Just got a 46.1 gigger, how should I partition

[oldfart]

Wow, its lucky you had that page still open when you went to work. Or, maybe you had it backed up to a separate partition 😉. Looks like there was a 3 Hr or so outage here. I'm sure the people who lost their posts would be glad to have them put back up if you still have them.

 

[ndee]

OK, defrag your 46GB Partition......

I would make about 3 Partitons.... well 3 Partions.... these Swap Partions execluded.

1 Partiton for Linux
1 Win2K
1 Apps and Games

Belive me, I have a 13GB Partition and defragging this partition takes me hoooours....

 

[Ornery]

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=113806">Why Partitioning Isn't Worth the Pain 46 Modus Feb/01/2000 2:41 PM
</a>

Gotta tell ya Descend492, using FDISK is a lot easier and less time consuming than reading this topic. And that's no exaggeration! 😛

I've been partitioning since the early 90's. Consequently, when I add a new drive to become my primary, I have to partition it the same as the previous drive. That way all the shortcuts point to the correct logical drive. Honestly, it takes all of maybe 5 minutes to partition it. It takes longer to format it when the FDISKing is done!

I like my second physical drive (on the secondary controller) to have a smaller partition at the beginning for the swap file. Having the swap file on another drive on the secondary controller allows simultaneous access of the drives. Is it faster? Couldn't tell ya, cause I ain't a freak about benchmarks. It's just that you only set the drive up once in a great while, so why not do it &quot;just right&quot;?

Oh well, here's another small pile for you to check out:

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=128579">how the heck to partition udma66 drives 10 Tripleshot Feb/27/2000 12:28 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk/">Welcome to FDISK.COM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=89110">Partitions for WD 27.3 gg 2 eagle__2 Nov/29/1999 9:21 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=34&amp;threadid=88563">Partition..........Partition 2 DanStp Nov/28/1999 4:24 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=88366">Partitioning an hd thats split in 2 6 Daemon_UK Nov/28/1999 6:14 AM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=86727">Partition info... 7 NOX Nov/22/1999 11:37 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=86526">what size partition? 8 teiresias Nov/22/1999 8:57 AM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=86390">Do you have to Partition my HD? 7 Tulkas Nov/21/1999 8:13 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=34&amp;threadid=85683">How to partition hd greater than 2GB in NT 4.0? Help... 4 Albert Nov/20/1999 12:15 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=85294">FDISK for Morons: How can I make THREE partitions?! 7 Brooks Nov/17/1999 9:48 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=85079">best partition size,best efficiency 7 nxh Nov/17/1999 7:53 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=32&amp;threadid=83932">Partition table, main boot record backup 1 rc5 Nov/14/1999 12:12 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=34&amp;threadid=82351">Free Partitioning Program? 4 Dienster Nov/12/1999 11:49 AM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=81083">Need help with partitioning! 6 shaolin9 Nov/09/1999 3:20 AM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=82065">Please help me getting rid of a bad partition on my HD 5 bo_bear Nov/09/1999 1:04 AM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=32&amp;threadid=79132">Any rule-of-thumb to partition a 27.3 Gb drive? 9 Cool-D Nov/07/1999 2:40 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=80708">Recommendations on partitioning a 20gb HDD 0 pigseye2 Nov/03/1999 5:32 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=79347">How to fix my partition letter ? (after adding 2nd HD) 3 err Oct/30/1999 8:26 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=79087">A 20 Gb hard drive-- what the best way to partition it under Win98 19 NurseRN Oct/30/1999 11:24 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=76667">need strategy on how to partition my hard drive 7 CATDADDY Oct/23/1999 1:49 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=75096">Time to partition my drive and reinstall windows, help me do it right!! 8 tom3 Oct/18/1999 12:29 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=74986">27 Gig Drive--one big partition or smaller ones?? 34 NFS4 Oct/17/1999 1:37 AM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=74402">What is the best partition for a 9.5 gig hard drive? 16 Bluelifeguard Oct/15/1999 2:44 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=74237">Drive Partitions 6 infiniD Oct/13/1999 7:54 PM
</a>

<a target=new href="http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=34&amp;threadid=150039">Dissertation on Partitioning and Multi-booting (long) SUOrangeman Apr/09/2000 8:43 PM
</a>

 

[Radboy]

Don't wanna rub it in. Almost felt sorry for Modus when BoberFett, Modus' strongest supporter, agreed that I was right about imaging, and that he did the same. Almost. 😉

I can respect ppl who can admit when they're wrong. LXi did that once in a thread on the CUSL2. That's cool. Most of us are here to learn tricks and get answers. Nobody knows it all .. well, *almost* nobody. 😉

'preciate all the emails .. glad you guys enjoyed it.

