How to Optimize Use of Partitions?

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Wed Dec 22, 2004 7:10 pm

Does anyone have some opinions about what to do to maximize performance and convenience when partitioning hard drives? I'm looking at a number of factors, speed, speed to defrag (and defrag prevention), organization, reduced impact if you need to format 1 partition. I would also be interested in this 1 drive example on where people would set their temp internet files and pagefile. Here are a few alternatives using 200 Gb hard drive as an example:

1. Have 1 massive partition where you install Windows XP, games, store mp3 etc.

2. 1 partition ~40 Gb to install Windows XP, games, things in Program Files etc. and the 2nd partition ~ 160 Gb for storing mp3s etc.

3. 1 small partition ~10 Gb to install Windows XP and important installations in Program Files. Create a 2nd partition (50 gb) to install games and Program Files applications that take up a lot of room (eg. Newsgroup programs that store files!). Create a 3rd partition for storage of mp3, movies etc.

Creating 1 large partition is simple and what I like best is that all programs installed are on the same partition as the operating system. This means if you want to format a partition there are no cross dependences.

Creating 2 partitions is nice for organization but bad for installation dependencies across partitions. If you create a 40 Gig partition and don't use a lot of it then you are wasting a lot of room on the "fast" part of the drive.

Creating 3 partitions is even more organized, less wasted space in the first fast partition but higher chance you will run out of room. Also the same issue with installation dependencies across partitions.

Anyway, would welcome any opinions and experiences.

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 6:26 am

If I had a 200 GB drive I would make several partitions:
part 1 - windows xp & 3rd patrty programs - 10-15 GB. (I'm not a gamer)
part 2 - 2-5 GB for page file - (size depends on amoount of RAM, but would get better performance if page file on separate hard drive alltogether)
part 3 - 20 GB - for storing ALL files such as txt docs, downloads, business stuff, tax stuff and general files. (better than using My Documents on part 1)
part 4 - 50 GB - pictures & photos
part 5 - 90 GB - music files
part 6 - 20 GB - restore partition to save Ghost images of part 1 & part 3.

This way, any partition can be formatted and data on other partitions remains intact. And unless I had a second drive I would likely eliminate the page file partition and use 20 GB for part 1.

I would NEVER install any programs on a partition other than the partition that windows is installed on. If you do this, then if you reinstall windows or restore a ghost image, you must then reinstall all programs that were installed on a separate partition in order to get those program again registered in the windows registry. Even if the ghost images were made after programs have been installed on other partitions, the programs' MRU lists and history files would not be in synch with files created in those programs.

No need to use a different partition for temp files because I delete those fiolders regularly anyway.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 7:12 am

I just do two partitions.....I pretty much look at what I have for total drive size...and make something like a 20 or 40 gig for the C drive, and the rest for pure data storage. On the C drive, install the OS, and all your programs. The size of the C partition is totally up to the user and how much "stuff" they install. For me, I really don't install a lot of stuff, I usually just have 2 or 3 games that I'm seriously into, Windows, MS Office and a few other things...and that's about it, rest is small stuff. My main computer here at home, I have a single Raptor 36 gig drive, 20 gig C has been fine for me.

The D partition, I use for storage of stuff that I need to keep. Plus...I have a server on my home LAN which I store the rest of my "to keep" stuff on. I move the "My Documents" folder from the default location on the C:\Docs & Settings\<user> directory to here. And...when it comes time to format, I'll download the latest drivers for my hardware, put them on the D partition...then I can boot from the Windows CD, format C, reinstall the OS, and have immediate access to all my drivers...boom boom boom up and running fast.

Pagefile I leave on the default C partition, the major performance gain you get from moving that from the default, is when you put it on a different spindle (whole separate drive).

Breaking down your data storage into more partitions....I don't see the reason why, but it's all in how you wish to organize it in your head. To me, keeping them all on one partition is just fine, after all...it's simply paths....that's all. But since we broke out of the FAT16 2 gig partition limit many years ago, I've moved ahead to just one big data partition.

