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Thread: To Partition or not?

  1. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by ben_wade
    Dont want to leave it on a small partition because i store EVERYTHING i download/work/rip from cd/dvd in the my documents folder. Dont store anything anywhere else
    I think you're there, but just to clarify:

    On a standalone PC, your Windows User profile will always be stored on the System drive.

    However personal files can be stored anywhere, and the target of 'My Documents' be can be adjusted accordingly - so who says you have to point it to a small partition?

    S.
    Last edited by BlueMagician; 16-01-2005 at 10:27 PM.

  2. #50
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    Ive always being an advocate of partitioning, i currently have 3 250gb drives as raid 0.
    My partitions are roughly
    c:\windows 10gb
    d:\programs 25gb
    e:\games 40gb
    f:\My documents 40gb
    g:\Music 290gb
    h:\Downloads 350gb

    200gb disk
    i:\swap 2.5gb
    j:\backup1

    160gb disk
    k\Backup 2

    100gb disk

    l:backup 3

    remember the order you place your partitions in affects the speed. The partitions near the begining of the disk are faster.
    Another tip is to always put your cd/dvd drives as the last letters. My dvd writer is on z: then if i add or remove partitions/disks then the letter doesn't change.
    I wrote a guide on partitioning/dual booting a few years ago, its a bit out of date but most of it is still valid http://www.pc-helper.net/Site/Articl.../dualboot1.htm

  3. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by pudds
    ...i currently have 3 250gb drives as raid 0.
    I guess it's personal preference - but I'd never liked the idea of splitting into that many partitions. Your organisation is admirable, but I'd rather have this as a directory structure split across the 3 volumes.

    As for the RAID 0.. This is a risky setup IMO. I'm sure you are well aware of the risks, but knowing that a failure of any drive results in loss of data on the entire volume is a bit "eggs in one basket for me". I'd just have them as separate volumes, or better still in RAID5. Much safer, even if you do lose 250GB.. Each to their own, I guess..

    Quote Originally Posted by pudds
    ..Another tip is to always put your cd/dvd drives as the last letters. My dvd writer is on z: then if i add or remove partitions/disks then the letter doesn't change...
    Yes that's a funky plan of action - no running around correcting confused app installations when they can't find their beloved optical drive..

    £0.02
    S.
    Last edited by BlueMagician; 17-01-2005 at 12:34 PM.

  4. #52
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    whats the difference between raid 0 and raid 5...and what happend to raid's 1, 2, 3 and 4?
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    RAID0 is misnamed - RAID is a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (or Devices, dpending on personal preference). It's primarily a way of protecting data, although it can improve performance.
    RAID0 - data is striped across all the disks, with no parity information, so a failure of any one disk will cause complete loss of data. However, performance is increased. IMO, useful in, and best restricted to, environments where user data is stored off the machine or on a completely separated disk.
    RAID1 - Disk mirroring; data is written to two disks simultaneously. If one fails, the data is still present on the other disk. VERY good protection, but expensive, since you have to buy double the disk space that you'll end up with. Slight performance hit, though nothing you'd realistically notice. Good idea for the OS partition on a server, for instance.
    RAID5 - Data is striped across all the disks in a RAID5 array, like with RAID0, but parity information is written as well, so if a disk fails, the data can be reconstructed from the remaining disks. Good protection and can provide slight performance increases. Best performance is achieved from a higher number of smaller disks than a lower number of larger ones. Basically, for working out the capacity, figure to lose one disk's worth of capacity from the array for the parity info.

    Actually, here's a WIKI
    Last edited by nichomach; 17-01-2005 at 01:12 PM.

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    ah. thanks...
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    Head activity?

    From a pure performance point of view I dislike partitioning. The best disk throughput is achived by the highest number of read/write heads in an array. Does anyone have any good information about the performance hit on reads and writes when spanning partitions?

    I found this which explains a lot but surely the more partitions you have the harder you head is going to have to work to navigate around them? If you have a drive with a seek time of 9ms, 2 partitions on your drive 1 for system and 1 for swapfile, when you open say an Excel spreadsheet from C:\ and it hits the swapfile you will incur 2 x 9ms seek requests...

    Anyone able to susbstanciate?