Radboy

 

[billandopus]

<< Remember this is a place where people are tweakers and are looking to squeeze every bit of performance and value for the $$ they can get out of their PC. >>




Hey, speak for yourself! I'm trying to get to the level of some of the 'learned' pros here. I ain't tweakin' ... i'm learnin'! It would be interesting to find out how many people consider themselves 'tweakers' and others 'neophytes' with an interest in computers. I fall into the latter category. I'm getting into the swing of things but I can surely tell you without any hint of embarrassment that I learned how to use Partition Magic 6.0 before FDISK. That's just the way it went for me.

Enlightenment is a wonderful path. Sometimes it's circular and for others it meanders.

 

[Radboy]

Where's Modus?

Dang, I was just starting to have fun. 🙁

 

[BoberFett]

<< Remember this is a place where people are tweakers and are looking to squeeze every bit of performance and value for the $$ they can get out of their PC. >>

Let me reiterate, before Radboy explodes with pride. I wouldn't recommend partitions for anyone trying to get more performance from their hard drive. If you're really so concerned about a fast swap file, forget the swap file and buy more memory. Can't you get 128 MB for about $50 now?

Besides partitioning and putting your swap on another partition WILL NOT speed the swap access. The head will still have to move across the platter to get to the partition, and if it's trying to access files at the same time from a different partition you'll still get thrashing.

The only reason I'd recommend a small partition for you C: drive (2-8 GB max) would be for imaging purposes. That's all.

Also, and this is for everyone, GET NORTON UTILITIES. Even if the only thing you use from that suite is Norton Speed Disk (which is all I use BTW) it's well worth the price. It's very configurable, you have tons of options allowing you to choose where on a paritition what kind of files go where. By default it puts files that haven't been accessed at the end of the drive. It can put the swap file at the beginning of the drive. It can put commonly used files, system files, programs and such at the beginning. It can put commonly changed files such as internet temp files at the end of the commonly accessed data. And it's fast as hell. I've seen Speed Disk defrag a drive in a half hour that would have taken the Win9x defrag 12 hours to do. The one included with Windows is the biggest piece of crap software I've ever had the displeasure of using. If you don't follow what I'm saying here, it's BUY NORTON UTILITIES JUST TO GET SPEED DISK.

 

[LXi]

BoberFett:

Agreed, Norton Speed Disk is good stuff.

 

[dukdukgoos]

I always separate my OS partitions from swapfile, programs, and files so that I can make small and quick ghost images of the OS. This is the best way to keep of OS from slowing down and getting screwed up.

 

[wyvrn]

Modus and Bober's arguments about cluster slack is pretty sound and I think some people need to rethink their partitioning schemes for this reason. Having more han 2 partitions in most cases is way excessive. I can see having a smaller part. for re-imaging purposes, but for all intents the rest of the data should just sit on one big drive in multiple folders (after all a folder can organize data much like a drive can). These are just my opinions.

All that being said, I doubt anyone here is really going to change their mind because their pride is going to get in the way, so the debate might as well die.

 

[Modus]

Radboy,

Actually, multi-partition drive imaging holds very limitted advantages over single-partition drive imaging and other backup tactics. Why? I explained in my first post the basic reasons. Here's a more thorough treatment.

First of all, there's only one reason to image a hard drive: speed. Restoring a drive image does exactly what a clean install would do, only (supposedly) faster. The idea is that, at the moment of some catastrophic Windows failure (which apparently happens to partitioners quite often), a previous image can be restored, returing the system to a working state. This saves one the time of reinstalling Windows and any other drivers and applications that were installed before the image was made. Fine.

