OS and applications on separate drive?

[BehindEnemyLines]

I am planning on reorganizing my computer. It currently has too many partitions. The PC has two 250 GB hard drives. One drive will have XP and the other will have Vista. Will there be any performance boost if I install all my applications on a drive separate from the current OS? My gaming partition originally had 45GB, but it started to overflow to other partitions. The new plans are (P = Partition):

Additions:
Storage = games, music, and SD video recording.

Scenario 1:
HD1: P1 = XP, P2 = Vista applications, P3 = Storage
HD2: P1 = Vista, P2 = XP applications, P3 = Storage

Scenario 2:
HD1: P1 = XP, P2 = Vista, P3 = Storage
HD2: P1 = XP and Vista apps in separate folders (WINXP\..., VISTA\..., SHARED\...), P2 = Storage

Scenario 3:
HD1: P1 = XP and apps, P2 = Storage
HD2: P2 = Vista and apps, P2 = Storage

Other suggestions?

However, putting all the applications into their respective OS would make imaging much easier.

 

[Nothinman]

Personally I'd just put XP and Vista on seperate partitions on one drive with their apps on the same partition as the OS they're installed in and use the entire second drive for storage.

Well technically I'd not dualboot at all, I'd pick one OS to use and then put the rest in VMWare Server for the odd app that requires them.

 

[mancunian]

Scenario 3.

I used to do all that, a partition for this, a partition for that. But there's no noticeable performance advantage.

Now I think it's best to have just 2 partitions if you're running one OS.

Better still, 2 physical hard disks.

Your scenario 3 is best, especially if those 2 storage partitions are a backup of one another.

 

[hasu]

Here is another complex configuration My Windows XP installations span across 5 partitions in two drives.

Drive#1:

Partition#1:
Volume label: System
Drive Letter: C:
Used mainly for C:\Windows

Partition#2:
Volume label: Programs
Drive Letter: none
Mounted as C:\Program Files

Partition#3:
Volume label: Users
Drive Letter: None
Mounted as C:\Documents and Settings

Drive#2:

Partition#1:
Volume label: Data
Drive letter: D:
Mainly to store all data files

Partition#2:
Volume label: Archive
Drive letter: None
Mounted as D:\Archive
For backup and Archival purposes.

Tricky part is copying "Program Files" and "Documents and Settings" to separate partition and mounting it back to the original C:. This can be achieved by connecting the Drive#1 in another machine running Windows (or temporarily installing windows in another drive and booting from there in the same machine)

While copying files to the new partition I use command line xcopy /e/c/h/k.
1. Copy the files to separate partition
2. Enable Hidden/System files from Windows Folder->Settings
3. Delete files (only files not folders) from Windows Explorer
4, Mount the partition from step#1 as the folder from with in Disk Management (with in Computer Management Console)

This configuration prevents extreme fragmentation of Windows and Program files. You can automatically defragment these partitions by a simple batch file scheduled to run weekly (depending on usage)

 

[Nothinman]

This configuration prevents extreme fragmentation of Windows and Program files.

Which is in no way worth the huge amount of work and hassle you've put yourself through.

 

[mancunian]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

This configuration prevents extreme fragmentation of Windows and Program files.

Which is in no way worth the huge amount of work and hassle you've put yourself through.

Agreed.

And Hasu, you have your data on partition 1 of your 2nd disk? And then on the second partition, you say you use it for backup.

So your backing up from partition to partition? And not disk to disk?

 

[Nocturnal]

There really is no point in putting your programs on another partition and or drive as if and when you re-install Windows those programs will no longer work properly anyway. I just put my desktop, My Docs and favorites all on a separate hard drive. That's about it.

 

[hasu]

Originally posted by: mancunian
And Hasu, you have your data on partition 1 of your 2nd disk? And then on the second partition, you say you use it for backup.

So your backing up from partition to partition? And not disk to disk?

Good point!

Well, I was using MirrorFolder 2.0 to mirror my important folders back to the first disk to guard against disk crashes, until recently. MF2.0 stopped working with my heightened security settings . MF 3.0 claims that it supports mirroring of disks under different credentials. I am yet to try that, though. MirrorFolder is like software implementation of raid 0. It works in the driver level, to back up your changed portions of the files. According to the manufacturer, even if you mirror a huge database file, the mirroring only copies the records which are changed (may be only those sectors?).