If you have several hard drives in your rig, you want your fastest hard drive to be your C partition to install the OS and all your programs on. Use your slower drive as your extended partition for data storage. I see a lot of people install the OS to their C drive (the fast drive)...yet go and install their programs to their D drive (the slow drive). Uh...."Why?" I ask. Installing the OS to C, the faster drive, only allows you to boot up quicker, which is (unless your computer crashes many times a day) something you rarely do. But you launch your programs many times a day, so wouldn't you want your program to also launch fast? Because putting them on the slower D drive...you're not gaining from having a fast primary drive one single bit.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 7:57 am

Part1 Windows/programs/games
part2 Swap
Part3 **** I download and just files I keep.

konomi · Post by **konomi** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 8:31 am

Personally after too many years of trying to optimize my hard disk or just plain laziness you pick, I prefer one partition. I defrag the partition weekly and manage the drive closely. I archive important stuff to cdrw and now dvd-rw. Too many programs are going to write to the windows partition regardless of where you chose to install during setup.

Did I mention the 160gb external hard drive for backup before major installs?

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:06 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote: Breaking down your data storage into more partitions....I don't see the reason why, but it's all in how you wish to organize it in your head. To me, keeping them all on one partition is just fine, after all...it's simply paths....that's all.

These are advantages to breaking down the large free space into separate data partitions:
1. if you make drive images (ghost, etc.) then imaging & restore go much much faster.
2. on a lan, it's easier to set up shares of the whole drive partition than to have to set permissions for directories in a patrtition, e.g. shared music files etc.. (and NOT using simple file sharing)
3. defrag is easier and faster when large free space is split into partitions, e.g. stored photos usually get accessed less often than say music files, thus the music partition if used frequently would need defragging more often than the images partition.
4. as for "it's simply paths", well, the path is shorter when using multiple partitions (saves typing time & effort, esp if a dir has many sub-dirs in it.)

zooner · Post by **zooner** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 5:13 pm

konomi wrote:Personally after too many years of trying to optimize my hard disk or just plain laziness you pick, I prefer one partition. I defrag the partition weekly and manage the drive closely. I archive important stuff to cdrw and now dvd-rw. Too many programs are going to write to the windows partition regardless of where you chose to install during setup.

Did I mention the 160gb external hard drive for backup before major installs?

get another HD for your OS, programs and games. then, leave them intact

Brk · Post by **Brk** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 5:24 pm

I'd blow my brains out if my drive(s) weren't partitioned. I like to set a custom Windows Explorer shortcut (C:\Windows\explorer.exe /n,/e,d:\
) to open right to my Downloads drive and then I can just blamo! get right to the appropriate place for my data.

I just got one of the new 300 GB Seagate SATA drives (around 282 MB actual space):

C: WINDOWS (36 GB)
D: DOWNLOADS (5 GB)
E: PERSONAL (2 GB)
F: MP3 JAZZ (40 GB)
G: MP3 OTHER (40 GB)
H: HTML (500 MB)
I: PICS (3 GB)
J: VIDEO (12 GB)
K: PROJECTS (5 GB)
L: LOOPS (125 GB)
M: BACKUP (for disk images only) 13 GB

Then I have a 250 GB external drive I back up all new and updated files to once a week, then disconnect it.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 6:00 pm

TonyT wrote:These are advantages to breaking down the large free space into separate data partitions:
1. if you make drive images (ghost, etc.) then imaging & restore go much much faster.
2. on a lan, it's easier to set up shares of the whole drive partition than to have to set permissions for directories in a patrtition, e.g. shared music files etc.. (and NOT using simple file sharing)
3. defrag is easier and faster when large free space is split into partitions, e.g. stored photos usually get accessed less often than say music files, thus the music partition if used frequently would need defragging more often than the images partition.
4. as for "it's simply paths", well, the path is shorter when using multiple partitions (saves typing time & effort, esp if a dir has many sub-dirs in it.)