Of course, the problem is, an image resotre is going to obliterate everything you have done to Windows since you made the image: every application you installed must be reinstalled, every setting you customized must be changed again, every driver you installed must be updated. If you make images often enough, you can conceivably prevent this. But at what point does it become counterproductive? If you're making an image every week, you're probably spending more time cumulatively than you would doing a proper, clean install in the unlikely event of a total Windows crash. And if you make images less often, it's probably because you don't make as many changes (program installations, driver updates) to your system to warrant a once-a-week image. But if that's the case, you're at much less risk to hose your system to begin with! See what I mean? Anyone at enough risk to actually benefit from imaging due to their heavy &quot;system tweakage&quot; habits, automatically has to image their drive so often as to make the process almost counterproductive from a cumulative time standpoint. And anyone with minimal risk of system-crapoutage ought not waste their time with images because a total reinstall will be a more proper, thorough solution and will only be done in the face some of some rare incident.

For most, frequent data backups to external media (which must be done by partitioners and non partitioners alike), combined with the sensible preservation of the legal original discs for all their software, will make a total system installation an almost trivial task. It certainly takes loner than a drive image restore, but does it take longer than all the drive images made up until that point? Doubtful.

Remember, frequent drive images may preserve a copy of a working OS, but they'll also preserve every little annoyance, every piece of acumulated bloat and registry largesse, and every orphaned file and setting. None of that can be removed without a full install. Of course, one could also keep an image of a clean initial OS partition, but that would defeat the purpose of frequent images because it would revert the system back to a previous default state without remembering any of the myriad changes made since the initial clean install. So one would be accumulating a hefty library of images in need of some kind of external backup to protect them: more complications, more wasted time.

Without the need for partitions, we can do something quit similar, even faster: a registry backup. As you know, the Windows Registry contains practically every setting and configuration in the operating system. The vast majority of all Windows problems can be traced back to it. Besides the automatic registry backups Windows keeps, including the useful &quot;hardware-clean&quot; SYSTEM.1ST file kept in the root directory, and the automatic System Restore function built into Windows ME, you can make your own backups of the relatively small registry files (USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT) and keep them in a running archive. It's such a quick process that it can be done many times a day without any significant downtime (unlike drive imaging.) This is no magic bullet but, combined with a sensible external data backup scheme (which all users, partitioners or not, must implement to protect their data from hardware failure), it will protect the vast majority of users from Windows meltdown, without the need for partitioning.

And here's one more reason why we don't need partitions for an effective system backup scheme: PowerQuest Drive Image 4.0 Pro, consistently the best imaging software, from the makers of Partition Magic. DI4 supports two features extremely important to our discussion: the ability to write directly to CDR/CDRW discs (which destroys the need for a seperate partition when making a simple OS image), and something called &quot;Image File Editor&quot;, an amazing little gem that lets one image/restore only selected files. What this means is that one can create an image of say, an initial clean Windows, and later, when the system crashes, restore that image but only overwrite the appropriate files without harming anything else in the partition. So, for instance, only the files in the root and WINDOWS folder would be blasted over, but everything else would be left intact. This completely destroys the argument that one big partition necessitates a huge, time-consuming imaging process. And it surely won't be long until lesser imaging programs, such as Ghost and ImageCast, incorporate this feature.

Modus

 

[BoberFett]

You're on your own now.

 

[Modus]

No, don't leave me, BoberFett 🙁

Please, we have so much to teach them!

Help me, BoberFettKenobi, you're my only hope 😉

Modus

 

[Radboy]

Modus,

Glad to see you're back. Was starting to worry. Thx for posting .. I think.

The reason BoberFett says, &quot;You're on your own now&quot; is cuz he can see how 'out-there' you are. I think BoberFett actually had a better angle with his Norton SpeedDisk tack. That was clever. It didn't win anything, but it closed the gap somewhat.

I apologize for not reading your entire post, but it's clear very early on that you don't know what you're talking about .. at least not when it comes to imaging. Words like 'supposedly' &amp; 'probably' are used by people who don't *know*. It's okay not to know everything, Modus. Nobody does, but it's sad to see when someone doesn't have the ballz to admit when they're wrong. Hard for me to respect someone like that. Not that I try to. Can't help it.

