
You'll find that cluster slack, even on a 32k partition, is much less than the 25% figure often quoted. And for people with 8k or 16k clusters, simply multiply the wasted space by 4 or 2, respectively, for a good estimate of your wasted space on a 32k partition. It's much less than you'd expect.
I'll start, with my home system:
8k clusters
8,174,590,655 bytes total file size
8,227,520,512 bytes total occupied space
-------------
0,052,929,847 bytes wasted
In other words, I waste 50M out of 8G. With 32k clusters, I'd waste about 200M out of 8G -- an enormous grand total just under 2.5 per cent!
Insignificant.
Modus
<<I currently have a 4.3 gig hard drive with a lot of programs on both on C: and D: that I don't have CD's for. My current OS is a kinda early version of 98. I have an IBM 45 gig on the way. What's the best way to get all my prgrams onto the new drive, preferebly under one drive letter?>>
It's a really tricky procedure, especially when there are many programs to transfer. As you probably guessed, you can't just drag and drop the program folders over to the new drive; registry settings and INI files will still refer to things using the program's old driver letter. You have to manually correct every instance of these registry keys and INI settings. It's a big job, and almost pointless considering the time it takes.
Now, a few commerical (and possibly shareware) programs have features that attempt to do this automatically, with varrying degrees of success: CleanSweep, DriveImage, Maxtor's MaxBlast drive installation program, and other backup programs come to mind. But definitely try to locate the original CD's for those applications. That way, you can simply move whatever data is on the old drive, and reinstall the program to the new drive properly.
JellyBaby,
<<Win 9x users who don't partition will enjoy a long, long, long wait everytime Scandisk automatically runs at startup.>>
Not at all. The length of time it takes Scandisk to run is entirely dependent on the amount of data on your drive, not the partitioning scheme. Besides, Scandisk on startup only happens when there's a power outage or your system suffers a hard lockup: both rare occurances. If you are Scandisk'ing enough to care about its speed, something is seriously wrong with your system and you need to look further than partitioning.
<<Defrag, under fat32 at least, is indeed a mangy dog-like beast. It might make sense to place performance critical applications (hint, games) onto a single, smaller partition so you can frequently run defrag to keep everything optimized.>>
Defragmentation is widely misunderstood to be a magic bullet for any hard drive performance woes. (See Defragmentation Explained for details.) In reality, a weekly Scandisk and Defrag of the entire drive is enough to keep any file system running optimally. Defrag is certainly not a time-critical application, in fact, it's always going to be a walk-away job anyway. So bending your whole drive management scheme around Defrag performance is pretty silly. And regardless of how you partition, it will always take just as long to defragment the entire drive.
LXi,
<<I was convinced partitioning a big drive to smaller ones are useless a very long time ago.>>
It's just a minimalist philosophy -- you can either complicate your life or simplify it. Partitioning complicates and, in the vast majority of cases, yields no tangible benefit.
<<Also, I'll be getting a 40GB drive pretty soon, it will be for storage only. But Im going with Win2K so Im not so sure if I NTFS is right for me. I heard that their clusters are actually 64KB, but you said its 512byte, is it worth the hassle getting NTFS?>>
Yes, NTFS clusters are 512 byte, basically negating any cluster slack. Unlike FATxx, NTFS is designed to deal with the enormous amount of clusters that would result when each is only 512b long. It implements a binary search tree to locate clusters faster and make up for the larger file allocation table (FAT). Theoretically you could have FAT32 with 512b clusters but it would be unbearably slow.
Descend492,
<<So you're in favor of one huge 46 gig partition (assuming I'm going to have Linux on a separate drive)? Also, which file type do you recommend (FAT32 or NTSF)? I seemed to think NTSF.>>
Yes. One large NTFS partition and throw Linux on the second drive. NTFS is more advanced and Win2k likes it better. Only thing you might consider is that some Linux kernels can now read FAT32 volumes (not sure about NTFS), so maybe if you stick with FAT32 for Win2k, the Linux OS will be able to access files from it. It's up to you.
<<Somebody else mentioned you can specify what cluster size you want, but you said 512 bytes is the default...is this the best cluster size (maybe I should say most efficient)>>
Yes, stick with the default 512b for NTFS.
Rigoletto,
<<Modus, do you have OCD or PPD?>>
Not too funny if you know some one who suffers from it.
