Partition Recommendations

[Mattlock2]

I have a 40 gig Maxtor ATA133 7200 and a 13 gig Maxtor Ata100 7200.

Going to install WinXP Prof and reload everthing. Any partition recommdations?

thanks,

Mattlock (newbie at partitioning)

 

[Mavrick007]

Wouldn't even bother partitioning anything at all. Are you just going to use WinXP or Win98SE or something else as well?
If so, then I would put WinXP on the 40gig and Win98SE on the 13gig for a dual boot with the 13 being the C drive.

 

[Fulcrum]

One partition for each drive. If you want to organize things (MP3s for ex.) further, just use folders.

 

[Souljahh]

I'm in a similar predicament. I have a 40 gig Maxtor ATA133 7200 and am running XP. My question is should I partition at all? What are the benefits and drawbacks? I really don't want to go through the hassle unless there are performance enhancements, etc. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Mattlock2]

dont think I'll partition at all. thanks everyone

 

[Protouringcars]

i know i'm hella late in replying to this....but I have some words of wisdom.... for your 40 gig hdd....I would recommend you partion it in TWO. One partition would be the "I don't care" part which if you ever run into a really bad rut you don't care if you lose all the data on it....this would be the partition you would install your OS on....since most of the time there is an OS rut that just kills everything at one point or another and you have to be A+ certified to figure it out at times.....better to just format....eventhough that's time.....or just ghost...hehe..... ANYHOW....the second partition I would make would be 13 gigs large. Just like your other separate hdd....reason being....you can copy from the 13 gig partition that is part of your 40 gig hdd....to your actual 13 gig hdd that is separate....Y do that you ask....well...I'm paranoid now that i've lost 3 hdds due to mechanical failure....backing up data ... if you do ...you'll be thanking yourself for some sorta "redundancy" kinda like RAID. Lost gigs of mp3's on a single hdd before I got smart and went RAID. I'd do the same if I were you....just a suggestion from one who has been through hell at several points when it came to losing mass quantities of data. Going raid would be beneficial too (mirroring...using two identical hdds)....with a third hdd or separate LARGER partition just incase one of your array drives goes whack you would dump everything on the 3rd drive/partition...reason being you don't want to buy another hdd to replace the dead one and then run the rebuild utility and find out that the utility is copying the new BLANK hdd over the RAID hdd that has the mirrored data on it. Best on your partitioning adventures.

PS... to break it down..

Non RAID setup:

Hdd 1: Two partitions. a. A 27 gig partion that you install the OS on b.13 gig partion for storing dled files etc

Hdd2: One partition of 13 gigs

RAID setup:

Hdd1: One partition per OS

Hdd2: One partiion

Hdd3: One partion

note Hdd2 and 3 are mirrored

Hdd4: could be a partition on hdd1 or could actually be a fourth hdd....but that would be your dump drive which would be larger than a single mirrored RAID hdd. Like I stated...you don't want to find out you copied the new blank factory referbished hdd3 over the mirrored hdd2....so you dump mirror hdd2 to another partition or hdd then run the utility....if your lucky it mirrored your data and not the blank hdd....but if it did the opposite your cool...just copy all from your dump to your RAID array



~ptc

 

[Rhombuss]

Whenever I build systems, I usually make the first partition 15GB for the OS boot. Too many people overshoot the usage of the boot drive, and end up assign like over 25GB. Unless you go warezing like insane, you generally don't need more than 15GB for a solid boot drive.

BTW Mattlock, you sure about that second HDD, a 13GB Maxtor ATA100 7200RPM? In one of my old systems, I have a 13.6GB Maxtor, ATA66 7200RPM. If it wasn't for the increased aureal density on the new D740X HDDs, I would actually recommend you to install the OS on that 13GB HDD. Reason being, you can simply swap that drive in and out. If you put your boot partition on the 40GB HDD, and have another partition it becomes a little less organized. You're using storage partitions on both drives, and one shares space with the boot drive.

 

[AnAndAustin]

I'm really surprised that people haven't mentioned CLUSTER SIZES nor file systems yet. This makes a HUGE difference when deciding on partitions. To keep things very basic when using FAT32 you get all kinds of probs and wastage when using a partition over 32.0GB. WinXP can overcome this by using NTFS instead of FAT32. So I would strongly advise either of the following:

Using FAT32 for all partitions means that pretty much any OS will be able to read the data:
40GB = 32GB primary and 8GB extended (there may be unused space but it will be under 1GB and is best left out, by increasing either of these partitions you will waste 1GB or more because the cluster size is increased.
13GB = 13GB single partition (can split into 8GB+5GB but 13GB isn't very wasteful and would be wiser if installing an OS to this disk).

Optimum method:
40GB = 40GB NTFS single partition (very fast, flexible and not at all wasteful BUT cannot be read by older OSs, if prompted use no more than a 4KB cluster size)
13GB = 13GB single partition (can split into 8GB+5GB but 13GB isn't very wasteful and would be wiser if installing an OS to this disk).

I would recommend the Optimum Method and install WinXP on the 40GB and Win98SE on the 13GB, this will give by far the fastest and best use of space possible and certainly allow the ideal choice of OSs esp compatability wise (unless you want Linux etc).