Boils down to personal preference I guess, the above don't hold true for me.

1) Is irrelevant to me, I either ghost networked, or ghost to an entire separate drive...disk to disk.
2) I find it equal...a drive letter, or a directory...it's still 1 to 1 for me.
3) Defrag is scheduled during hours I'm not going to stare at it, so wether it's somehow easier for me or not, not a sleep loser.
4) It's a shortcut on my desktop, it still really doesn't matter to me. That folder that's a shortcut to D:\Downloads\Drivers and to D:\Downloads\Utilities, or Z:\Drivers and X:\Utilities...really only one directories worth, and accessed via a shortcut anyways so it's still a double click.

Advantage to one large partition...say you're someone who downloads songs, and you've always had a single drive letter to put your songs on, like say...the "S" drive. What if you stuff that S drive with songs to 99%, and that partition is out of room, yet the rest of all your drive letters have quite a bit of space because you made partitions for other stuff like drivers or e-mail or the swapfile. Now you're stuck spilling over into another drive letter. Now what, a B drive to put your Beatles songs in? Well granted you could run out and get Partition Magic and go reorganize, but I prefer the freedom of having a ton of flexible space in the first place.

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 6:41 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Boils down to personal preference I guess,
agreed

What if you stuff that S drive with songs to 99%, and that partition is out of room, yet the rest of all your drive letters have quite a bit of space because you made partitions for other stuff like drivers or e-mail or the swapfile. Now you're stuck spilling over into another drive letter. Now what, a B drive to put your Beatles songs in? Well granted you could run out and get Partition Magic and go reorganize, but I prefer the freedom of having a ton of flexible space in the first place.

Well, again, it's personal preference. Being that I do a lot of installs for clients, I am in the habit of partitioning, specifically for storing a ghost image.
And the thread began as a "what if", and I will likely never need a 200 GB drive for anything at all. I have 2 disks now, a 10 & a 40 that are still 60% free space! Anyway, if I needed more to handle the overflow, I'd throw in another drive and use a naming hierarchy that suits my personal preferences.

Of course, I do see your points too. Especially now that Ghost supports more & more cdr & dvdr drives, there's less of a need for hd to store drive images.

Norm · Post by **Norm** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 8:15 pm

In the end it all boils down to preference.

Somes things to consider..

1. A second drive is best for the page file. There's no real benifit moving it to a different partition on the same drive.

2. 3 partitions on one drive is my limit.
One for the OS and installed apps, one for data, music, downloads, backups etc, and I always like a keep a good size partition for installing another OS for testing. Having a spare OS to boot to comes in handy, especially with remote registry editting.

3. There's no need to have many many partitions. If folders aren't good enough, use the subst command, or map a folder as a drive letter.

4. If you use one partition for a certain file type ONLY, like mp3's then format the partition using a allocation unit size that would help performance according to the type of file. Keep in mind NTFS doesn't support compression of greater than 4096.

5. More drives is better than more partitions. If a drive dies, all the partitions go with it. Get more drives instead, and keep duplicates of important stuff.

6. Choose a fileing system, sector size, and a partition size for best performance according to what you will be using the partition for.

7. Consider all your options and make a firm decision before going ahead with the partitioning. Although it is possible to resize, and redo partitions later, it is an added risk to avoid.

zooner · Post by **zooner** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 8:47 pm

I like having hard drives for each function, although it is time to do some cleaning.

Plus, I have an external 160gig firewire and a external 2.5" 40gig.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 6:39 am

^^^ Zooner just wanted to show off "Cheetah"

minir · Post by **minir** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 9:23 am

Hi to All

I have nothing to contribute, but i do have a question to ask?

Do any of you use NTFS on your C Drive?

I'm using Win2K Pro by the way.

I am finding your discussion of great interest by the way.

Thanks

minir

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 10:48 am

Minir, I use NTFS for all drives.