<<It's Christmas day, go and get laid or at least kiss your granny under the mistletoe... instead of posting long obsessive arguments as long as they fly against received logic!>>
Received logic? When does that arrive? Does the Fedex guy make you sign for it?
<<Sucks to Modus, I partition big hard drives and I always will>>
Translation: "My mind is made up, don't try to confuse me with the facts."
Pariah,
<<If you dual boot and share your apps between the 2 OS's, you can wipe one out and still have everything you need for the other. The benefit there is obvious.>>
Not quite. You can only wipe the partition that doesn't have the applications on it -- big deal.
<<Your analysis of FAT32 slack is not particularly accurate. And is basically inaccurate when applied to drive being discussed in this thread.>>
The only reason it doesn't apply to the drive in this thread is that Descend492 is going to be using NTFS, where cluster slack is even less of an issue as it is in FAT32. But the analysis of cluster slack is definitely accurate. See below:
<<Once you hit 16GB you have 16KB clusters which isn't very efficient, when you hit 32GB, your cluster size increases to 32KB clusters which is the same as a 2GB FAT16 partition, which is as bad as it will get for a FAT drive.>>
But how bad? Not bad at all. The key point to remember in all of this is what I said in the original post: "People with drives occupied by the relatively huge files of MP3's and graphics waste very little space."
See, almost of all the cluster slack data partitioning advocates rely on is from three or four years ago, when FAT16 gave us 32k cluters on 2G drives. What took up the bulk of hard drives back then? Programs. And what fills up our drives now? Digital audio and video. So what's the key difference between the two data types? Programs are characterized by large numbers of small files, whereas digital media is characterized by large numbers of large files.
The fact is that a single file on a hard drive will never waste more than the size of one cluster. Now, when you have lots of small files as in the folder of a Windows application, that's a relatively large amount of space being wasted, because the average file is not much bigger than a cluster. But when you have a folder full of 1000 4M or 5M MP3 files, each file will still only waste a maximum of one cluster. So assuming 32k clusters, you'll waste at *most* only 32M out of 5G. That's nothing. It's completely insignificant.
But we can easily put this to rest. Simply have everyone do this test, and report back with their cluster size, total file size, total occupied space, and wasted space:
Go to My Computer, double click on C:\, press Ctrl-A, and click File>Properties (ignore any message about the hidden files in your root directory, they're insignificant). A window will pop up showing you some important numbers. First, a count of the files on this drive. Then, under "Size", two numbers: the first will be the total size of all your files, and the second will be the total space occupied by all your files including wasted clusters. The second number will always be a multiple of your cluster size, and it will always be large than the first number. (For your cluster size, type CHKDSK at the DOS prompt, and read the size of each allocation unit.) By subtracting the first number from the second number, you get the exact amount of wasted space on the drive.
You'll find that cluster slack, even on a 32k partition, is much less than the 25% figure often quoted. And for people with 8k or 16k clusters, simply multiply the wasted space by 4 or 2, respectively, for a good estimate of your wasted space on a 32k partition. It's much less than you'd expect.
I'll start, with my home system:
8k clusters
8,174,590,655 bytes total file size
8,227,520,512 bytes total occupied space
-------------
0,052,929,847 bytes wasted
In other words, I waste 50M out of 8G. With 32k clusters, I'd waste about 200M out of 8G -- an enormous grand total just under 2.5 per cent!
Insignificant.
Modus
Stefan,
<<Until I can get some Drive Image software that will let me burn an Image to a CD on the fly, I will always have 2 partitons on my hard drive.>>
PowerQuest DriveImage 4.0
Modus
<<Until I can get some Drive Image software that will let me burn an Image to a CD on the fly, I will always have 2 partitons on my hard drive.>>
PowerQuest DriveImage 4.0
Modus
hahahahahahahaha!
Modus, look out the window, a white van and men with butterfly nets are waiting for you.
Modus, look out the window, a white van and men with butterfly nets are waiting for you.
"Not quite. You can only wipe the partition that doesn't have the applications on it -- big deal."
That's the idea. It leaves your other OS intact with all its applications still working.
I understand how FAT stores files, you don't need to type long winded posts trying to explain it. You're also assuming what people have on their hard drives, which is a feudal task. Most people have more than just mp3's or large movie files on their hard drive.
"You'll find that cluster slack, even on a 32k partition, is much less than the 25% figure often quoted"
I just quoted my own numbers in my last post and it was almost 30%. You need to sharpen up your math skills a bit.
