Partion HD for performance?

[Abaregi]

12

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Abaregi
I'm building a new rig next month and have seen posts about partitioning the first HD for swap file/temp

I'm getting 2 Samsung SpinPoint T166 HD501LJ 16MB 500GB, the first one for OS & Apps and the second 1 partition for games/movie/music

If i understand it right, on the first HD when installing Vista64 I should partition maybe about 8gb as C: and leave the rest for D: where i will be installing Vista.

I read that the first partion you make lands on the outer rim which is about 40% faster, and making that a small 8gb where i designate all temp and swap should improve performance.

Anyone confirm this or have thoughts?

Back in the days of 286s and 386s this might have been interesting, but now I wouldn't bother. One hard drive, one partition per each, use all defaults. Another $50 in RAM will make more of a difference with Vista than almost anything else.

 

[Soundmanred]

Yeah, I wouldn't bother.
The only reason I see having partitions is for easier backing up your main partition for a restore in case of failure.

 

[Narse]

You will not see much if any performnce benefit from this method. dclive is correct use one part on each drive and be done with it.

 

[Abaregi]

Ok, guess i'll leave it be
Thx for input.

 

[olmer]

It is not speed of the section of the drive what matters but a paging file being on a separate less often accessed drive/partition. And it being constant does also help. It was true for XP and stays true for vista 32 or 64. Obviously more memory is a better way to increase performance, but it is not free and i would not disregard whatever minor benefits i may have for a few ?free? clicks. In you case, however, using a single drive it matters less if at all.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

A second partition with the page file does nothing, a seperate drive will have a small effect but very small

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: olmer
It is not speed of the section of the drive what matters but a paging file being on a separate less often accessed drive/partition.

If you are hitting the pagefile so hard that's an issue, you need more RAM. Fiddling with pagefile for most people is a bad idea (particularly since that can involve moving it off of C, and then you can't analyze your dumps....)

And it being constant does also help. It was true for XP and stays true for vista 32 or 64. Obviously more memory is a better way to increase performance, but it is not free and i would not disregard whatever minor benefits i may have for a few ?free? clicks. In you case, however, using a single drive it matters less if at all.

Given it's the same spindle....