On this topic though I would think leaving the first partition for windows and installed programs would be more helpful in speed than just a personal preference.

By not saving downloads, mp3s, videos, and everything else to that partition, being that its the first section it will be the fastest, and for loading game maps, large programs like office suites and junk like that would load a bit quicker.

I separate the pageing file so that when i defrag the first partition theres no unmoveable ammount of space in there for the page file.

minir · Post by **minir** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 11:53 am

Hi YARDofSTUF

Thanks for your response. I use NTFS on the 1st Partition on C Drive for OS and the rest of my partitions Fat32.

My second drive is all Fat32.

I was curious as to how people felt about mixing the two. Thanks

--

regards

minir

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 12:19 pm

minir wrote:Hi YARDofSTUF

Thanks for your response. I use NTFS on the 1st Partition on C Drive for OS and the rest of my partitions Fat32.

My second drive is all Fat32.

I was curious as to how people felt about mixing the two. Thanks

--

regards

minir

No point, NTFS is probably better, My XP disks only allow NTFS and so I just make them all that way.

Someone posted a while back that FAT32 is faster for smaller drives and NTFS is faster on the larger drives.

No harm either way though

minir · Post by **minir** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 2:08 pm

Thanks YARDofSTUF

regards

larry

Andrzej · Post by **Andrzej** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 10:20 am

if speed hdd is the most important
evyone check on : controllers ; RPM ; cach buffors
but for planing hdd partition stategy
also it is worth to see hdd construction
espetialy plates & w|r heads
IMO different size fourth partitions hdd is solved most of the problems

for future optimalisation one can consider as follow :
a. the fastest hdd's tracks are close to plate's edge
(so the slowest one are close to midle of hdd's plate)
b. keep often used files both OS & prgs on the fastest tracks
c. optimal if evry partition can has own w|r head
d. from recomendations - the fastest PageFile is :
dd. on second hdd controller (OS on primary)
ddd. on separate partition (not fragmented)
dddd. on tracks close to plate's edge (fast tracks)
e. installed prgs on C:\ patrition (fast tracks)
f. often used documents on separate from OS patition (but fast tracks)
g. archives ; partition's images ; etc (on the slowest tacks)
h. frequent cleaning & defragmentation especialy c:\ ; registry etc

iaus10 · Post by **iaus10** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:07 pm

minir wrote:Hi to All

I have nothing to contribute, but i do have a question to ask?

Do any of you use NTFS on your C Drive?

I'm using Win2K Pro by the way.

I am finding your discussion of great interest by the way.

Thanks

minir

Hi Minir,
I only use FAT32 on computers where I'm dual-booting Windows and Linux. Linux still doesn't see NTFS (without extra effort), but it will see files in FAT format.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:18 pm

iaus10 wrote:Hi Minir,
I only use FAT32 on computers where I'm dual-booting Windows and Linux. Linux still doesn't see NTFS (without extra effort), but it will see files in FAT format.

What linux do u run? Suse 9.1 sees my ntfs with no problems.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:18 pm

[quote="Andrzej"]

if speed hdd is the most important
evyone check on : controllers ]

That gets complicated

iaus10 · Post by **iaus10** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:31 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:What linux do u run? Suse 9.1 sees my ntfs with no problems.

Slackware. I've been hearing lots of good things about Suse lately... I'll have to give that a try.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 2:29 pm

minir wrote:
Do any of you use NTFS on your C Drive?

I'm using Win2K Pro by the way.

NTFS on all partitions. For a home LAN, not really any particular reason, just that...well, running NT based OS's on all rigs, no reason to use an old FAT file system .

zooner · Post by **zooner** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 4:10 pm

did I mention I have a cheetah?

minir · Post by **minir** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 9:47 am

Hi iaus10 & YOSC

Thanks Guys, i appreciate your input

Have a good one

--

regards

minir

blacklab · Post by **blacklab** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 4:41 pm

minir wrote:Hi YARDofSTUF

Thanks for your response. I use NTFS on the 1st Partition on C Drive for OS and the rest of my partitions Fat32.