"In other words, I waste 50M out of 8G. With 32k clusters, I'd waste about 200M out of 8G -- an enormous grand total just under 2.5 per cent!"
Now, explain to the rest of us how your 8GB partition carries any relevance to creating one 45GB partition.
Considering you didn't respond to the defrag/scan point, I assume you enjoy sitting around watching those run.
That's the idea. It leaves your other OS intact with all its applications still working.
I understand how FAT stores files, you don't need to type long winded posts trying to explain it. You're also assuming what people have on their hard drives, which is a feudal task. Most people have more than just mp3's or large movie files on their hard drive.
"You'll find that cluster slack, even on a 32k partition, is much less than the 25% figure often quoted"
I just quoted my own numbers in my last post and it was almost 30%. You need to sharpen up your math skills a bit.
"In other words, I waste 50M out of 8G. With 32k clusters, I'd waste about 200M out of 8G -- an enormous grand total just under 2.5 per cent!"
Now, explain to the rest of us how your 8GB partition carries any relevance to creating one 45GB partition.
Considering you didn't respond to the defrag/scan point, I assume you enjoy sitting around watching those run.
Hey just for the record I got an IBM 45GB 75GXP hard drive too!
New case isn't in yet so its just sitting here, along with all the other new computer parts..
Darn UPS, what do they think today is a holiday or something?!
New case isn't in yet so its just sitting here, along with all the other new computer parts..
Darn UPS, what do they think today is a holiday or something?!
Maxtor 20GB, 2 partitions
C:\ (OS, apps, programs)
Capacity: 4.87GB, 49,076 files, 1,511 folders
Size: 2.48 GB (2,666,728,689 bytes)
Size on disk: 2.59 GB (2,788,700,160 bytes)
Wasted: 121,971,471 bytes (~4.4% of occupied space)
D:\ (Games, MP3s, graphics, videos, downloads etc.)
Capacity: 14.1GB, 8,578 files, 657 folders
Size: 11.7 GB (12,581,820,478 bytes)
Size on disk: 11.7 GB (12,619,407,360 bytes)
Wasted: 37,586,882bytes (~0.3% of occupied space)
C:\ (OS, apps, programs)
Capacity: 4.87GB, 49,076 files, 1,511 folders
Size: 2.48 GB (2,666,728,689 bytes)
Size on disk: 2.59 GB (2,788,700,160 bytes)
Wasted: 121,971,471 bytes (~4.4% of occupied space)
D:\ (Games, MP3s, graphics, videos, downloads etc.)
Capacity: 14.1GB, 8,578 files, 657 folders
Size: 11.7 GB (12,581,820,478 bytes)
Size on disk: 11.7 GB (12,619,407,360 bytes)
Wasted: 37,586,882bytes (~0.3% of occupied space)
Rigoletto,
<<Modus, look out the window, a white van and men with butterfly nets are waiting for you.>>
I find your obsession with mental illness disturbing. You don't happen to be an enormous Native man with an institutional past, by any chance?
Pariah,
<<That's the idea. It leaves your other OS intact with all its applications still working.>>
Uh, right. And since running two operating systems automatically necessitates partitioning and dual booting, your entire point is moot.
<<I understand how FAT stores files, you don't need to type long winded posts trying to explain it.>>
You think I wrote all that just for you? I'm explaining it for the benefit of others who might be reading.
<<You're also assuming what people have on their hard drives, which is a feudal task. Most people have more than just mp3's or large movie files on their hard drive.>>
What I'm assuming is that some one with a 45G drive is not going to fill it up with a million copies of README.TXT. Mass storage these days is used almost exclusively for digital media -- audio, video, graphics, etc -- and these files are large enough to drastically reduce the effects of cluster slack.
<<I just quoted my own numbers in my last post and it was almost 30%. You need to sharpen up your math skills a bit.>>
When I mentioned 25% I was referring to the common exaggeration of 32k cluster slack, not your own abnormal case.
<<Now, explain to the rest of us how your 8GB partition carries any relevance to creating one 45GB partition.>>
The size of the partition is irrelevant, it's the cluster size that matters. If you waste X per cent of your space with X size clusters, then you'll tend waste 2X per cent of your space with 2X size clusters. Not exactly that, but close enough for large data sets.
<<Considering you didn't respond to the defrag/scan point, I assume you enjoy sitting around watching those run.>>
I did respond to that issue. You were apparently too bored with my post to read the whole thing. I'll sum it up here, in case your attention span doesn't allow you to scroll up and read it: basically, Scandisk and Defrag are once-a-week walk-away jobs, so their performance is irrelevant.
