Just got a 46.1 gigger, how should I partition

[smp]

Oh OH OH!!! and this.. Say I have a three gig partition for NT that being drive c:... Okay.. so can I install my programs on say.. drive f:?? If drive F: is fat 16 and drive c: is NTFS??? Hmm?? and how would I get a large movie file from 98, (being on a fat 32 drive, say d into Premeire that I'm running on NT??? hmmm?? can I just move a file from the fat32 partition to the NTFS partition??? that's pretty much my main concern.. oh.. and how do I install mandrake? j/k.. I'll go somewhere else for that one.

 

[oldfart]

Ok, I'll give you reasons why it?s better to have multiple partitions. There is not a single benefit to one large partition, none. BTW, what is so hard about using fdisk, and making a few partitions? You sell PC's and find fdisk hard to use? Please. I don't believe that for a minute. I'm sure you can use fdisk with your eyes closed.

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.

1) 32k clusters are very inefficient. Typically 30-40% cluster slack. This is a fact. You can come up with an imaginary system where this doesn't apply. It does. Anyone remember when they converted from fat16 to fat32? I got back over 1/3 of my drive space. Storagereview says, "Avoid 32K clusters like the plague".

2) Speed. Even the best HD's out there are considerably slower on the inner tracks compared to the outer. My drive, an IBM 75GXP is about 38 MB/S on the outer tracks. It slows to 1/2 that, about 18 MB/S by the time you get to the inner tracks. I want my OS, and swap at the fastest part of the drive. I put programs next after that. I reserve the slow area of the drive for a partition for bulk storage.

3) Recovery. I own Ghost, which is the best drive and partition cloning software on the market. You will find it as standard equipment in most IS organizations. I can make a Ghost clone or image of my C: partition, which contains my OS, burn it to a CD and in the event my OS gets hosed, restore it. You cannot do that with one big partition. You don?t think this is valuable. I do. Your statements about Windows registry reverting to default state are absolutely false. The registry files (system.dat and user.dat I believe) are restored exactly as they were. I've done this several times. This is not a measure to protect from a hardware failure. This is for the case where you install that new Program or Windows "feature" that totally screws up your OS, and you want to get back to where you were. It works (very well).

4) Takes forever to defrag one large drive. I don?t even bother to defrag my data partition very often. Just bulk storage of downloads, patches, etc. I can do a quick defrag of the Windows or program partitions.

I and others, have been through this discussion before. I can see no gain at all from one large partition. The arguments on how difficult it is to set up a few partitions (whoa, were talking fdisk here) and then manage them are silly. Come on, it's very simple. You can argue the size of the gains of multiple partitions. They are real and they are there.

Looking at the original post, I missed the 2.4 gig drive for Linux. Yes you are right. You can dual boot with separate drives. My apologies for missing that.

I also apologize to you and the members of this forum for my other post. I just read it, and it was inappropriate. .

There are different schools of thought on this. Many people have brought up the benefits of multiple partitions. I can only see one of having one big one. You only have to fdisk one partition instead of a few. This may be a good thing for some people. If you put together a system for a PC novice, who would have difficulty managing more than one logical drive, yes, give them one big partition. For experienced people who want the most out of their system, they can do it better.

BTW..Default Windows Fat32 Cluster sizes for ref..
0-8 gig 4K
8.1-16 gig 8K
16.1-32gig 16K
32.1-??gig 32K

 

[Pariah]

If you need to use NT, then create a seperate partition for it using either NTFS, or the more compatible FAT16. The easiest setup would to make the primary partition on your first drive FAT16 and install WinNT on it. Make the rest of the drive FAT32 for win98. If you decide to use NTFS, you still need to make the primary partition FAT16, or you won't be able to boot into a 9x OS, and then create an NTFS partition for NT, then whatever you want the rest of the drive to be. If you can use win2k instead just keep everything FAT32. FAT16 is limited to 2GB per partition. Only NT and possibly 2k have to be in the first 8GB, Win98 doesn't have that limitation.