My second drive is all Fat32.

I was curious as to how people felt about mixing the two. Thanks

--

regards

minir

Hi minir

As you know I have many partitions and they are all formatted with NTFS. With NTFS when you save a small file it doesn't use as much disk space as the same file saved in Fat32 with a large partition.

I have 2 200 GB SATA drives that I have partitioned into about 15 partitions and after my recent experience with my MB failing I am glad I have. I was listening to a radio program I had recorded in my music partition. When the MB failed it took that partition with it. Not really sure what happened, but when I tried to recover it the whole HD became unstable and I ended up reformatting it and re-partitioning. If I had everything on one C: partition I would have lost a lot of data.

The only thing I put in my C: partition is things that the operating system uses - drivers ect.. Everything else goes into other partitions. I have one where I put applications I use. I find that when I reinstall the OS many of the settings the programs use and store in their folders are still in tack.

Everything that is connected to the Internet is a partition, utilities in another, pictures in another - you get the idea.

I also have three partitions the size of a DVD and three the size of a CD. This way as I can sort things to copy to a DVD or CD as I go and I don't have to worry about getting too much to record on one disk - when the partition is full it warns me and I copy it and reformat the partition.

I also have some larger partitions that I record video onto. If I have a two hour tape from my camera I can set it up to record onto the HD and then go and do something else. When I edit it I copy different themes into different partitions.

Like others have said, whatever suits you is the way to go. Many partitions has been the way to go for me. I have always used a multi-drawer filing cabinet for my papers, rather than one big box.

blacklab

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 12:56 am

Thanks for the replies, I was unable to read as I was out of town visiting family during the holidays.

From what I have seen everybody has their own way of doing things and what I see is largely strategies based on organization and not as much on performance. Some of you have considered what I call "partition dependencies" as well and it looks like we agree that this is something to try and avoid.

As for the comments about the pagefile not being faster on it's own partition I think that may be true from a high level... I was thinking that the pagefile seems to get thrown on some random part of the hard drive at initial setup and things like SpeedDisk never move it around. I wondered if putting it in it's own partition (D drive) would keep it in 1 spot and hopefully on a relatively fast part of the drive. On a 200 gig drive my vision is 40 gig C drive, Swapfile on Drive D, and whatever else afterward. That way you can be assured that the swap file starts at the 40 gig point and is relatively fast instead of being dumped at the slow part of the drive as I see sometimes.

The other thing I would have thought more people would talk about is a strategy for things like temporary internet files. I'm tempted to create a partition just for cache as I find keeping this stuff on my C drive is a constant cause of fragmentation. My approach to fragmentation is to try and prevent it instead of just throwing defragmenters at it more often.

Maybe these topics in relation to partitions for swapfiles and cache belong on another thread. I guess I will see if anyone finds my comments in here first...

Brk · Post by **Brk** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 1:31 am

Any of my partitions under 32 GB use FAT32

minir · Post by **minir** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 1:05 pm

Hi blacklab

I have followed much of what you've suggested over time Terry. I use 2 drives and they are partitioned, not so many as you, as it is unnecessary for me. I have 6 partitions on my 1st. HD and 3 on my 2nd.

I use NTFS on my OS and all other Fat32.

My Pagefile i use on the first partition of my 2nd HD.

Works well for me, but am always interested in learning from others and picking up new ideas from those in the know.

--

regards

minir

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 1:10 pm

The idea of putting the pagefile on a separate physical hard drive is good for performance. My question is, if that 2nd hard drive crashes do you end up messing up your Windows install because it cannot find the hard drive.

I would assume if you run the repair tool that it takes the pagefile and puts it back onto C: (the drive Windows is installed on). Anyway, since I have never taken the time to prove that this is the case, I have stayed away from this interdependency between drives.

If somebody can confirm that the repair tool will restore the pagefile back to the Windows partition, I might start doing that.