Modus
<<Modus, look out the window, a white van and men with butterfly nets are waiting for you.>>
I find your obsession with mental illness disturbing. You don't happen to be an enormous Native man with an institutional past, by any chance?
Pariah,
<<That's the idea. It leaves your other OS intact with all its applications still working.>>
Uh, right. And since running two operating systems automatically necessitates partitioning and dual booting, your entire point is moot.
<<I understand how FAT stores files, you don't need to type long winded posts trying to explain it.>>
You think I wrote all that just for you? I'm explaining it for the benefit of others who might be reading.
<<You're also assuming what people have on their hard drives, which is a feudal task. Most people have more than just mp3's or large movie files on their hard drive.>>
What I'm assuming is that some one with a 45G drive is not going to fill it up with a million copies of README.TXT. Mass storage these days is used almost exclusively for digital media -- audio, video, graphics, etc -- and these files are large enough to drastically reduce the effects of cluster slack.
<<I just quoted my own numbers in my last post and it was almost 30%. You need to sharpen up your math skills a bit.>>
When I mentioned 25% I was referring to the common exaggeration of 32k cluster slack, not your own abnormal case.
<<Now, explain to the rest of us how your 8GB partition carries any relevance to creating one 45GB partition.>>
The size of the partition is irrelevant, it's the cluster size that matters. If you waste X per cent of your space with X size clusters, then you'll tend waste 2X per cent of your space with 2X size clusters. Not exactly that, but close enough for large data sets.
<<Considering you didn't respond to the defrag/scan point, I assume you enjoy sitting around watching those run.>>
I did respond to that issue. You were apparently too bored with my post to read the whole thing. I'll sum it up here, in case your attention span doesn't allow you to scroll up and read it: basically, Scandisk and Defrag are once-a-week walk-away jobs, so their performance is irrelevant.
Modus
LXi,
Your data is very typical. Notice how the small files that make up your operating system and applications waste 4.4% whereas the vast bulk of your files only waste 0.3% of your storage? That's because, when the average file size of a data set reaches a certain multiple of the cluster size, cluster slack becomes negligible.
And that's where we are today. Our files have grown faster than our clusters.
Modus
Your data is very typical. Notice how the small files that make up your operating system and applications waste 4.4% whereas the vast bulk of your files only waste 0.3% of your storage? That's because, when the average file size of a data set reaches a certain multiple of the cluster size, cluster slack becomes negligible.
And that's where we are today. Our files have grown faster than our clusters.
Modus
"Uh, right. And since running two operating systems automatically necessitates partitioning and dual booting, your entire point is moot."
Uh, right. And the most common dual boot of WinNT/2k and Win9x doesn't require a repartition.
"The size of the partition is irrelevant, it's the cluster size that matters. If you waste X per cent of your space with X size clusters, then you'll tend waste 2X per cent of your space with 2X size clusters. Not exactly that, but close enough for large data sets."
You seem to be missing the fact that Windows defaults to certain cluster size depending on the size of the partition, which means partition size has everything to do with it.
Let's compare "typical" data on different partition sizes. I have a 1.55GB (4KB clusters) C drive which contains only win2k and the necessary extras (program files folder, profiles, etc), I consider an operating system as typical data which has to be somewhere on the drive. Size: (1,053,912,432 bytes) Size on disk (1,072,504,832 bytes). Wasted percentage: 1.01% Same files copied to a 60GB (32KB clusters) partition. Size: (1,053,912,432) Size on disk (1,428,488,192 bytes). Wasted percentage: 26.09%.
You just lost 400MB by storing 1GB of files because you didn't feel like creating a small partition for your OS.
As for my atypical numbers. One of my 60GB drives has nothing but pictures from my digital camera and mp3's and I'm still losing 18.5% on the data stored.
Uh, right. And the most common dual boot of WinNT/2k and Win9x doesn't require a repartition.
"The size of the partition is irrelevant, it's the cluster size that matters. If you waste X per cent of your space with X size clusters, then you'll tend waste 2X per cent of your space with 2X size clusters. Not exactly that, but close enough for large data sets."
You seem to be missing the fact that Windows defaults to certain cluster size depending on the size of the partition, which means partition size has everything to do with it.