You can't have a 3GB NT C: partition under any condition that could boot a 9X OS. FAT16 is limited to 2GB which a 9x OS requires. In order to get 3GB you need to use NTFS which is not 9x bootable. Make the FAT16 applications partition your C drive, and the NTFS partition a D or later.

There is no first party method of moving files from FAT32 to NTFS and back. There are utilities available online that will allow NT to read FAT32 partitions and 9x read NTFS partitions. Usually you have to pay for a version that lets you write to the opposing file system. One thing you can try is to network your computer to another computer as networks are blind to file systems, and transfer the files back and forth between the systems.

 

[JellyBaby]

Modus,

<< 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. >>

I'm afraid you're dead wrong. Scandisk takes less time processing a 5 GB C: partition than it does a 45 GB partition.

<< Besides, Scandisk on startup only happens when there's a power outage or your system suffers a hard lockup: both rare occurances. >>

LOL! Good one.

<< Defragmentation is widely misunderstood to be a magic bullet for any hard drive performance woes. >>

Degragmenting your hard drive will increase performance. In Win 98 SE, the Tune-up application will also speed up the time it takes to launch EXEs. And, again, it takes less time processing a 5 GB C: partition than it would a 45 GB partition.

Thus, dividing your hard drive into partitions makes sense for several reasons, not the least of which is optimal scandisk/defrag usage.

 

[Pariah]

FAT32 partitions can be up to 2TB's oldfart. You have to remember that the cluster size your chart lists and the ones most of us quote are default values. Through the use of switches you can change the cluster size. You can have 512byte cluster size if you want to, or a 4k cluster on a 40GB drive if you want to. The result. however, will be abysmal disk performance and a FAT table the size of a whale.

 

[oldfart]

Yup. Thats why I said Default cluster size.

 

[Impact55]

I have the same hard drive as Descend I plan on partitioning it like this..
C:\1gb ( how much should I give windows install?)
D:\25 gb games,files,etc.
E:\20 gb mp3,movie,etc.

Do you guys use FDISK to partition right away? Or do you wait to get into windows and use partition magic?

 

[Radboy]

FDISK

 

[oldfart]

Impact55, just use fdisk. Partition Magic is great when you need to move/delete/resize partitions after the fact. Totally unnecessary for a new install. 1 gig is too small for the OS partition. I would do maybe..
C:\3gb
D:\22 gb games,files,etc.
E:\20 gb mp3,movie,etc

 

[scrubman]

this is what i do now...

33% (20Gig) for win98 and Microsoft Apps

66% (40Gig) for favorite apps, games and storage(ghost images)

i enjoy a fresh install of win98 without having to copy MASS amounts of data from cd's every time...

** question... is the first partition the one that is on the inside or outside of the platters?? or, how do you control where the partition is located??

also, since nobody has mentioned the actual syntax for the command which sets the cluster size on win9x here it is: a switch on the &quot;format&quot; command that would go like this ---> &quot;format c: /z:32&quot; (number which is 2x the actual size desired)[ex. 32 would give 16k clusters]

correct me if im wrong on that...

BTW.. my 60gig is actually 2 30 giggers RAIDed and i have the c: drive with 16k clusters and the d: drive with 32k clusters... i heard one place say that for RAID 32k clusters give max performance... im not worried about wasted space with this size of drives... anyone have views or &quot;facts&quot; about this???

scrub

 

[BoberFett]

I know I'm a little late here, but I'm going to call Pariah on a comment he made a while back.

<< I have 2 60GB drives each with one partition they have a total of 40GB of data on them, 11.8GB of that is wasted space. More than a quarter of the storage space I am using is wasted. You still think a large FAT32 partition can't waste space? >>

I highly doubt it. As Modus pointed out, your average wasted space on a drive regardless of cluster size is

0.5 * ClusterSize * FileCount = WastedSpace

Let's do a bit of arithmetic. For you to have 11.8 GB of wasted space you'd have to have

FileCount = 11.8 GB / (0.5 * 32K)

FileCount = 11,800,000 KB / 16 KB we'll use round numbers for megs and gigs

FileCount = 737,500

You're telling us that you have 737,500 files on those two drives, and that they're only 40 GB in size total? That means an average file size of 54K. What I really want to know is WTF do you use your machine for?