You almost seem to be admitting this in your first sentence, by saying that &quot;multi-partition imaging holds .. an advantage over single-partition.&quot; But it's not 'very limited' .. if you've ever created an image, you'd know this .. and not try to pull imaging rabbits out of ur @ss.

You never answered my Q how many images you've created &amp; restored. What you've just said reinforces my earlier suspicions that it's still .. none, zilch, nada, zip, donuts. Someone who's never even created an image is gonna tell me about its benefits? .. and how it works? .. Puh_leeeze!

Can one of you guys talk to Modus? .. one of his friends? He's making your side look bad.

I could pick apart you last post, but I honestly don't know where to start. It's like shooting fish in a barrel .. and I don't wanna spend all night at my computer. The Modus strategy seems to be, &quot;I'll just write so much volumous crap that they'll be overwhelmed, and won't even wanna respond. Then I'll look lkike I win, cuz I'll have written more words than them.&quot; I'm sad to say, it working.

Not that it really matters, but it looks like you don't know that Ghost can do that too. But if you wanna push Drive Image, that's cool. Either will work. I've never used DI, but I've talked to several ppl who've used both. With one exception, everybody liked Ghost better. I believed them (people who've actually used both prgms), and that's why I went with Ghost. I have nothing against DI, tho.

Have you used DI4? Do you actually use the method you propose for others? I tend to think not. Would you like me to state my reasons why?

Re: your 'image file editor' bit .. what happens if you pick the wrong files? That would suk, wouldn't it? And I can see you now, going thru everyone of a hundred thousand files .. yes, no, yes this one, no that one. Come on, Modus. That would take a week. And that's not even what that feature is for. If you actually used the prgm, you'd know that.

Hopefully, you realize that a registry back-up, altho a good idea, is not nearly as good as an image .. yes? If it was, people wouldn't be paying hard-earned cash for Ghost &amp; Drive Image. What do you say to the people who back-up their registry, when they find our that their problem was not registry related? Oops, sorry guys?

You never got back to me about the leading edge of the drive offering better performance. How's that letter to Norton coming? .. the one where you're gonna tell them they're putting the swap file there for no good reason?

And what's your answer to the guy who doesn't partition, cuz you write a novel that says he shouldn't, and later he wants to try dual-booting with W2K? If he's got a couple partitions, no prob. But if he follows your method, he's got problems.

Okay, your method is working .. I haven't even scratched the surface, addressing your BS, and already I'm wore out .. tired of writing. Lemme just finish by saying that partitioning is not really very difficult. Can be intimidating the first time, but after that, piece of cake. Takes far longer to format than partition.

 

[BoberFett]

Don't pat yourself on the back too hard there Radboy. You're liable to to hurt yourself.

I wasn't attempting to &quot;close the gap&quot; as it didn't exist to begin with. I never argued with using a smaller partition for imaging purposes, I argued that they had no benefit for speed or wasting less space. These people that take a 60 GB drive and split it up into twelve partitions just so they can have smaller cluster sizes are insane, IMO.

Notice that I only specified a partition for the C: drive, if that's your pleasure. Beyond that, use one huge logical drive in the extended partition of that drive, and for tertiary hard drives use one huge partition (primary or logical is completely up to the users discretion) for the entire drive.

Anyway, I've said enough in this thread. So unless there's another numbskull who wants to try to prove me wrong and receive a beatdown BoberFett style, I'm signing off. 🙂

 

[Radboy]

I honestly don't know a single person who's busted up their drive into 12 partitions .. nor have I ever heard of anyone doing this. Perhaps you exaggerate for effect. But if there's anyone out there with a 12-partition drive, I'd like to know.

After 100+ posts - in this thread alone - I seriously doubt anyone is going change their partitioning practices. Why? Cuz I learned a long time ago that partitioning is a *personal* thing .. (and people take personal things personally).

My problem with this thread is someone (no names mentioned) telling me I'm doing it wrong, and then citing reasons &amp; examples that show clearly they don't know what they're talking about. For example, one quote I read here said (something like), &quot;.. and many programs will not run correctly if they're not on the C drive.&quot;

I have 3 MS operating systems (WinME, W2K &amp; Whistler Pro beta1). Not a single one of them is on the C drive. (My C drive is IDE/ATA drive, my OS'es are on SCSI's). And I have a crapload of prgms (almost *two* craploads), none of which have a single problem running from a drive letter that isn't C:.

