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Large Drive Formatting

S

SeTeS

Senior member
I just got one of those comfortably large 200g maxtor drives to replace the tight-fitting 80g currently in my server. Currently, the 80g is broken into 2 partitions (3g boot, remainder for storage). The new setup will be a 3g notebook hd for boot (trying to keep the noise to a minimum), and the full 200g for storage.

So, here's the question re the 200g drive:

Do I...

1. Format the whole thing as one huge partition (and to h3ll w/ the loss from massive cluster sizes).

2. Break it up into partitions based on estimated usage (the largest would still probably be upwards of 100 megs).

3. Format as dynamic volumes to allow for flexible sizing (not sure about stability).

I guess I should mention that either be running win2k svr or just plain win2k pro as the os.

I'm also not sure if using dynamic drives/volumes helps w/ the cluster size issue.

Anyway, suggestions will be swiftly rewarded with crates of flaky biscuits.

tia.
 
What kind of data do you store on your server? If the files aren't small, you can use one big partition. Or, you can use partitions if it provides a convenient way to logically segregate your data.
 
NTFS will use 4k clusters by default for any partition larger than 2GB. So cluster waste isn't that big a deal, though you can also specify 8k, 16k, 32k, or 64k. You're probably best off just using one big partition. I don't know anything about dynamic partitions, except that the way the Windows help files make it sound, they're a pain to integrate into a reinstalled copy of the OS.
 
I'm a bit skeptical of the use of dynamic disks myself. I surely don't want any problems slappin that drive in another box if need be. I figure as long as I'm using a basic ntfs partition, I won't have any problems as long as I'm booting w/ w2k or above.

I'm also not sure about how programs such as ghost will handle dynamic disks/volumes. Might not be too happy.

So, if ntfs limits cluster size to 4k for even HUGE partitions, I'm good to go.

Watch your mail for FLAKY BISCUITS!

 
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