Modus may be a bit long-winded, but he generally knows what he's talking about. After you posted what I interpret to be bogus numbers, I don't see much point to taking your advice on this subject.

Oh, and happy holidays.

 

[BoberFett]

<< Scandisk takes less time processing a 5 GB C: partition than it does a 45 GB partition. >>

If you have 3 GB of data on a 5 GB drive and 3 GB of data on a 45 GB drive, defrag will take the same amount of time, assuming equal levels of fragmentation. It's not the size of the drive, it's the size of the data. I can defrag my 15 GB Fireball Plus LM (10 GB used) using Norton Speed Disk in about a half hour.

Also a newer, larger hard drive has a faster data transfer rate, which will make defragging faster per megabyte to be defragged.

 

[BoberFett]

<< 32k clusters are very inefficient. Typically 30-40% cluster slack. >>

Not so fast. As Modus pointed out, the large drives of today are not generally storing hundreds of thousands of small files. They usually hold huge MP3s, MPGs, JPGs, TIFs, etc. In the real world, you'll rarely see slack of more than a few percent.

I just looked at my drive, and here's the specs:

15 GB drive, 14 GB formatted

26,838 files

10,589,585,408 bytes used

10,450,780,579 bytes of data

Which nets us 138,804,829 of wasted space

For a slack percentage of 1.3%

That's real world fellas.

Edit: I forgot to finish a sentence.

 

[Modus]

oldfart,

<<Ok, I'll give you reasons why it?s better to have multiple partitions.>>

You know, I've already dismissed all of these earlier in the thread, but I'm assuming you just didn't bother to read it.

<<There is not a single benefit to one large partition, none.>>

Sure there is: simplicity, ease of drive management, quicker file browsing due to less drive letters, no need for expensive third-party tools, and the most important reason of all: minimalism. A computer is a tool like any other. You don't make a tool more complicated unless doing so makes the tool better. And partitioning a hard drive rarely yields any tangible benefit.

<<32k clusters are very inefficient. Typically 30-40% cluster slack. This is a fact.>>

No, it is NOT. We've already beaten this to death but I'll say it again for your benefit: cluster slack is just as dependent on the average size of your files as it is on the size of your clusters. Cluster slack is ONLY an issue when you store a large number of small files -- files that are close to the size of one cluster.

But if you're storing anything remotely capable of filling up the kind of 20G FAT32 partition that would necessitate 32k clusters, you're automatically going to be storing relatively large files: MP3's, movies, large graphics, game data cabinets, etc. This is the kind of data that occupies the vast bulk of today's hard drives, and this is the kind of data that wastes almost no space.

The key reason cluster slack is no longer an issue is that in the past five years, our files have grown faster than our clusters. Simple as that.

<<Storagereview says, &quot;Avoid 32K clusters like the plague&quot;.>>

LOL, did you even look up the date on source you're quoting from StorageReview? It's almost four years old! It was written in 1997! Back then MP3's and digital music were barely catching on and 2G hard drives were a novelty. You could install Windows and Office and your hard drive was half full. Back then 32k clusters wasted space because files were so small. Today's files are comparably enormous.

Look, all we need to do is get more people to give us their drive data. The one person who has taken up the challenge has proved my point, and now mysteriously none of the other posters in this thread want to participate because they see it'll just destroy the cluster-slack myth.

<<Speed. Even the best HD's out there are considerably slower on the inner tracks compared to the outer. . . I want my OS, and swap at the fastest part of the drive. I put programs next after that. I reserve the slow area of the drive for a partition for bulk storage.>>

Actually, your little scheme doesn't do you any good. As any good drive review points out, access time is far more important in today's applications than raw transfer rate, and access time stays fairly constant regardless of the physical location on the platter. So putting your OS and swap file near the beginning won't really help because the drive spends most of its time seeking back and forth, not reading long streams of data. Do some real world benchmarks yourself if you like, and you'll observe the non-existant performance gain.

