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[KarishBHR]

I've been asking a few HD questions lately... here's the update.

All my problems were because I had two hd's, my new one and the old one... took me 24 hours to realize this. The new one is working great, but I was going to use the second HD for music/movies/exc... thinking it would help system performance.

Is it worth it to partition the new 250 gb in order to help system performance, or does it do nothing but help with organization?

 

[CaptainABAB]

Is it worth it to partition the new 250 gb in order to help system performance, or does it do nothing but help with organization?

Unless you are using FAT32, it won't help. Windows XP should default to NTFS and it isn't more efficient with smaller sizes.

I'm not a big fan of partitions - at some point, you run out of space in one and you have too much in the other one. At which point you're screwed w/o special software.

 

[Particle Physicist]

Unless you are using FAT32, it won't help. Windows XP should default to NTFS and it isn't more efficient with smaller sizes.

I'm not a big fan of partitions - at some point, you run out of space in one and you have too much in the other one. At which point you're screwed w/o special software.

i would at least have a partition for windows.. that way you can reformat and reinstall without losing the rest of your files.

 

[Macam]

In my experience with Windows, partitioning does little good as one of the previous posters noted. However, using Disk Defragmenter, cleaning the registry in top shape, and removing any adware did help....marginally.

You don't need to partition simply to ease reformatting in any case, as hopefully you're doing backups already.

 

[Juice]

In my gentile opinion, becoming a partition whore who has to partition every damn topic of data is a very dangerous road to travel down. Additionally, since NTFS has dawned upon the Windows crowd, there really isn't much of a performance boost.

HOWEVER, I highly highly recommend that you give your Windows install its own system partition of 20GB or so. That way it'll have its own guaranteed little bubble of swap space, and then all of your data will be in the other drive. Because after you initially install Windows to the system partition, no data is really going to change, you really won't need to defrag it either. It also helps prevent rogue program files from causing hell. I can't encourage you enough to do this on a Windows machine, as it is probably the best way to prevent having to reinstall Windows annually.

Another tip is to keep an eye on the registry, especially if you use IE (which you shouldn't). 99% of the performance problems I've encountered are a direct result of software mishandling the Windows registry, which sucks up valuable system resources and causes all sorts of hell. Back it up regularly.

Or do what I did and just switch to a Mac. HFS+ is a kickass filesystem, the memory swapping is very intelligent, and the operating system isn't a bitch about how much space it has. Not having a registry keeps an install running nearly indefinitely after heavy use. But, I doubt that's within the scope of your current project...

 

[Shogmaster]

i would at least have a partition for windows.. that way you can reformat and reinstall without losing the rest of your files.

A-fucking-men. Plus, if you Pshop seriously, it's good to seperate Windows from Photoshop scratch disc on a seperate partition.

Also. anything over 40GB, I wouldn't keep as a big fucking single partition if you have a lot of apps that litter files all over the place that hasten defragging the drive. Keeping WIndows on a small partition makes it a fast defrag.

And for godsakes, KEEP BITTORRANT ON A SEPEREATE PARTITION!!! Talk about defrag nightmares........

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

Bittorrent program or where you save the files?

 

[Shogmaster]

Bittorrent program or where you save the files?

Where you save the files. The nature of how bittorrant works ensures that it's fragmentation city in no time.

 

[Juice]

Where you save the files. The nature of how bittorrant works ensures that it's fragmentation city in no time.

Shit, that's a really good point. I never really bothered to think about it, but the fact that the files just get written nilly willy (and often over a period of weeks), I can see how this would result in... slight file fragmentation. I can only imagine saving bittorrent shit to the same partition as Windows. NIGHTMARE GET!

Yeah, so just be sure to make a system partition. Beyond that, it might be wise to make an Applications partition, and then a data partition if you do a lot of pirating.

You pirate, you.

 

[Particle Physicist]

Shit, that's a really good point. I never really bothered to think about it, but the fact that the files just get written nilly willy (and often over a period of weeks), I can see how this would result in... slight file fragmentation. I can only imagine saving bittorrent shit to the same partition as Windows. NIGHTMARE GET!

Yeah, so just be sure to make a system partition. Beyond that, it might be wise to make an Applications partition, and then a data partition if you do a lot of pirating.

You pirate, you.

yeah. thats basically how i do it. i have a small windows partition. an applications partition and a multimedia partition..

 

[Red Dolphin]

yeah. thats basically how i do it. i have a small windows partition. an applications partition and a multimedia partition..

I have a Windows/Apps partition, a swap file partition and a Data/Multimedia Partition.

Makes defraging a lot easier.

 

[Shogmaster]

You pirate, you.

I admit NOTHING! *runs*

 

[Zaptruder]

Bittorrent causes fragmentation?

I've been running azureus for a long time now, and I've filled up huge chunks of my HD with BT files... I save it directly to the location that it stays at most of the time, and when I checked my disks with disk analyzer, it revealed remarkably little fragmentation, given that I haven't defragged since I reinstalled windows about 5 months ago (and started from scratch).

I think what BT, at least Azureus does is reserve a single chunk of HD space for each file that downloads... just like a file that you'd copy from one location to another, and it slowly fills in the reserved section... and the way things work; where windows looks for a large enough contiguous chunk of space on the HD before resorting to fragmenting up a file means that, regardless of the nature of BT, no significant out of the ordinary fragmentation should occur.

 

[snaildog]

Another tip is to keep an eye on the registry, especially if you use IE (which you shouldn't). 99% of the performance problems I've encountered are a direct result of software mishandling the Windows registry, which sucks up valuable system resources and causes all sorts of hell. Back it up regularly.

I'm a bit clueless on "keeping an eye on the registry". Can anyone point me to information/guides/programs that would assist?

 

[Shogmaster]

Bittorrent causes fragmentation?

I've been running azureus for a long time now, and I've filled up huge chunks of my HD with BT files... I save it directly to the location that it stays at most of the time, and when I checked my disks with disk analyzer, it revealed remarkably little fragmentation, given that I haven't defragged since I reinstalled windows about 5 months ago (and started from scratch).

I think what BT, at least Azureus does is reserve a single chunk of HD space for each file that downloads... just like a file that you'd copy from one location to another, and it slowly fills in the reserved section... and the way things work; where windows looks for a large enough contiguous chunk of space on the HD before resorting to fragmenting up a file means that, regardless of the nature of BT, no significant out of the ordinary fragmentation should occur.

I don't know how much a BT client makes a difference, but ABC just strews shit everywhere. My god, I've never seen a HD so fragmented in my life in such short period of time (6 months?). A defrag session through Windows didn't do shit and took forever (it was a 120GB drive), so I just ended up zeroing that shit out with WD tools and reformatting.

 

[Ruzbeh]

I read it was good to have a seperate partition for the Windows system files (5GB), a seperate partition for swap space (let's make it roomy, 1GB), and the remaining stuff can go somewhere else.

I personally have a crapload of partitions, but I use Linux and you need at least 2 seperate partitions for that (I think).

 

[Shogmaster]

I read it was good to have a seperate partition for the Windows system files (5GB), a seperate partition for swap space (let's make it roomy, 1GB), and the remaining stuff can go somewhere else.

I personally have a crapload of partitions, but I use Linux and you need at least 2 seperate partitions for that (I think).

I actually have 10GB of Windows and apps, 4GB for windows page files, and the rest (160GB+) for my files on my ghetto box.

My gaming box has 20GB for Windows and apps, 4GB for Windows page, and rest for files.

My workstation has 10GB for Windows, 6GB for windows page files, 20GB for Photoshop and Painter page files, and 36GB+ for my files.