partitioning the WD Raptor 74GB

[velocci]

Hi there, If i partition the WD raptor 74gb into 2 seperate partitions, will that reduce its performance?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The 74 Gigger is 71 Mb/sec at the beginning and 53 at the end. So if yu partition the drive in half, then the 1st will be like from 71 - 62 and the other from 62-53.

A smart partitioning scheme can helo you get the best out of your hard drive as swap file usage has the primary effect on system performance. I like to have a dedicated partition at the front of the drive so that 1) the page file is always on the faster begiining of the platter and 2) so it doesn't get framented all over the place. So I set up single disk systems as follows:

C:OS- NTFS
Dage File and Temp Files FAT32
E:Games - NTFS
Frograms - NTFS
Gersonal Data - NTFS

FAT32's lower overhead lets you pick up a few % points on disk speed. No need for NTFS fiel protections on a temp file partion.

Originally picked this up from AutoCAD workstations. Of course the smaller you can keep C: the better.

 

[velocci]

this is interesting. but how do you install an OS on C: drive and have the swap file and temp files on another drive?

The 74 Gigger is 71 Mb/sec at the beginning and 53 at the end. So if yu partition the drive in half, then the 1st will be like from 71 - 62 and the other from 62-53.

A smart partitioning scheme can helo you get the best out of your hard drive as swap file usage has the primary effect on system performance. I like to have a dedicated partition at the front of the drive so that 1) the page file is always on the faster begiining of the platter and 2) so it doesn't get framented all over the place. So I set up single disk systems as follows:

C:OS- NTFS
Dage File and Temp Files FAT32
E:Games - NTFS
Frograms - NTFS
Gersonal Data - NTFS

FAT32's lower overhead lets you pick up a few % points on disk speed. No need for NTFS fiel protections on a temp file partion.

Originally picked this up from AutoCAD workstations. Of course the smaller you can keep C: the better.

 

[scoyle]

Virtual memory settings can be found on the advanced tab in System Properties. If you can't find this, you'd better not mess with it ;p

If you do find it, the rule is to set the page file to one and a half times the amount of RAM installed in your computer.

 

[mpjesse]

Good idea.

-mpjesse

 

[velocci]

is there a noticable difference by making your C: E: and F:drives NTFS rather than fat32?

The 74 Gigger is 71 Mb/sec at the beginning and 53 at the end. So if yu partition the drive in half, then the 1st will be like from 71 - 62 and the other from 62-53.

A smart partitioning scheme can helo you get the best out of your hard drive as swap file usage has the primary effect on system performance. I like to have a dedicated partition at the front of the drive so that 1) the page file is always on the faster begiining of the platter and 2) so it doesn't get framented all over the place. So I set up single disk systems as follows:

C:OS- NTFS
Dage File and Temp Files FAT32
E:Games - NTFS
Frograms - NTFS
Gersonal Data - NTFS

FAT32's lower overhead lets you pick up a few % points on disk speed. No need for NTFS fiel protections on a temp file partion.

Originally picked this up from AutoCAD workstations. Of course the smaller you can keep C: the better.

 

[bourgeoisdude]

Depends. FAT32 IMO is too inefficient to use with Windows XP--I would only use it if you dual boot with Windows 98, or if for some reason you have a partition smaller than 1GB.

NTFS is faster and fragments less than FAT, and any FAT32 partition over 8GB will progressively deteriorate performance the larger the partition as the cluster size increases.

Pagefile on FAT32 is not a good idea IMO. If you have ANOTHER hard drive maybe put it there on the primary partition, which should be NTFS. NTFS is great because it is so efficient with large partitions--it uses more overhead sure, but it still ends up working faster and lasting longer than the ancient FAT file system.

 

[velocci]

ok i will have 2gb of memory on my new PC (when i finally build it).
If i put the pagefile on a seperate partition that's going to be 4gb, should i use ntfs or fat32?

Depends. FAT32 IMO is too inefficient to use with Windows XP--I would only use it if you dual boot with Windows 98, or if for some reason you have a partition smaller than 1GB.

NTFS is faster and fragments less than FAT, and any FAT32 partition over 8GB will progressively deteriorate performance the larger the partition as the cluster size increases.

Pagefile on FAT32 is not a good idea IMO. If you have ANOTHER hard drive maybe put it there on the primary partition, which should be NTFS. NTFS is great because it is so efficient with large partitions--it uses more overhead sure, but it still ends up working faster and lasting longer than the ancient FAT file system.

 

[cisco]

Yes and make sure you set the maximum to the same amount. Windows by default double the initial amount. 1gig ram= 1536 initial size - 1536 max size.
Hit set and close out and reboot.

 

[RichPLS]

If you are not dual booting , NTFS for sure.

Fragmenting if it is a concern, use Diskeeper 10, it works, no fragmentation worries anymore.

I prefer my drives not partitioned, and have 2 - 74gig Raptors RAID-0 boot drive, a 250gig SATA2 for swap/scratch disk and backups, and a 250gig SATA2 for data files...
Perfect, IMO...

 

[velocci]

what's this IMO i keep seeing?

 

[bourgeoisdude]

what's this IMO i keep seeing?

Apparently you don't IM very much (oops! there's another one! IM=Instant Message). IMO is "In My Opinion".

 

[velocci]

so if i have 2048mb of memory, my swap file will be minimum 3074mb and maximum 6144mb. Should i set my partition to be 6144mb or more?
how big should the partition be?