<<Recovery. I can make a Ghost clone or image of my C: partition, which contains my OS, burn it to a CD and in the event my OS gets hosed, restore it. You cannot do that with one big partition.>>

Drive Image (capable of imaging one big partition directly to a CDR drive.)

<<Takes forever to defrag one large drive. I don?t even bother to defrag my data partition very often. Just bulk storage of downloads, patches, etc. I can do a quick defrag of the Windows or program partitions.>>

Please, we've been over this. It's not an issue. Even Microsoft acknowledges that defragging more than once a week is pointless. That's why System Agent does is every two weeks by default. It's always a walk-away job done during scheduled downtime, so it doesn't really matter how long it takes.

<<I also apologize to you and the members of this forum for my other post.>>

Fair enough, no big deal.

JellyBaby,

<<I'm afraid you're dead wrong. Scandisk takes less time processing a 5 GB C: partition than it does a 45 GB partition.>>

No, it takes less time to process 5G of *data* than 45G. But as BoberFett pointed out, a full 5 GB partition isn't much quicker to Scandisk than a 45G partition with 5G of stuff.

<<And, again, it takes less time processing a 5 GB C: partition than it would a 45 GB partition.>>

Nope, it's the same situation as Scandisk: the size of the *data* determines the speed of the process, not the size of the partition. You can slice and dice 45G of data any way you like, but it'll still take just as long to defrag it all.

So please, stop mentioning Defrag performance. Partitioning doesn't speed it up. Not partition doesn't slow it down. And only obsessive fools would sit at their computers waiting for it to finish. It's a once-a-week walk-away job that gets done during system downtime when no one cares how long it takes. It's NOT an issue.

<<Thus, dividing your hard drive into partitions makes sense for several reasons, not the least of which is optimal scandisk/defrag usage.>>

And since we've rendered all those reasons moot, the argument for partitioning is similarly deflated.

BoberFett,

<<I know I'm a little late here, but I'm going to call Pariah on a comment he made a while back:

&quot;I have 2 60GB drives each with one partition they have a total of 40GB of data on them, 11.8GB of that is wasted space.&quot;

.............. insert some nifty calculations (which I have doublechecked) ...............

You're telling us that you have 737,500 files on those two drives, and that they're only 40 GB in size total? That means an average file size of 54K. What I really want to know is WTF do you use your machine for?>>

You know, I was thinking the same thing, and I did the math myself to figure out what in the name of Richard Simmons this guy was storing, but when I discovered his average file size, I decided I'd better not say anything. After all, he deserves his dignity. But let's just say that a 54k average file size is a dead give away for a certain type of file: a compressed, screen-sized JPG photograph. And if our friend is storing 40G of small, compressed photographs, it's not hard to guess his hobby

Modus

 

[LXi]

This is getting more and more confusing and pointless, looks like we'll never reach an agreement. Any of you care to take a look at your storage data and post them?

Ok Im going to ask the two sides of you for a favor, Modus/BoberFett for single partition, and Pariah/oldfart for multiple partitions.

As for now I have a 20GB and a 40GB, the 20GB has 2 partitions, one with 5GB the other with 15GB, the 40GB is not yet partitioned. Should I break it down or should I keep it in one piece? Also, I plan to use Win2K, should I format all my drives to NTFS, FAT32, or NTFS/FAT32 mixed?

 

[oldfart]

Modus, you spend a lot of time in your posts trying to disprove the well know advantages of multiple partitions. I asked you for the benefits of your scheme. You came up with what I see as two.
1) No need for expensive third-party tools.

My copy of fdisk came with my Win98 CD. What tool are you talking about? Your notion that fdisk is hard to use, necessitating the need to buy Partition Magic is laughable at best.

2) Sure there is: simplicity, ease of drive management, quicker file browsing due to less drive letters.

I'll go out on a limb and call all of that simplicity. Here is where we differ in OPINION. I don't find it AT ALL difficult to manage more than one logical drive. You would have to be pretty thick to find that difficult.

Your point about seek times on a drive is a good one. You are correct. Seek time accross the drive is very important for optimum performance. This is why you should have your OS and programs at the beginning of the drive, and your bulk storage at the end. This speeds up seek times, since the program storage area of the drive will be smaller than it would be with all kinds of bulk data mixed in.

