Hi All
Just wanted to check if my setup would slow down the proformance espesaly when playing games?:undecided
As have 750GB HDD and have it partitioned into two
1st OS Windows 7 100GB
2nd Apps/Game install Drive 600GB
Whould this setup effect proformance in games or stress the HDD out while playing games?
Cheers
:mrgreen:
Nope it won't.
I've never done a direct benchmark to compare between two otherwise identical setups, but my gut feeling is, as Iron Warrior said, no,it won't.
What I have done, for years, is break down a hard drive, or multiple harddrives, according to usage. A typical configuration on one of my PCs would be something like :-
C: Operating System
D: Applications
E: Games
F: Important Data
G: Archived Data
H: Miscellaneous
Mainly, this is to aid in backup and disaster recovery.
For instance, if I image C:, I can restore that image and have a crashed system booting immediately.
If I then restore D: as well, most of all of my apps are back running, saving spending several days finding and re-installing.
F: of course, for important data, is the one I back up religiously and regularly. In my case, that would be business stuff, contact details, work in progress, accounts data, email logs and so on.
G:, on the other hand, is stuff I have archived off-line anyway, so it doesn't need backing up. The "archiving" might consist of DVD copies, DVD-RAM copies, sync'ed to another networked PC or remote online storage, tape, or whatever, but it's stuff I know I can get back to the PC simply back copying back from the archive. Examples would be photos, etc, that are final work.
So, I take a photo, port if from camera to F: where it gets backed up as "important". The original master file then gets "archived" to one of those media types, and I might work on the image. Once completed, the finished image gets "archived", and moved to G so I can get at it immediately if I need it.
Another example of that might be MP3's of a CD. If you have the CD, you can always re-encode, so I wouldn't put MP3 files in a directory that's getting regularly backed up, because that would just add unnecessary system load. Hence, it goes on G:.
Depending on the hardware (how many drives), any of those drive letters might be a separate physical drive, or one of several partitions on a single drive. And apart from when any sync'ing is going on (and that's scheduled for convenient times), I've never noticed any performance hit from breaking down storage into quite a complex set of partitions.
But .... as I said, I've never benchmarked it to directly compare. Your mileage might vary, as they say.
Thanks for your time mate, sounds very similar to my setup as much quicker way of getting windows backup and running with out losing any important data. Just the question popped into my head i just wanted another experts opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saracen
Cheers for confirming.
It definately wouldnt slow the system down, especially when in games. Under file transfer it might seem like the drive is slower. Someone correct me if im wrong, when you partition a HDD you define certain parts of the disk for each partition, if that part of the disk is further towards the outside of the disk it will take longer to read/write it than if it was the inside.
Personally i have 4 drives but only 2 partitions; windows (Raid 0) and a data (Raid 1). I break the data drive down into folders of my various stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saracen
For backup i ghost the windows drive onto a backup semi-regularly and the data is mirrored so its fairly safe.
I do like this though, very organised!
I actually think it could do.
For example, if your partition system involves Windows at the centre of the drive, and the Page File on the very edge, then when your system is under heavy page file usage it is constantly switching from the middle to the edge of the disk, causing a bit of a delay.
If you weren't using partitions, then the Page File would be in amongst the Windows files, and therefore would be much closer to the head.
Whether that leads to any quantifiable, real-world difference... I have no idea. Probably not. But I can conceive of how partitioning can be a negative.
For the record, I no longer bother with partitions since multiple hard drives and my server do the job themselves.
Zak seems to think it makes a difference:
How to Speed up your Hard Disk :-) (Zak's Partition Theory)
Other way around; the outside parts of the disk have a higher linear velocity than the inside parts (this is simple physics - the entire platter spins at the same angular velocity, 7200rpm or whatever, so the outside part of the disk which is larger than the inside of the disk, must be covering more distance with each rotation) - hence the outside is faster for sequential reading/writing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Biscuit
Oh sure, there's no "once size fits all" about this.Quote:
Originally Posted by snootyjim
I have the system I have (similar but not identical to the outline above) because it works for me. Bear in mind I have about a dozen systems here (home and home office), with a mix of servers, desktops and laptops, with a variety of purposes from generic computing to single purpose machines. And a variety of hardware configurations, from modern quad-cores, to single-core Pentiums and Athlons (XP era). And they also range from hardware SCSI RAID 5 to tape backup, to DVD-RAM and so on.
For me, structuring the data is very important, and helps ensure that the bits that really, absolutely MUST be backed up are, and are thoroughly, but that I don't bog things down with backing up stuff that doesn't need it.
That layout works for me, not least because it helps me think about what I'm putting where and what really matters. It used to be the case that disk space considerations made that easy, and regular disk management and tidying was de rigueur (;)), but as disks have got larger and larger, it's far too easy to just let it go and you (or I would, anyway) end up with a honking great amorphous mass of junk on disks, multiple copies and duplications, or updated versions of files without being sure which was which, and I'd end up with an absolute nightmare to sort out, and it'd take me days and days to do it.
It's like cleaning the loo. Not my favourite job, but it's better to do it regularly (and frequently) than face the job after a couple of years of not doing it. ;) :D
With the exception of seperating the OS and apps from user data (for easy reformatting/reinstallation when necessary), I've never really understood why multiple drive letters and partitions are preferred over a sensible folder structure as an efficient way of organising data. Also, with a single partition the drive's total free space can be expanded into by whatever dataset needs it, so you don't end up wasting space on some partitions and running out on others (leading to the overspill being relocated and totally defeating the object of the exercise).
There might have been an argument once (somewhat dubious anyway IMHO) that multiple partitions makes defragging quicker and easier, but that's hardly an issue these days with Windows just getting on with it behind the scenes.
Still, it all boils down to personal preference in the end I suppose. :)
The outer parts of the disk as they have more sectors have a greater bandwidth but just as slow a seek time as the rest of the disk, so in random access do not get much better performance. Partitioning a disk, gives more than one data area, this is good as look up tables are smaller (less ram, however this is a non issue these days we have so much) however as others have indicated could be bad as a paging file could results in a large seek between different partition areas, if you have data on the other partition. However this disk is SOOO SLOW compared to memory, if your paging at all that has far more effect on your computers performance than disk access to data files. Memory is so cheap these days there is no need to page at all, set my swap files off or two the minimum.
The normal rules of disk layour apply, put your OS on a seperate disk from your data. If your processing lots of data use one disk to "produce" and another to "consume" (store) the results.
Having said all that I would always have my data on a different partition if I can't have it on a different drive as it allows me to rest the OS without having to worry about getting everything off the partition, that means more to me than a largely theoretical slow down, its mostly hot air coming from people talking about extreme conditions, your computer will be faster if you just avoid those conditions.