So I *know* (firsthand) that the person who wrote this clearly has no idea of what they're talking about. This is merely one of many examples I've seen .. I could go on for hours with more. But my point is made. It's clear (to me) that they're merely *speculating*, but selling their speculation as gospel truth.

I try to limit my comment to areas where I have actual, first-hand experience. If I have no experience with something, I'll say, &quot;I've never done this, but I've heard it works this way.&quot; Then, someone who reads my post won't be misled if I'm wrong, or if I heard wrong, or if I remember wrong. Unfortunately, I've seen much (too much) of the opposite in this thread.

Some people in this thread (no names) post their hypotheses as if they were from first-hand experience. The sad thing is that only the person with first-hand experience is able to discern their BS .. the newbie is misled. And one of the main purposes of these forums is a place where the newbie can find reliable info from more experienced users. But it seems that some posters (with the word 'Elite' next to their name, no less) are unwilling (for whatever reasons) to qualify their supporting points that are based merely on speculation. Theyve never actually done the things the talking about. Surely you can see why this is irritating.

RE: &quot;no benefit for speed or wasting less space&quot;

Are you saying that performance at the begining of the drive is not better than that at the end of the drive?

Are you saying that there is *no* space lost by making larger partitions (8GB vs 60GB) or are you saying that the waste is insignificant. Seems to me that everyone agrees that you waste space by making larger partitions. The argument is over whether the amount wasted is significant. You're not saying that you don't waste a single byte, are you?

 

[vi edit]

Looks like the blood has already been shed in this thread, but I will add that as a practicing partitioner, the last thing to cross my mind is cluster size and space that I'm saving.

What it does allow me to do is break my 50 gigs of space down into manageable &quot;chunks&quot; so that backing up, imaging, formating, and restoring is a much more efficient process...for me.

Using Drive image on a 2 gig Win98 + apps partition is much more effective than trying to image all data on a 50 gig partition. Only &quot;mission critical&quot; apps and files go on the 2 gig partition. My image size is about 700 meg, just small enough to fit onto a 700 meg CD. Using drive image I can get my OS, device drivers, important documents, and everyday applications up and running in minutes.

Now, since I have all of my other &quot;stuff&quot; segregated away from that 2 gig windows partion, if something gets hosed, and I have to reformat, I just yank out the image, apply, reboot, and I'm up and running again. All applications up to the point of the last image are working as they were before. No need to re-install existing applications, no loss of data out side of the 2 gig partion.

In all of my re-installs over the last 5 years, only 3 of them were hard drive failure related. All of the others were because I wacked a DLL, or some program wrecked something, windows just fubar'd itself, ect. Having all of my system stuff on one partion, and all of my &quot;other&quot; stuff on another partion has saved me hours worth of restoring because I didn't loose everything since it was on another partition. I simply format that 2 gig partition, and then reinstall, or format and re-image. Nothing more.

As Radboy said, it's a personal thing and we all work differently. For him and I, partitioning allows us to re-image in be back up and running in a matter of minutes. If we had one big partion and had to manually re-install OS, drivers, applications, and a data, then it could take us in upwards of a week depending on how many things we have to install.

It just works better for me. I could give a flying fart whether or not my cluster size is 4k, 16k, or 32k. On a 50gig drive that's pocket change. The benefits that I receive far outweight the extra 2 minutes that it takes to partition a drive the first time that I install it.

 

[Radboy]

Beautiful post.

 

[Modus]

Radboy,

I admire the skill with which you managed to fill up two whole browser pages and consume many bytes of bandwidth with a pair of posts that, under careful review, have nothing new to say about this topic, and further, are so riddled with old issues raised and dismissed days ago that they constitute absolutely nothing of substance besides more inept, desperate personal attacks.

Still, the chaff must be separated from the. . . uh. . . crud.

<<I apologize for not reading your entire post>>

No need for an apology: just leave. If you can't even bring yourself to read a sensible argument and give an intelligent reply, you don't belong here.

<<Words like 'supposedly' &amp; 'probably' are used by people who don't *know*.>>

No, those words are used by people who, unlike yourself, prefer not to make blanket statements. After all, few things are absolutely certain. Besides, I was speaking in that post about the time it takes the average person to complete a process, which of course will vary from person to person.