I'm not in the debate club. I'm not one to argue this silly thing forever. I have better things to do with my time. You all have seen both sides. Make your own decision on what is best for you.

 

[BoberFett]

Just a quick point about fdisk. (Maybe this has already been brought up, I haven't been able to bring myself to read the entire thread, and I was recently surprised to find that more than a few modern day computer hobbyists don't know about fdisk :Q)

fdisk is fine, but it does have one serious limitation. A little thing like destroying all data on a partition in order to resize it. A person who has a single physical drive partitioned into two drives, who later decides they want a single partition is screwed. The need to back up their entire hard drive before they can fdisk it into one partition.


LXi

For a home machine, I don't find the overhead of NTFS to be worth it. If you need file security, you don't have an option, NTFS is it. But if you don't, then I've found FAT to work just fine. Some people will claim that NTFS doesn't need to be defragged, but that is completely false. It's better than FAT, but it's not perfect. I have seen NTFS volumes get horrendously slow until running a defrag on them. It does depend a lot on what you're doing with the drive though.

 

[oldfart]

I'm also quite surprised at the lack of knowledge on something as old and simple as fdisk. Fdisk is a simple utility for setting up partitions on new drives. It can not resize or move partitions on the fly. If you use it to delete a partition, all that was on it is gone. The original poster was asking how to setup a new drive. Fdisk is all you need to do that. If later on, you want to resize/add/remove or do some sort of partition changing, that's where Partition Magic or a similar program comes in. It can do it without loss of data.

 

[Radboy]

MS FDISK

Doc's

 

[Descend492]

I have a quick question that is strictly fact, so it should be easy to answer without lots of debate:

Windows NT (and therefore Win2k) can only use FAT16 or NTFS, right? This is what I gathered from Pariah's post.

Now for the opinion stuff

If this is the case, why wouldnt anyone use FAT16 considering it's structure is so old and inferior (in my opinion). If I'm not planning on using Win98 (which is what I'm leaning towards right now), why on earth should I not use NTFS. If I can use FAT32 for win2k, I think I will use that, but otherwise, NTFS

 

[Descend492]

OK, I have one question which is purely fact, and should be easy to answer:

Win NT (and therefore WIn2k) can only use FAT16 and NTFS, right? This is what I gathered from Pariah's post. So this means I cannot use FAT32 with Win2k?

OK, now for something involving an opinion

If I don't plan on using Win98, is there any logical reason to use FAT16? If NTFS is in competition with FAT32 (whether it is otr not doesn't really matter) and FAT#@ is superior to FAT16, it would follow that NTFS is superior to FAT16 (I know it's apples and oranges, but just for argument's sake). Is there any reason to use FAT16 (assuming I'm not planning on usign Win98 ever)?

 

[Modus]

LXi,

<<This is getting more and more confusing and pointless, looks like we'll never reach an agreement.>>

Probably not. Actually, it's quite similar to AMD vs. Intel or winmodem vs. hardmodem: people have invested their time and money into a product or practice that they believed was the better choice, and when they are presented with facts that show it wasn't, that there was an easier, cheaper equivalent, they become hostile and will go to great lengths to defend their original actions. I don't expect any of the hard core partitioners to change their minds, but, like in winmodem discussions, enough people always see reason, so that next time the discussion rolls around, there is less knee-jerk opposition to the idea.

<<As for now I have a 20GB and a 40GB, the 20GB has 2 partitions, one with 5GB the other with 15GB, the 40GB is not yet partitioned. Should I break it down or should I keep it in one piece? Also, I plan to use Win2K, should I format all my drives to NTFS, FAT32, or NTFS/FAT32 mixed?>>

Of course, keep it in one piece. Why partition if it's not going to help you in any way? As we've seen, it doesn't save you time when imaging your operating system, it doesn't help you organize your files (in fact it hinders), and it doesn't reduce cluster slack with modern data because cluster slack is no longer an issue. Sure, you might look tough with your hard drive all chopped up and conquered, but in the end it's a pointless excercise.

