help in partitioning

oymd

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Aug 8, 2001
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hi all......
this is a damn basic question....but i aim to do it by myself...and i am new to hardware stuff....
i just bought a 40GB IBM HD 60 GXP...what's the best way to partition it....
my guess.......
1. just leave it as it is...all a `C`
2. 3 GB for the operating system and program files as C, and the rest as D for the data
3. i read earlier on this forum about something called a swap file...or virtual file....that should be about 1 GB to help the HD to act faster...but as i said i'm ignorant....

so any help as to what to do and how to do it ( in simple english ) would be greatly appreciated.....thanks..
 

madmike

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Mar 22, 2001
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IMHO the only reason to partition the drive is for orgnaization. I partition drives on my servers that use NT Backup to make it easier to back up data files. Data all goes on one (or more) partitions, and I back up the whole partition. I have two 40GB drives in a RAID 0 at home, and I have just one big partiton.

As far as the swap file is concerned, it does nothing for the hard drive. It's there as extra memory. When everything doesn't fit into RAM the OS uses the swap file. In Windows they call this Virtual Memory. Some Windows versions will manage it dynamically, so you don't have to worry about it. You'll get better performance if you set up a fixed size swap file on the first HDD partition. You can do this by setting the min and max sizes to be the same. Dynamic swap files get fragmented because the OS puts parts of them wherever it finds open spaces on the drive. All that jumping around on the disk slows down retrieval of the data from virtual memory. MS recommends the swap file be at least the amount of physical memory plus 12MB. At home with Win 98 I have 256MB RAM, and use a 512MB swap file. With Norton System Info, I can see the amount of memory used, and I've never come close to using up the 512MB. (At least when I've checked.) Some games, and other memory intensive apps will run better with a big swap file. Sizing pretty much depends on what you do with your comp.

Hope this helps.
 
This is my main drive set-up:

C: 1GB Windows
D: 500MB Swapfile
E: 5GB Apps & Utilities (Norton, MS Office etc.)
F: Remainder (Games)

Now its really down to the individual's needs, but I found with a small partition the defrag & scandisk are faster. If you get corrupted files, you can always re-format each partition seperately.

As for the swapfile being 500MB, I run 512MB memory which should mean if I need the swapfile, I should be refreshing the memory, but its handy to have a swapfile. BTW I have altered my system.ini to ensure all memory is used first.

I do actually have a game which recommends min 128MB mem and 512MB swapfile space!

The other reason I chop things up this way, is that when I install a program it will usually install some files to the Windows or System folder. Having Windows only gives me lots of room for future CD-RW back-ups of C:

Oh! and before I forget, I plan to create a partiton in the future for the temp internet files too. All these little tweaks can help to avoid loss of space due to cluster size and file fragmentation.

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Lars_Coleman

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Why are you making a partition for the swap file? From my understanding you can't tell windows "Hey make the virtual memory use this partition/space .."! I was under the empression it put it where ever it damn well felt to ...????

Do you actually sit and watch your computer run Scan disk and defrag? I just leave my computer on all night and run it while I'm sleeping. That way I don't care what size of partition I have on my hard drives ...

Just a couple questions .... I just haven't ever seen it done that way so I thought I would question it to see if I will learn something new for the day!

<font color=red>"Can you deal with that!"</font color=red>
 
Right click My Computer/properties, Performance, Virtual Memory and tell it to specify your own settings. Choose the partition you want!!! Tell it to use all the partition if you make a partition specially for it.

Easy!

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G

Guest

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It doesn't necessarily have to be on it's own partition.. but I do that too anyways. But setting it so that windows can't dynamically resize it will minimize the defragmentation it can create with low amounts of memory.

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Spdy_Gonzales

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I think the best option is to creat C: of 3GB for Windows and program files, and the remainder as D:. As for the swap file, you don't need to keep it separate. It's more important that it is fixed in size not be fragmented. The way you do that is 1) disable the swap file and reboot, 2) defrag the c: drive and then set the swap file to the fixed size you want ( min and max = same size) and reboot. Your done.

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machow

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Dec 31, 2007
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i don't know about hdd partitionning structure... but i have the feeling that the higher the partition letter it might be slower... say c: is faster than d:, d: is faster of somehting... if you make the swap file in a slower partition, i guess it wouldn't be optimum. what i'd do is let windows and the swap file together, with the swap file defragmented and put in front of the partition (using norton). jsut my opnion...

<<I Come And Go All The Time>>
 
The reason I pu the swapfile on a seperate partition is taht when you specify your own one, it reserves the space and puts it to the start of the drive. I don't know if it makes <i>that</i> much difference, but I like my Windows stuff at the start of C:

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Toejam31

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Ack! Spdy! You don't disable the swap file, and then reboot ... windows may not start up.

What you do ... set the size of the swap file, and then choose the partition you wish to place it on. Reboot. Then, disable the swap file ... but <i>don't</i> reboot when prompted. Next, run the disk defragmenter, so the file is placed at the top of the hard drive. Next, re-enable the swap file. Then ... reboot.

You can also change the placement of the swap file position on the partition with a utility like Norton Speed Disk, which is a simpler method.

Toejam31

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