<<You never answered my Q how many images you've created &amp; restored.>>

It was a stupid, irrelevant question. One need not eat twenty tunafish sandwiches to recognize their taste and explain it to others. But for your information, I've made and restored dozens of disk images over the years. Only a fool would keep count.

<<I could pick apart you last post, but I honestly don't know where to start.>>

Translation: &quot;I have no solid answer to the arguments raised, so I'll just pretend I'm too wise and tired to participate.&quot;

<<Not that it really matters, but it looks like you don't know that Ghost can do that too.>>

Do what? Write images directly to CDRW? Yes, I was aware that Symantec recently incorporated this feature. It only strengthens the argument against partitioning, because now, those who for some reason feel the need to spend time constantly imaging their hard drive instead of saving that time for a proper clean installation, will be able to do so without the need for added partitions. But what Ghost doesn't support is DriveImage's Image File Editor, a feature that single-handedly obliterates any need for a small OS partition, as the drive image is now selective as opposed to blind, allowing users to, with a single click, only image/restore their complete OS folder.

<<Have you used DI4? Do you actually use the method you propose for others?>>

Have you? I suppose you always own, use, and disect a personal copy of any software or hardware before you recommend it to some one? Nonsense. I didn't need to use the Microstar K7T-Pro-2A to know it was the most stable motherboard in the past year, nor do I need to purchase the latest copy of DriveImage to know how good it is -- that's what the Net is for.

<<Re: your 'image file editor' bit .. what happens if you pick the wrong files? That would suk, wouldn't it? And I can see you now, going thru everyone of a hundred thousand files .. yes, no, yes this one, no that one.>>

[Drive] C:

*click*

[Folder] WINDOWS

*click*

Done.

<<ome on, Modus. That would take a week. And that's not even what that feature is for.>>

Quite ammusing how desparate you are to discredit such a simple, elegant, easy-to-use piece of time saving software, simply because it makes your partitioning hobby obsolete. I'm sorry if you don't feel as macho as you once did with your endless partitions and library of redundant Ghost images, but things change. Perhaps you could order a Harley and some hair in a can to compensate for your lost manhood.

<<Hopefully, you realize that a registry back-up, altho a good idea, is not nearly as good as an image>>

Actually, it is nearly as good: in the vast majority of Windows crashes, a simple turn-back-the-clock of the Windows registry will bring you back to square one. Sure, you'll loose whatever settings you've made in the meantime, as you would with a Ghost image, but at least you won't destroy any interim files as you would with a traditional (non DriveImage 4 Pro) image restoration.

Still, with DI4, there's no reason not to have your cake and eat it too: one big, simple partition and the ability to construct backup OS images. The best of both worlds.

<<You never got back to me about the leading edge of the drive offering better performance.>>

Oh yes I did. You're just so arrogant you assumed I'd write a special reply solely for you, even though the issue had been beaten to death and dismissed much further back in the thread than you had the attention span to read.

<<Are you saying that performance at the begining of the drive is not better than that at the end of the drive?>>

*sigh* No, McFly, that's obviously not what I said. Of course the raw throughput at the beginning of the drive is better than elsewhere. Unfortunately, as any good drive reviewer will acknowledge, access time is far more important than transfer rate. So grouping your OS and swap file deliberately at the beginning of the drive (where they'll likely end up in a big partition anyway), yields no measurable benefit in real world tests, because normal multitasking usage involves constant seeks back and forth between OS, swap, application, and user files. This is where the performance needs the most improvement, not in long, sustained transfers from the OS and swap file, which rarely come into play.

Your argument is akin to saying that if we double the speed at which the Greyhound driver checks our tickets, we can significantly shorten the length of the trip. Obviously, the ticket checking (sustained throughput) is not the bottleneck here, it's the actual driving (random seeks) that take the time.

I don't care if you still can't grasp this, just don't keep bringing it up when it's already been dismissed, unless you have something new to bring to the table like actual real world tests proving your point (which of course don't exist).

<<And what's your answer to the guy who doesn't partition, cuz you write a novel that says he shouldn't, and later he wants to try dual-booting with W2K?>>

By all means, partition away. If you had actually read my &quot;novel&quot;, you would understand that multiple operating systems is one situation where it is demonstrably beneficial to partition.