As for NTFS vs. FAT32, I haven't seen any benchmarks one way or the other, but I would tend to think NTFS would only begin to show its strength with very, very large amounts of files, where quick FAT lookup is so important, or with sensitive data where per-file security is needed. And FAT32 will give you easy Win9x and Linux compatibility. It's up to you. It probably doesn't matter which one you use.

oldfart,

<<Modus, you spend a lot of time in your posts trying to disprove the well know advantages of multiple partitions.>>

All of your so-called &quot;well known advantages&quot; were shot down long before you entered this thread; I only restated the obvious for your own benefit.

<<My copy of fdisk came with my Win98 CD. What tool are you talking about?>>

Don't play dumb. Most serious partitioning schemes are going to involve third-party tools at one point or another, if only to resize volumes and shift the physical locations of partitions. As BobberFett said, sure FDISK is OK if you never plan on touching the drive once the data is on it or if you never plan on adding a second hard drive, but if you want to be able to tinker at all with the partitions without destroying your data, it's going to necessitate an expensive, third-party tool like Partition Magic.

<<I don't find it AT ALL difficult to manage more than one logical drive. You would have to be pretty thick to find that difficult.>>

One click is easier than two. (Especially when you gain nothing from the extra click.)

<<Seek time accross the drive is very important for optimum performance. This is why you should have your OS and programs at the beginning of the drive, and your bulk storage at the end.>>

Not only has this sort of scheme never been shown to improve performance in real world tests, it may actually hinder it. Think: drive seeks during normal computing are not confined to the operating system files or one application. They're all over the place. You're playing an MP3 while marking up a FrontPage while clicking on the Start Menu. The drive is seeking back and forth across the whole disc many times a second just to keep the multitasking smooth. Putting the OS and swap file at the beginning of the drive and the data at the end, simply makes the drive work harder to seek back and forth.

Disagree? Back it up with real world benchmarks.

<<I'm also quite surprised at the lack of knowledge on something as old and simple as fdisk.>>

Enlighten us, oh ancient wise one. Teach of the secrets of FDISK's glory!

<<I'm not in the debate club. I'm not one to argue this silly thing forever. I have better things to do with my time.>>

Translation: &quot;This is going downhill so I'll bow out now and pretend to take the high road.&quot;

Modus

 

[Remnant2]

Ok, here's a question for all of the one-big-partition proponents.

How the hell do you defrag those puppies in any reasonable time?

On a standard home machine (64mb-128mb ram), defrag up and barfs when trying to defrag the partition that windows puts its swapfile on -- I've had one computer, a 450mhz machine, go for over 28hrs to defrag a single, 4gb HD, because of all the swapping (and thus restarting of the process) that windows does because of the defrag program. The same harddrive split, with a 1gb windows/util partition and a 3gb data partition, would defrag the data partition in under 15 minutes.

It also applies to larger drives. My 20gb drive is split into :

2gb (windows/utils)
6gb (apps/projects)
6gb (media)
6gb (games)

This allows me to defrag only the parititions that have been worked on recently, meaning there's no need to defrag all my large media files when what really needs it is the tens of thousands of small files/documents in my projects.


I've had nothing but trouble with defragging a single-partition harddrive. The only thing that even gets close to working well is to disable virtual memory before running defrag -- but then, defrag is no longer a simple, easy-to-run out of sight utility, is it?

 

[Remnant2]

double post.

 

[JellyBaby]

I've rarely witnessed such odd argumentation in a thread. I'm afraid this one has become quite convoluted.

It's really funny. I could make a statement like, &quot;An apple is red and I would have it no other way.&quot; And some fellow responds with &quot;No, an apple is oval in shape and the color doesn't matter.&quot;. The repsonse is truthful but completely ignores the content and context of the original statement. Very odd and pointless.

Anyway, you can make arguments for or against partitioning. But at least one person in this thread seems to be in a quest to refute any pro-partitioning stances. I'm not sure why. It's almost like trying to convince someone to change his favorite color.

Again, to each his own and there are several correct answers to this thread's question.