smartel7070

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Feb 26, 2006
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Is it a good idea to have 2 primary partitions on a raid0 array ? I wanna have one for standard stuff like web surfin, some work, watch movies stuff like that and also want another one only for gaming. Will I lose performance if I do this ? I pretty much know the answer but maybe some of you in here tried that before and had issues with this kind of setup. I used to do it back in the old IDE times but not on a raid0 array so before I do I just want to make sure there isn't any issue I hadn't thought of.
 

Madwand

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Mar 6, 2006
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What does a partition get you that you can't get with folders? Are you actually taking advantage of those features?

BTW, you can use the subst command to simulate another drive if you need to for some reason.

A partition can be helpful for simplifying backups for example, and for limiting fragmentation/higher activity to one partition. But backups can be managed with folders, and a partition that runs short of space is a pain, and can increase fragmentation (this problem is reduced when you don't have partitions, as in general the space is more efficiently shared by all the different parts).

Partitioning will cost you in performance when you're trying to access the different partitions around the same time -- because you would have increased the necessary seek distance between the two.

So... if you're doing partitioning for some specific reasons which give you some benefits, then maybe it's a good idea. Otherwise, it's probably not a good idea -- you can probably do better with folders and subst drives where wanted for some special reasons.