LOL, a novel, I like that 😀 Though coming from you, it's hardly a compliment; one who can't even bring himself to read the entire text of the post he's replying to is not likely to be a good judge of literature. You calling my inital post a novel is like a flea calling a fly large.

<<Takes far longer to format than partition>>

A true breakthrough. Bravo! And some further brilliant insights from RadBoy, the drive management genius:

&quot;It takes far longer to format a drive than it does to quickformat one.&quot;

&quot;It is usually better to delete an unwanted file than to delete its parent folder.&quot;

&quot;Most hard drives are not water resistant.&quot;

&quot;IDE cables tend to be grey. Though beware, they sometimes appear in a deceptive shade of white.&quot;

&quot;Takes longer to RMA than partition.&quot;

<<After 100+ posts - in this thread alone - I seriously doubt anyone is going change their partitioning practices. Why? Cuz I learned a long time ago that partitioning is a *personal* thing .. (and people take personal things personally).>>

Whether it's a personal choice or not is irrelevant. We're not picking out toothpaste here. Partitioners mistakenly claim the practice provides practical benefits for the majority of people capable of it. Others have learned better.

<<For example, one quote I read here said (something like), &quot;.. and many programs will not run correctly if they're not on the C drive.&quot;>>

I'm not sure which post that quote is from or how badly you mangled it, but some programs do malfunction or function unpredictably when not installed in their default folder, which tends to be on the C drive. If you haven't personally seen any examples of this, it just illustrates your lack of experience. The phenonmenon is slowly declining, but well documented.

<<Are you saying that there is *no* space lost by making larger partitions (8GB vs 60GB) or are you saying that the waste is insignificant. . . You're not saying that you don't waste a single byte, are you?>>

You're not saying larger partition tables don't waste a single byte, are you?

Look, cluster slack is dead. Smaller FAT32 clusters, combined with comparably huge modern digital media files, have combined to push Elvis out of the building. Let him go already.

<<. . . it's sad to see when someone doesn't have the ballz to admit when they're wrong.>>

Well put, Radboy 😉

Modus

 

[Radboy]

If nothing else, you *are* entertaining. Caught myself chuckling thru that read, even tho I didn't want to .. and yes, I even read the whole thing that time. 🙂

I've been advised to quit posting in this thread, but I'll go once more, cuz I liked something you said .. &amp; it might be beneficial for some.

One point - you said this:

&quot;access time is far more important than transfer rate. So grouping your OS and swap file deliberately at the beginning of the drive (where they'll likely end up in a big partition anyway), yields no measurable benefit in real world tests, because normal multitasking usage involves constant seeks back and forth between OS, swap, application, and user files. This is where the performance needs the most improvement, not in long, sustained transfers from the OS and swap file, which rarely come into play&quot;

You're correct about access times being far more important than STRs .. (which, btw, is one of the main selling points of SCSI .. which offers blistering fast access times .. not to mention multitasking)

What makes you say your OS &amp; swap will *likely* end up at the beginning of a big drive?

Say we have a 46GB drive .. w/ a 3GB partition at the beginning of the drive. Do you not think that access times for all data in this 1st 3GB partition will be better/lower/faster than if the read/write heads had to travel the full length of the drive .. to the other side .. to access/write data?

If you look up specs on any hard drive, you'll see that the FULL STROKE spec - which is the time it takes to travel the entire length of the drive - is the *longest/slowest/worst* number.

The seek time spec is merely an *average* .. always less than full stroke.

Are you familair with the hard disk bench HD Tach? This app has a setting called &quot;Advanced Size Check&quot;. ASC checks the whole drive, and yields the most accurate results (no HD Tach isn't perfect). If you *don't* put a check in the ASC box, HD Tach only checks the first 8GB of the drive. It truncates the test at 8GB.

If you run the test with a check in the ASC box, you get numbers similar access time results to what the manufacturer states in their spec list. But a funny thing happens if you don't (put a check in the ASC box) .. the access time spec drops .. why do you think this might be? Could it cuz the r/w heads don't have to travel full stroke .. to the opposite end of the drive? Try it yourself. The app is free.

