Partitions on a 160GB IDE drive

[pelleplu]

I'm going to get a 160GB harddrive soon, and I was wondering if there will be any problem using it as one big partition? I'm going to run WinXP and use NTFS as filesystem (of course). I was thinking about partitioning my 80GB with one 6-7GB partition for windows and applications, and then the rest of it for data, as well as the entire 160GB drive for data too.
How does that sound? Would it be more optimized if I used more smaller partitions? Any big performance slowdowns/waste of space when using one huge partition?

I tried this in the tech support forum but didn't get much replies, so I'll give it another shot here

 

[WyteWatt]

pelleplu right now i partitioned my new WD1200JB HD with two 60 gig platter into a 5 gig partition for windows and the rest for games, programs, and data because i don't know how much space i will ever use just for games, programs, or data. Thats one reason why i made it one big partition for all of that. Plus at least everything would be closer to the fast end of the hard drive too! Thats just me though. I have a older 7200 rpm Maxtor 45 gig Hard drive with three 15 gig platters that right now i am just keeping other data on it for now.

So far it works good because whenever i have to do a format and reinstall of windows its a lot easier now.

 

[pelleplu]

Thanks! I'll go ahead and try it then!
Let's just hope BIOS supports a drive that big, but it should since the puter is shipping with it

 

[tallman45]

I have always liked multi drive rigs because from a performance and reliability standpoint. If the 160gb drive has 8mb cache then you will get better performance by running your 6-7gb OS/Apps partition on the larger drive. Why, because the platters on the 160 are of a higher density than a 80 drive hence the 6-7gb would be on a physically smaller portion of the outer edge of the first platter meaning less arm movement to read the same data. Use a product such as Sandra to test each drive and see which partition offers the best performance.

Whichever drive you use for your OS and apps, I would Ghost at least the OS to the other drive. Giving up 6-7gb is a small price to pay for all of the hassle of recreating everything from scratch when a drive fails, and we all know that sooner or later they will fail.

Next periodic defrag's run far faster on smaller partitions vs one very large one.

Lastly, performance of the Paging file and Scratch (photoshop) files are always substantially better if they reside on a drive other than where the OS is running from.

So, yes you would be more optimized if you use smaller partitions. You would not loose any space with one large partition, splitting them up into smaller ones takes up a very small amount but not something that you would notice.

 

[WyteWatt]

tallman45 yep sadly we can't always know a week or day in advanced before a hard drive dies I hope some day we can but i am sure it will never be 100% sense nothing really is.

You did bring up a good point about the smaller paritions would defrag quicker! I just wish i knew how big to make a partition on my WD1200JB for programs, games, and data. I don't though because it can change easily. I don't feel like using partition magic each time to resize the partitions because then you have a risk of losing your data there plus the time it takes! Though it does take a long while to defrag that big huge parition that i use just for programs, games and data but i think its ok because i can use my computer with hardly any reponsive difference on my WD1200JB while defragging the whole time!

 

[tallman45]

imtim83

I just picked up a couple of SE 120's but the WD website states that they have 3 platters. I had heard that some of the SE 120's used 2 x 60gb platters. I think that they are 60's because I ran a test of a 5gb partition on both a 120SE vs a 80 SE and the performance of the 120 was much better. Do you know by any chance if they are 2 or 3 ?

 

[tallman45]

Have you tried setting up the drive as a dynamic disk ? You can't extend an OS volume but it may help with data partitions.

 

[WyteWatt]

tallman45 I didn't really check how good the source was but i found it out at www.newegg.com in the comments part of the WD1200JB HD that i was reading before i bought it for a really cheap price!

The way you can find out if it is the three 40 gig platter WD1200JB Hard drive or two 60 gig platter WD1200JB Hard drive is by the LBA number!


LBA # 234375000 is the three 40 gig platter WD1200JB Hard drive

LBA # 234441648 is the two 60 gig platter WD1200JB Hard drive


I made sure i got the two 60 gig platter one. I was checking all of the WD1200JBs just to make sure. They all had the two 60 gig platter one but i only had to check three.

 

[WyteWatt]

tallman45 no i never tried setting up the drive as a dynamic disk. I am sorta new to that because i never did it before. I am sure i can look at it though. How would it beable to help me with data partitions? Thanks.

 

[tallman45]

Thanks I will check mine to see what I got.

Dynamic disks let you reallocate space for example a disk has 3 partitions c,d,e. C has the os and cannot be expanded, but d and e can. Say you need more space on d, you would be able to reallocate it from e to d.

 

[WyteWatt]

tallman45 oh ok. Isn't that like resizing the d and e partition ?

By the way your welcome!

 

[Jeff7181]

I use 5 partitions on my 80 GB drive. It's a GREAT help. My dad plays MS Flight 2002, which is fairly large and uses a ton of small files, so it would get fragmented quickly on my Windows partition. So here's how I have it set up...

C: = 12 GB, Windows and appliations
D: = 500 MB, Temp files/IE cache
E: = 5 GB, MS Flight 2002 with all his add-ons (he's a small aircraft pilot and loves to pay around with this sim)
F: = 20 GB, all my games, SoF2, Tony Hawk 3, BF1942, CS, etc.
G: = 38.5, MP3's, installation files I've downloaded, driver updates, divx movies, etc.

I only defrag E: and F: after I install new games... I only defrag G: after I have about 1 GB of new files... I defrag C: about every other week... and I never defrag D: cause that crap is rarely used and has no effect on performance anyway.

 

[WyteWatt]

Jeff7181 thanks. You see my problem is i don't know how much space i will use for a game partition, application partition, and data partition. I hate having to use partition magic to resize a partition if i have to because it sometimes takes forever. Plus i have the risk of losing my data when using partition magic. I haven't ever lost my data using it but still.

 

[OSUeagle]

I just installed a new HD-Maxtor 160gb onto my Dell. I partitioned into two drives 100 and 60. I will primarily use for picture files and my video projects. I noticed after i finished the install that if I looked at the drive stats, the 100gb showed with approx 94gb and the 60 showed 58gb. I am running XP with the SP1 so it should be ok based on what I read in the installation instructions.

Anyone know why there is "missing" gb's. Is it a number conversion issue or did it really use that much memory to format and partition?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: imtim83
Jeff7181 thanks. You see my problem is i don't know how much space i will use for a game partition, application partition, and data partition. I hate having to use partition magic to resize a partition if i have to because it sometimes takes forever. Plus i have the risk of losing my data when using partition magic. I haven't ever lost my data using it but still.

On average, today's games use about 2 Gb for a full install... I have 14 games installed and I'm using only 9.7 Gb. I could have even made my Windows partiton 10 GB and been fine because I'm only using 7 of the 12 GB I gave it. And the swap file partiton you shouldn't ever have to resize... and then the rest can just be for data.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: OSUeagle
I just installed a new HD-Maxtor 160gb onto my Dell. I partitioned into two drives 100 and 60. I will primarily use for picture files and my video projects. I noticed after i finished the install that if I looked at the drive stats, the 100gb showed with approx 94gb and the 60 showed 58gb. I am running XP with the SP1 so it should be ok based on what I read in the installation instructions.

Anyone know why there is "missing" gb's. Is it a number conversion issue or did it really use that much memory to format and partition?

Thanks for any help.

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=136

 

[SUOrangeman]

A few thoughts on partitioning

-SUO