What Do I Do With 46GB's of Hard Drive?

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Carbo

Diamond Member
Aug 6, 2000
5,275
11
81
Yesterday, unexpectedly, I found myself in possession of a new IBM DeskStar 75GXP 46GB Hard Drive. It will be replacing a Quantum FireBall Plus KX 20GB drive.
I'm a casual user with my PC. Emails, surfing the 'net, and some Word documents pretty much sums up my use. Oh, yeah, occasionally my 12 yr old daughter, when not staring into a mirror imitating Britney Spears, will have a homework assignment to do.
So, we've established the IBM is overkill for my needs but, nonetheless, it's here. If you were in my shoes, and with my mother in law I wouldn't wish that upon any of you,
but if you WERE in my shoes, would you go about partitioning this monstrosity of storage space? And if so, how would you set it up?
My system: Gateway Performance 500, P3/500, 256MB RAM, CD/DVD player, CD-RW, Zip drive.
Connected to the 'net via RoadRunner cable.
I look forward to your input and opinions on this matter. Thank you.
 
T

Tauren

Diamond Member
Jan 30, 2001
3,880
1
0
Create 4 drives. Use one for the OS, one for internet downloads and crap you don't care about (games, mp3s,etc.) in case it gets infected, one for your word processing and office stuff, the other give to your daughter for her games, pitures, etc.
 
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Compuguru

Senior member
Oct 9, 1999
556
0
0
In my opinion, there is no point in partitioning a drive. What does it accomplish besides makeing navigation more difficult? I would leave it as one partition. As for use, mp3s or divx.
 
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Biggs

Diamond Member
Dec 18, 2000
3,010
0
0
One advantage of partitioning is that you can format the partition containing yout OS without affecting your other files. Saves you the time of relocating them to another hard drive first, formatting, and putting them back again.
 
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loosbrew

Golden Member
Oct 30, 2000
1,336
1
0
in my opinion partitioning makes it way easier to navigate! i hate having a bunch of folders on my c: drive. i would do what someone else said. make 4 partitions. one for the os. one for your downloads and other files and such. one for your daughters stuff. and one for extra space and important information that you will notuse except to save quicken books files and such.


my 2 sense.

loosbrew
 
AdamK47

AdamK47

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
15,782
3,604
136
Get another one and have a larger and faster 92GB striped array. Thats what you do.
 
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Rob G.

Senior member
Dec 15, 1999
448
0
0
Even as a casual obsever here, I've seen the endless arguments over partitioning.

Suffice to say - just go with your own needs. Partitoning may make navigation a tad more involved but that really depends on how your system is set up. There are pros and cons to both sides of the argument. No one is really right or wrong. Personal preference is everything.

For me personally, I find partitioning to be a real help. I use Ghost a lot and Ghost works at partition level. This is how my two 75GXP 46gbs are set up:

Drive 1:
C - 2gb - Windows 98
D - 6gb - Windows 2000 Pro
E - 20gb - the majority of my own files
F - 6gb - Spare
G - Whatever is left ;) - Archived files and installation software etc

Drive 2:
H - 1.2gb - SWAP
I and J - equal amounts of the remainder of the drive capacity. Mainly hold CD images (I make lots of compilations CDs), MP3s and other stuff that isn't necessarily on the system for a long time but takes up a lot of space.

I also have a third 25gb drive in an external bay which is used soley for Ghost backups of the others.

Now, it may seem overkill to some people, but it works for me. The OS partitions hold only the OS and application files and I can Ghost them in and out whenever I like. Because all of my own files AND the W98/W2K swap files (512mb each) are on different partitions, the Ghost process is speeded up considerably.

I keep the spare partition really just for the hell of it. It's come in handy a few times in the past when I've needed to make clones of other stuff I've been working on. Dunno, I might get rid of it soon.

I've found keeping the Archived and Installation files away from everything else to be useful but your mileage may vary :)

The 1.2 SWAP partition holds only the W98/W2K swap files, each at a fixed 512mb. It's right at the start of the second drive, which I believe is the fastest section (and definitely the quietest).

With regular backups of both of the 75GXPs off to the third drive (yeah I know 2x46gb doesn't fit into 25gb but I have a lot of spare space at the moment!), I am pretty much covered if one of the main drives dies.

I know a lot of people here will scoff at this kind of arrangement, but as I said above - it works for me.

Rob
 
S

Stephen24

Senior member
Jul 21, 2000
430
0
0
Partitioning is VITAL to most users.

For isntance. I have one patition setup for windows and programs, like word perfect and mp3 stuff and burning proggies, ya know, those essential utilities. I find it gets fragmented really really quickly. So having it as it's own drive it will not slow down performacne of my other partition which is for games.

You have to udnerstand the way file systems work to know how much paritioning works. That or use Norton Speed Disk which has a nice map of the drive's files.
 
dcdomain

dcdomain

Diamond Member
Jan 30, 2000
5,158
0
71
Carbo, I'd definitely partition the drive. You'll thank yourself later when you need to format your OS partition. You'll be able to move data files off the OS partition to your other partitions and save yourself a lot of headaches in backing up.

I usually keep my My Documents folder on the other partitions so I'll have less to move around. The most I do before I format is move my Outlook .pst files, my Favorites folder and that's about it. Everything else such as my mp3's, videos and what not are already safely stored on the other partitions.

125gb's of goodness for me partitioned into 6 drives.
C: WinME OS
D: mp3's
E: Win2K OS
F: movies
G: mp3's
H: programs, backup
 
N

Noriaki

Lifer
Jun 3, 2000
13,640
1
71
I'd make it 2 partitions in your case.

1 for your OS and programs, and one for downloads and files, then should anything bad happen and you have to format your main drive, you have a second drive so you can keep important files.

That's not what I'd do personally, but it sounds like the best option in your case.

IBM75GXP 42.93Gig (advertised 46.1):
5Gig: Windows Install
8Gig: Windows Apps Install
2 x ~15Gig: Files, Downloads, Games, Mp3s.

IBM75GXP 28.59Gig (advertised 30.7G):
1/2Gig: Virtual Memory
2 x ~14Gig: Files, Downloads, Games, Mp3s.

 
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Remedy

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 1999
3,981
0
0
I have 2 10gig Quantum LM drives going on RAID 0 setup how should i partition those for win2k? I was once told i should do like a 2gig partition for win2k, and then partition the rest of the 18 gigs for storage. I like some of the other options listed above but i still can't decide.
 
B

blindspot

Member
Jan 7, 2001
176
0
0
Accept tenants!

Well, make your own movies. I'm sure 46GB will not be enough. You'll probably be buying another one soon!

Partition it! Definitely no negotiations!
 
GT1999

GT1999

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
5,261
1
71
Hell man, I'm going to have two of those in RAID 0 once I get my second 45GB 75GXP, what am *I* going to do with this space is beyond me..

:Q :Q
 
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randomlinh

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
20,846
2
0
linh.wordpress.com
yes, he wants his 12yr old daughter to find the pr0n on the computer :p oh wait, she's halfway there, she's imitating britney spears :) heh, no, really, don't let her get that far in mimicing her, it's just a sad sad image she's portraying to little girls me thinks.
 
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