I contend that if all the files you need to run the OS, apps &amp; swap are limited to the begining of the drive .. say the first 3GB .. not only will STRs will better/faster/higher (you don't argue with this), but access times will also be better/faster/lower. Does this not make sense to you?

If the heads only have a tight/limited area from which they access data, then those seeks/accesses will be faster/better. I do very much value the importance of fast seeks/accesses .. which is why I run all my OS'es, apps &amp; swap/paging file from SCSI drives. Typical accesses from my IDE/ATA drives is 8.5ms (seek) + 4.2 (ave letency) = 12.7ms (ave access), while my SCSI drives are 4.9ms (seek) + 3.0ms (ave latency) = 7.9ms (ave access) - 7.9 (with multitasking) vs 12.7 (single tasking). Makes a huge diff.

I'll add that this (better perf at the beginning of the drive) is not the primary reason I partition my drives .. vi_edit summed it up pretty good. But this is the reason disk optimization utilities like Norton put the swap file at the leading edge of the drive. It not only cuz STR perf is better there, but also cuz access time is also better/lower/faster there.

 

[BoberFett]

And if you want your apps, swap, etc to be at the beginning of the drive you have two options. Partition the hell out of your hard drive as you seem to prefer (I count 8 drives on your system) or use Speed Disk to do the same thing without the need for multiple partitions. I've chosen my option, apparently you have also. 😛

 

[Radboy]

&quot;Partition the hell out&quot; .. you only need one small partition at the beginning.

SpeedDisk will work, but that costs money. Higher cost is typically a DISadvantage.

Personally, I use both.

 

[BoberFett]

<< SpeedDisk will work, but that costs money. Higher cost is typically a DISadvantage. >>

If we're against spending money, then the imaging argument is moot because Ghost and DriveImage aren't free. Please, if you're going to argue, at least be consistent.

And do you ever defrag? Defragging even a small partition with the included Win9x defrag is torture, and can take several hours. I don't know how anybody can stand it. As far as I'm concerned, Speed Disk is a necessity, not a luxury with Windows.

 

[LXi]

Just to varify Modus' point about cluster slack:

Maxtor 20GB, 2 partitions

Second partition
D:\ (Games, MP3s, graphics, videos, downloads etc.)
Capacity: 14.1GB(8KB clusters), 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: 37,586,882 bytes(~0.3% of occupied space)

Quantum 40GB, single partition, with the exact same files as the above partition, with very slight modifications

D:\ (Games, MP3s, graphics, videos, downloads etc.)
Capacity: 38.2GB(32KB clusters), 8,612 files, 662 folders
Size: 11.3 GB (12,166,319,177 bytes)
Size on disk: 11.4 GB (12,334,039,040 bytes)
Wasted: 167,719,863 bytes(~1.4% of occupied space)

The wasted space on the bigger partition(with bigger cluster) is approximately 4.5 times the wasted space on the smaller partition. Even so, the 1.4% is still insignicant.

However I have to agree with Radboy and vi_edit about partitioning. I used HD Tach and I did notice the first 8MB(without ASC checked) resulted a much faster seek time than with ACS checked. I partition for the same reason as vi_edit, 5GB for OS/Apps/Programs, the rest for games, and I usually put my files such as MP3s and downloads on another drive. Usually my primary drive is a fast one, and my storage drive is a slower one, exactly the same reason as Radboy's.

Question to Radboy, how do you know which partition you made is at the beginning of the hard drive?

Oh yes, I want to point out BoberFett's point about Speed Disk, this thing is awesome, it defragged my 40Giger(with ~11Gigs of data) in less than 5 minutes, and it defragged my 15Gig partition in less than 10 minutes, and it defragged my 5Gig(C:\) in about 10 minutes.

 

[PCResources]

Well, i broke a few bones in my hand the other day, so this post will be a short one.

Fdisk is easy to use, it comes with instructions... If you do not understand it, go back to the computer shop, tell them to take your computer back, you are to stupid to use it....

How much time can you save with only one partition?? calculate the clicks, hehe, i bet someone will do that

for 46GB you should use at least 3 patritions...

Modus, you are always stating your opinions as facts, which would be ok by me if you were right... but you are not...

Patrick Palm

Am speaking for PC Resources