Let's compare "typical" data on different partition sizes. I have a 1.55GB (4KB clusters) C drive which contains only win2k and the necessary extras (program files folder, profiles, etc), I consider an operating system as typical data which has to be somewhere on the drive. Size: (1,053,912,432 bytes) Size on disk (1,072,504,832 bytes). Wasted percentage: 1.01% Same files copied to a 60GB (32KB clusters) partition. Size: (1,053,912,432) Size on disk (1,428,488,192 bytes). Wasted percentage: 26.09%.
You just lost 400MB by storing 1GB of files because you didn't feel like creating a small partition for your OS.
As for my atypical numbers. One of my 60GB drives has nothing but pictures from my digital camera and mp3's and I'm still losing 18.5% on the data stored.
SUOrangeman
Diamond Member
- Oct 12, 1999
- 8,361
- 0
- 0
Gee, where do I stand on this issue?
I'm not gonna try to read all of the posts here nor will I explain why I think you should/shouldn't partition this way or that. I will only say this:
Your partitioning scheme should reflect how you use your machine. I like to be organized, almost to the point of being anal. I separate my **4** OSes via partitions as well as keeping personal files, MP3s, games, and downloads to their own little areas. I do not need to eek every last bit of performance and drive space out of my machine. If I wanted to do that, I would not still have a Celeron with PC100 RAM ... even if my FSB wasn't 100MHz. I don't care about slack. Heck, only one of my partitions may have 500MB or less of free space. And all of this on a single 20Gb drive!
I still stand by my personl partitioning standards. After running this system for roughly a year, the only change I'd make would be to make my temp/swap partition fo Windows 1GB in stead of 0.5GB. Other than that, everything has been fine and dandy.
-SUO
I'm not gonna try to read all of the posts here nor will I explain why I think you should/shouldn't partition this way or that. I will only say this:
Your partitioning scheme should reflect how you use your machine. I like to be organized, almost to the point of being anal. I separate my **4** OSes via partitions as well as keeping personal files, MP3s, games, and downloads to their own little areas. I do not need to eek every last bit of performance and drive space out of my machine. If I wanted to do that, I would not still have a Celeron with PC100 RAM ... even if my FSB wasn't 100MHz. I don't care about slack. Heck, only one of my partitions may have 500MB or less of free space. And all of this on a single 20Gb drive!
I still stand by my personl partitioning standards. After running this system for roughly a year, the only change I'd make would be to make my temp/swap partition fo Windows 1GB in stead of 0.5GB. Other than that, everything has been fine and dandy.
-SUO
Modus, I'll use one of your quotes to illustrate your views on partitioning:
<< "My mind is made up, don't try to confuse me with the facts." >>
Folks, let it rest. This is a guy who MUST HAVE THE LAST WORD. His view is the only one possible, even if its wrong. He will keep this or a Winmodem thread going to 100 posts (not exaggerating).
<< "My mind is made up, don't try to confuse me with the facts." >>
Folks, let it rest. This is a guy who MUST HAVE THE LAST WORD. His view is the only one possible, even if its wrong. He will keep this or a Winmodem thread going to 100 posts (not exaggerating).
Pariah,
<<You seem to be missing the fact that Windows defaults to certain cluster size depending on the size of the partition, which means partition size has everything to do with it.>>
Look, your orignial objection was that cluster slack on a 10G partition was irrelevant to cluster slack on a 45G partition, which is demonstratably false: cluster slack on typical data sets (where the files are larger than one cluster) simply grows linearly with cluster size. So a 32k partition will genearlly waste four times as much space as an 8k partition.
<<I consider an operating system as typical data which has to be somewhere on the drive.>>
Which is wrong. It's not typical data. How much of the data on a 45G drive is going to be operating system and application data? Obviously, not much at all.
The vast bulk of data on a typical modern hard drive is going to be digital media: relatively large files containing audio, video, and graphics. As I've explained above, and as others have proven with their own data, these kinds of files waste very, very little space, because they are so much bigger than a cluster.
But don't believe me. Let's get some more data in here and you'll see a similar pattern as LXi and myself have observed.
<<Uh, right. And the most common dual boot of WinNT/2k and Win9x doesn't require a repartition.>>
Which means you can simply uninstall one OS and leave your applications intact, accomplishing the same thing as wiping one partition in big messy partitioning scheme. So partitioning shows no benefit there either.