    Herbie

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    The reason i have so many partitions is also to optimise for speed. Partitions at the begining of the disk of the disk are fatster than partitions at the end. I want windows, programs and games to be on the fastest parts of the hard drive so their partitions are at the begining. If i just used one big partition with seperate folders then the files would be on the disk in the order i saved them So everything i put on the disk in a few months will be nearer the end of the disk. If the hard disk is say 75% full and i install something it would load considerably slower than if i installed it onto its own partition at the bgining of the disk.
    Also partitioning allows me to use larger cluster sizes on certain partitions. My downloads partition at the end of the array generally holds very large files so its formatted as a 32k cluster ntfs. Id lose a lot of disk space if i used small files but with large files it increases performance without without losing much storage.
    I am aware of the problems with raid 0 hence the 3 backup drives. I wouldn't recomend using it without a backup.
    Last edited by pudds; 17-01-2005 at 01:47 PM.

  9. #57
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    The points you make on partitioning are in the storagereview article i linked to - what i would really like to know is the impact of increased seek times...this may be negated by having a larger read cache for example...can anyone here help on this?

    Herbie

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    Quote Originally Posted by herbert_goon
    The points you make on partitioning are in the storagereview article i linked to - what i would really like to know is the impact of increased seek times...this may be negated by having a larger read cache for example...can anyone here help on this?

    Herbie
    I was replying to bluemagician before but to answer your question i don't really see how partitioning will affect performance. What you say is true in that with two partitions the drive head would have to flick between say c:\windows and d:\swap but wouldn't this happen without partitions? The head would swap between your windows files and the swap file?

    edit: just been reading your post again and i can see there would only be a performance hit on a fairly empty drive when swapping between partitions at the begining and end of the disk. For example with a 100gb disk which is just 50% full then the read head would never read above half way across the disk which would reduce seek times. As the drive fills up then the difference between an unpartioned drive and a partitioned one decreases while you would also have the benefit with a partitioned drive that files that needed faster access would be placed nearer the front of the disk if you've partitioned oorrectly. Its only a theory but i think partitioning might also reduce the MTBF as the data is written more evenly across the whole drive and not just written to the same part all the time e.g the first 50%. This would probably reduce wear on the platters but then again the read/write head would have to work harder flicking across the partitions . Again as stated once the drive is about 75% full (at a rough guess) then the whole argument becomes redundant.
    Last edited by pudds; 17-01-2005 at 02:14 PM.

  11. #59
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    Yes it would but is there an additional impact with the partition? The distance travelled by the head would be potentially greater with a partition. I would like to satisfy my curiosity on this. Partitioning is a software solution, so there will need to be some form of translation at or beneath the XP HAL (not sure where, but it will be done somewhere). My gut is that the difference in performance is akin to the difference between software and hardware RAID.

    Any thoughts?

    Herbie
    Last edited by herbert_goon; 17-01-2005 at 02:14 PM.

  12. #60
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    Partitioning can lead to performance benefits as

    a) you can tailor the cluster size to suit the partition content. Bigger cluster = better performance but with less efficient use of space for small files. So on my music drive and media drive i use 16kb clusters to minimise seeking as file sizes are large. On games and windows i use the default 4kb as there are lots of small files.

    b) You can force your swapfile to the end of the disk, in it's own fat32 partition, both offering a speed increase.

    other benefits

    c) your data on other partitions is less prone to malware attack

    d) You can format windows without losing all ur data

    e) You can install multiple operating systems

    f) you can ghost ur ideal windows setup onto another partition and reload instead of reinstalling.

    g) You avoid the bios and OS size limitations in some scenarios

    h)Women find you more attractive

    Downsides:

    i) the inflexibilty of space allocation. Get it right first time..


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  13. #61
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    AFAIK Partitioning isn't software its done at the drive level. If you partition an hard drive and stick it in any operating system the partitions are the same. They are written to the partition table in the hard drive.

  14. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by funnelhead
    Partitioning can lead to performance benefits as

    h)Women find you more attractive

    f
    I can confirm h) I once pulled 8 women in one night by drunkedly announcing while standing on the bar that i had a 100gb ntfs partition formatted with 32K clusters

  15. #63
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    They are written to the partition table in the hard drive.
    Yes - that's a software solution. The drive does not physically change its properties of course.

    I know I am being a little picky but I would love a definative answer. I will go searching, and post my results.

    Regards

    Herbie

  16. #64
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    If your looking at it that way then everythings a software solution. The hard drives also keeps a record of where the files are on your hard drive you could could that software too. Bios chips could also be called software. A software solution is normally something where the software side is taken over by the operating system which is normally a poorer choice. This doesn't happen with partitions , its all done by the drive.

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