Andrzej · Post by **Andrzej** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 1:51 pm

are as follow :
own partirion, on second modern hdd, attached to second hdd controller
(the last one also can speedup PF)

Brk · Post by **Brk** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 2:11 pm

I thought the "pagefile on separate hard drive" speed increase myth was already debunked?

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 3:46 pm

Burke wrote:I thought the "pagefile on separate hard drive" speed increase myth was already debunked?

My issue is that the pagefile gets thrown on the disk RANDOMLY WHEREVER it feels like it. If it gets thrown on the outside of a platter or the inside of the platter I would think it would have to affect performance. I agree, having it's own drive letter doesn't matter, but I think physical location on the disk must matter. The native defragger and Speeddisk don't move it into any kind of optimal spot on the disk physically. My point is, if you create a separate partition for it then it will stay in an area of your choosing if you can't control it otherwise.

If a defragger was able to move the pagefile to the optimal location instead of leaving it wherever windows puts it on initial setup then the idea to put it on it's own partition wouldn't be needed.

My idea for an optimal location would be after things like system files, things needed at bootup and programs used frequently...then the swap file, then less frequently used programs, then mass storage things like documents, mp3s, movie files, roms etc. If the swap file is on the slow part of the drive I would think you would be losing some performance and something that doesn't require the fast part of the drive would be wasting performance.

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 5:39 pm

Norm wrote:In the end it all boils down to preference.

Somes things to consider..

1. A second drive is best for the page file. There's no real benifit moving it to a different partition on the same drive.

2. 3 partitions on one drive is my limit.
One for the OS and installed apps, one for data, music, downloads, backups etc, and I always like a keep a good size partition for installing another OS for testing. Having a spare OS to boot to comes in handy, especially with remote registry editting.

3. There's no need to have many many partitions. If folders aren't good enough, use the subst command, or map a folder as a drive letter.

4. If you use one partition for a certain file type ONLY, like mp3's then format the partition using a allocation unit size that would help performance according to the type of file. Keep in mind NTFS doesn't support compression of greater than 4096.

5. More drives is better than more partitions. If a drive dies, all the partitions go with it. Get more drives instead, and keep duplicates of important stuff.

6. Choose a fileing system, sector size, and a partition size for best performance according to what you will be using the partition for.

7. Consider all your options and make a firm decision before going ahead with the partitioning. Although it is possible to resize, and redo partitions later, it is an added risk to avoid.

That is good advice...

for my personal PC at home I just have one partition...I would like to add a second drive for my pagefile...but just have not got around to it.

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 5:43 pm

purecomedy wrote:My issue is that the pagefile gets thrown on the disk RANDOMLY WHEREVER it feels like it. If it gets thrown on the outside of a platter or the inside of the platter I would think it would have to affect performance. I agree, having it's own drive letter doesn't matter, but I think physical location on the disk must matter. The native defragger and Speeddisk don't move it into any kind of optimal spot on the disk physically. My point is, if you create a separate partition for it then it will stay in an area of your choosing if you can't control it otherwise.

If a defragger was able to move the pagefile to the optimal location instead of leaving it wherever windows puts it on initial setup then the idea to put it on it's own partition wouldn't be needed.

My idea for an optimal location would be after things like system files, things needed at bootup and programs used frequently...then the swap file, then less frequently used programs, then mass storage things like documents, mp3s, movie files, roms etc. If the swap file is on the slow part of the drive I would think you would be losing some performance and something that doesn't require the fast part of the drive would be wasting performance.

If you have a second dedicated smaller faster drive just for pagefile, you will see a difference in speed.

You dont need a huge drive at all just something fast. The reason is disk contention.

Brk · Post by **Brk** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 5:44 pm

I'd like to hear mnosteele's opinions on this.

SG Broadband Community

How to Optimize Use of Partitions?

How to Optimize Use of Partitions?

RE : plates & heads

RE : the fastest PageFile settings