Modus
<<You seem to be missing the fact that Windows defaults to certain cluster size depending on the size of the partition, which means partition size has everything to do with it.>>
Look, your orignial objection was that cluster slack on a 10G partition was irrelevant to cluster slack on a 45G partition, which is demonstratably false: cluster slack on typical data sets (where the files are larger than one cluster) simply grows linearly with cluster size. So a 32k partition will genearlly waste four times as much space as an 8k partition.
<<I consider an operating system as typical data which has to be somewhere on the drive.>>
Which is wrong. It's not typical data. How much of the data on a 45G drive is going to be operating system and application data? Obviously, not much at all.
The vast bulk of data on a typical modern hard drive is going to be digital media: relatively large files containing audio, video, and graphics. As I've explained above, and as others have proven with their own data, these kinds of files waste very, very little space, because they are so much bigger than a cluster.
But don't believe me. Let's get some more data in here and you'll see a similar pattern as LXi and myself have observed.
<<Uh, right. And the most common dual boot of WinNT/2k and Win9x doesn't require a repartition.>>
Which means you can simply uninstall one OS and leave your applications intact, accomplishing the same thing as wiping one partition in big messy partitioning scheme. So partitioning shows no benefit there either.
Modus
oldfart,
If you have nothing worthwile to contribute other than witless personal attacks, then take a hike.
Modus
If you have nothing worthwile to contribute other than witless personal attacks, then take a hike.
Modus
Well, I have posted my views on this in other threads. There are a few others here who have posted their ideas on this, so mine would be somewhat redundant. My point is that there are many ways to do it. Yours is just one. And in my opinion, not a very good one for reasons I've stated in other threads. For a dual boot Linux machine, it wont even work at all. Its Christmas, and I'm not in the mood to type anymore.
oldfart,
<<My point is that there are many ways to do it. Yours is just one.>>
No, your "point" was that no one should listen to a word I have to say, just because I'm willing to argue a point to its conclusion to prove something. So you were contributing absolutely nothing but a pointless personal attack, and you still have yet to raise a single issue relevant to the topic at hand.
<<And in my opinion, not a very good one for reasons I've stated in other threads. . . Its Christmas, and I'm not in the mood to type anymore.>>
Translation: "I can't come up with a solid argument so I'll just pretend I had one in the past, making we look wise." Come on, put your cards on the table. If you claim partitioning holds tangible benefits for the majority of users with single hard drives, then tell us why, otherwise you have no business here.
<<For a dual boot Linux machine, it wont even work at all.>>
Sure it will. He can install the Boot Manager on the 45G and let it point to the 2.4G Linux drive when you need to run Linux. It's the best way to do things because it keeps both operating systems completely separate.
Modus
<<My point is that there are many ways to do it. Yours is just one.>>
No, your "point" was that no one should listen to a word I have to say, just because I'm willing to argue a point to its conclusion to prove something. So you were contributing absolutely nothing but a pointless personal attack, and you still have yet to raise a single issue relevant to the topic at hand.
<<And in my opinion, not a very good one for reasons I've stated in other threads. . . Its Christmas, and I'm not in the mood to type anymore.>>
Translation: "I can't come up with a solid argument so I'll just pretend I had one in the past, making we look wise." Come on, put your cards on the table. If you claim partitioning holds tangible benefits for the majority of users with single hard drives, then tell us why, otherwise you have no business here.
<<For a dual boot Linux machine, it wont even work at all.>>
Sure it will. He can install the Boot Manager on the 45G and let it point to the 2.4G Linux drive when you need to run Linux. It's the best way to do things because it keeps both operating systems completely separate.
Modus
yeah.. personal attacks are a step in the "long" direction.. I'm trying to learn how to partition a drive here.. I don't know if Modus is right or wrong, but some of points seem to be in order. What I want to know is this...
I need three os's, NT/2000 (when I get the upgrade), 98 and Mandrake. I am totally confused about Fat 16 (it can only be on a 2 gig partition right?).. and NT needing fat16 or NTFS.. so how do I make it all work.?? Oh, that and that all the os's have to be in the first 8gig of the hard drive.. like.. damn, could this be any more f__kin complicated..
merry capitalism and a happy new fiscal year.
I need three os's, NT/2000 (when I get the upgrade), 98 and Mandrake. I am totally confused about Fat 16 (it can only be on a 2 gig partition right?).. and NT needing fat16 or NTFS.. so how do I make it all work.?? Oh, that and that all the os's have to be in the first 8gig of the hard drive.. like.. damn, could this be any more f__kin complicated..
merry capitalism and a happy new fiscal year.
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