I did not create D:\Archive with real backup intentions. I keep a copy of my hardware drivers, installers and some Virtual Machine images in that.

I think the main sources of fragmentations are temporary files (both internet and windows).
If you move Firfox profile folder(s) and Windows' designated TEMP folder out of the main drive, that will prevent a significant portion of fragmentation.

 

[BehindEnemyLines]

I will probably go with Scenario 3 for the moment unless someone has some insights. The whole pc is being backed up to my external drives and server, although I won't be attempting to start the restructure until tomorrow.

 

[ShawnD1]

Personally what I would do is this:
HDD1 = 1 partition for XP and its programs, 1 partition for Vista and its programs
HDD2 = 1 partition that contains all files that do not need to be installed (music, video, game files). I include game files because games are somewhat standalone; you just need to extract a key from your registry and it will allow that game to run on any computer.

 

[Nothinman]

I think the main sources of fragmentations are temporary files (both internet and windows).

So?

 

[hasu]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I think the main sources of fragmentations are temporary files (both internet and windows).

So?

So it is wise to keep them outside the windows and Program files partition. There are two advantages.

1. Your system files does not get fragmented easily
2. Defrag process is faster

Less fragmentation of the drive does improve the performance for sure.

BehindEnemyLines may be interested in that if he is re-partitioning.

(BTW, I just checked my windows machine again, I forgot to mention before that I have pagefile in a partition of its own too)

 

[Nothinman]

Less fragmentation of the drive does improve the performance for sure.

And you have proof of this?

(BTW, I just checked my windows machine again, I forgot to mention before that I have pagefile in a partition of its own too)

Which is generally worse for performance if you actually use the pagefile.

 

[hasu]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Less fragmentation of the drive does improve the performance for sure.

And you have proof of this?

It's my experience, I don't have benchmarked figures. Previously I used to use two harddisks in Raid0. After making these changes, now I have almost equal performace and that too consistent. Nothing new in the fact that it is faster to defrag smaller drives. In my configuration I do not have to defrag all my archives, installers, VM images etc, rather I can defrag only system and Programs.

(BTW, I just checked my windows machine again, I forgot to mention before that I have pagefile in a partition of its own too)

Which is generally worse for performance if you actually use the pagefile.

Well, you cannot get away without using pagefile (at least in windows, as far as I know). I have 2.5 GB of RAM in my machine so I do not know how much page file it actually uses.

 

[Nothinman]

It's my experience, I don't have benchmarked figures.

Then that's called the placebo affect. I love how just about every Windows user is willing to drop cash on a defrag program when they can't even quantify the affect it has on their system.

Well, you cannot get away without using pagefile (at least in windows, as far as I know). I have 2.5 GB of RAM in my machine so I do not know how much page file it actually uses.

It may cache a few megs in there even with lots of memory, but unless you're tight on memory it won't be used to any appreciable amount. But if you actually do use all of that memory and start hitting the pagefile you're going to make your performance even worse since you'll be constantly seeking from partition to partition which is a lot more expensive than just seeking within the same filesystem.

 

[hasu]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

It's my experience, I don't have benchmarked figures.

Then that's called the placebo affect. I love how just about every Windows user is willing to

It could be placebo effect or it could be because of the consistent result I get even after months of constant use. There are other things that I take care of such as limitting the auto start programs (sysinternal's AutoRuns), defragmenting of the registry files (sysinternals' PageDefrag), shutting down off all the unncessary services installed after windows' default installation. As an example if you install any database such as postgresql or SQLserver it installs windows services and configure to start automatically. It might be better idea to make those services manual and start when you want rather than starting it along with windows.

 

[Nothinman]

It could be placebo effect or it could be because of the consistent result I get even after months of constant use.

I never defrag any of my filesystems and I never notice any slow down either. And in another defrag thread I took some time to do some benchmarks, I found a large fragmented file and did some tests on it and the results were just as I expected them to be. Even after defragmentation the time required the read the entire file from disk was about the same and statistically the differences between all of the reads fell into the noise. Couple that with the fact that most of the time you're not doing large sequential reads on a file and other I/O is going on at the same time and the fragmentation has even less of an effect.

There are other things that I take care of such as limitting the auto start programs (sysinternal's AutoRuns), defragmenting of the registry files (sysinternals' PageDefrag), shutting down off all the unncessary services installed after windows' default installation. As an example if you install any database such as postgresql or SQLserver it installs windows services and configure to start automatically. It might be better idea to make those services manual and start when you want rather than starting it along with windows.

Those may save you a little time on bootup, but that's about it.

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

Originally posted by: hasu
Here is another complex configuration My Windows XP installations span across 5 partitions in two drives.

Drive#1:

Partition#1:
Volume label: System
Drive Letter: C:
Used mainly for C:\Windows

Partition#2:
Volume label: Programs
Drive Letter: none
Mounted as C:\Program Files

Partition#3:
Volume label: Users
Drive Letter: None
Mounted as C:\Documents and Settings

Drive#2:

Partition#1:
Volume label: Data
Drive letter: D:
Mainly to store all data files

Partition#2:
Volume label: Archive
Drive letter: None
Mounted as D:\Archive
For backup and Archival purposes.

Tricky part is copying "Program Files" and "Documents and Settings" to separate partition and mounting it back to the original C:. This can be achieved by connecting the Drive#1 in another machine running Windows (or temporarily installing windows in another drive and booting from there in the same machine)

While copying files to the new partition I use command line xcopy /e/c/h/k.
1. Copy the files to separate partition
2. Enable Hidden/System files from Windows Folder->Settings
3. Delete files (only files not folders) from Windows Explorer
4, Mount the partition from step#1 as the folder from with in Disk Management (with in Computer Management Console)

This configuration prevents extreme fragmentation of Windows and Program files. You can automatically defragment these partitions by a simple batch file scheduled to run weekly (depending on usage)

Sounds more like a pain in the ass.

 

[nerp]

Yeah I think someone here is obsessing over fragmentation a bit much.

 

[hasu]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
It may cache a few megs in there even with lots of memory, but unless you're tight on memory it won't be used to any appreciable amount. But if you actually do use all of that memory and start hitting the pagefile you're going to make your performance even worse since you'll be constantly seeking from partition to partition which is a lot more expensive than just seeking within the same filesystem.

Swap file has always been in a separate partition in Linux. Most of the changes I discussed are in fact similar to Linux and other Unix flavors. May be I am playing too much with Linux lately.

Moreover the performance improvement may be noticeable only on older hardware (2-3 years old). Most of the hard disks being 7200 RPM and sharing the bottleneck with IDE/PCI bus, if you have latest and greatest hardware then percentage improvement in performance may be negligible. I might be able to get some benchmark figures -- it might a week away at least. My friend has been complaining about the decrease in performance of one of his machines because of "old age". I must also mention that these machines are used for Application Development using .NET/VS2005 and SQL Server.

In the end, OP might have to do more research to decide if he would expect any noticeable performance improvement (for his intended purposes) by installing OS and applications in a separate partition.

 

[Shawn]

I don't understand why so many people are dual booting between XP and Vista. I haven't found a single program that doesn't work in Vista. Maybe it's because I'm using the 32bit version? I dunno, but the only program I've had any problems with at all is my Logitech Harmony Remote software and it still works, it just disables Aero.

 

[Nothinman]

Swap file has always been in a separate partition in Linux.

That's what most people use because it's all that the installers let you create but it's been possible to use a regular file for swap as long as I can remember. And in the past the only real benefits of a partition over a file were because of kernel design issues which are now fixed. Performance-wise on Linux a swap file and partition are equal now.

In the end, OP might have to do more research to decide if he would expect any noticeable performance improvement (for his intended purposes) by installing OS and applications in a separate partition.

Which is a huge waste of time. The extra time required for the 'research', the work required to set it up, maintenance costs down the road when one partition fills up unexpectedly, etc outweigh any of the very small benefits you might glean from an overly complex setup like yours.

 

[hasu]

A little research may not be too difficult. Some article from Google search. One might need 90 seconds to get that link.

He has another article Ego and computer maintenance don?t mix

 

[hasu]

1. This guy moves non-os partitions for a different reason.

2. Another discussion on defrag

3. http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic49884.html

4. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=187

 

[hasu]

1. The Implications of Fragmentation

2. Another study by IDC

You can find many more in google.