Partitions in XP

[Guest]

I have built my first system, and am getting ready to load XP. Is there any advantage to partitioning the drive? If there is, I'm thinking about doing something like 8G for the C: drive (system and software), 4G for the D: (my data files) and the rest for a 'scratch pad' type of area. Any and all insights will be appreciated.

 

[Arrow]

I recommend that you do partition your drive. It provides for better organization of your files, etc.

First of all, what is the total size of the drive? Are you planning to use the FAT32 or NTFS file system/

Rob
Please visit <b><A HREF="http://www.ncix.com/canada/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048" target="_new">http://www.ncix.com/canada/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048</A></b>

 

[Kanaz]

Partitioning your drive will do nothing for you performance wise. I prefer not partitioning, and placing different things in different directories. It makes it easier for other things (like searching) if you have but 1 drive.
In all it comes down to, if you want extra seperation between files or not.

The greatest pleasure in life it doing what other poeple tell you you can't do.

 

[Toejam31]

I prefer two partitions per drive, and for these reasons:

1.) It is far easier to image the primary active partition that contains the operating system with this method. Many imaging programs function best during the image creation by first burning to a separate partition, instead of directly to CD. Drive Image 5.0 is a specific example.

2.) If a hard drive begins to fail, it is sometimes possible to save a certain amount of files if they are in a another partition on the drive. This is not usually possible if the drive fails, and has been set up with one large partition.

3.) Creating additional partitions can also keep large programs separate from the operating system, such as with large multimedia applications.

4.) When using NTFS, having your paging file in a small, separate partition can keep the file from splitting into multiple fragments. And this can also allow you, (with a second hard drive) to place the file at the top of the slaved drive for slightly higher performance. This considerably reduces the amount of time needed for the occasional boot-time defragmentation in Win2K and WinXP. Reducing the paging file fragments can be the most lengthy part of this kind of defragmentation.

5.) With larger hard drives, and the FAT32 file system, having smaller, multiple partitions will reduce the size of the clusters, thus allowing less wasted slack space.

Note: This isn't necessary with NTFS 5.0, as the cluster size never increases over 4K.

Some people create more than one partition per drive strictly as an organizational tool, but as you can see, there other valid reasons why this can be useful.

Toejam31

<font color=red>My Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Tantalizing Tantric Toy</font color=green></A>
<font color=red>Second Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=15942" target="_new"><font color=green>Toey's Dynamite DDR Duron</font color=green></A>
____________________________________________________________

<font color=purple>"Procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."</font color=purple>

 

[Guest]

This is a 30Gig drive. I am leaning towards using NTFS. But with all that space on there, I might use FAT32 and try a multiboot into Linux.

Do you think my idea of three partitions is too many? The machine I am using right now has a single partition on a 10Gig drive, about 2 Gig used. When it crashes (Win98) it seems to take forever to run the scandisk. (OK, about 5 minutes. I seems like forever when your sitting here trying to get get started!)

 

[Guest]

WHen my current system crashes (Win98), scandisk seems to take a long time to complete. I'm hoping that using partitions will spped this up. But hopefuilly XP is stable enough that crashes won't happen.

 

[Zlash]

If you dual boot with linux your going to end up with at least 4 partitions...RH 7.2 needs 3 for itself.

...

 

[hammerhead]

With Windows, I prefer two partitions. Usually around 80% for Windows & Apps, 20% for docs, drivers, etc...

That way when you have to reinstall Windows (which WILL happen sooner or later, lol) you don't have to worry too much about data backup. Obviously the size of the second partition will vary, depending on what you do with the machine. For digital video work you might want the opposite, 20% for O/S & Apps, 80% for data.

Linux... Hmm, I always prefer to install on a second physical drive.

 

[silverpig]

If I was just using XP, I'd have two partitions. Here's what I have:

30 gig drive

1.8 gigs ext2 for linux
250 meg linux swap
8 gig C:
~20 gig D:

Linux can read my windows partitions, so all I really need is the OS and some apps on that partition. The linux swap is self explanatory. I have 8 gigs for C: for windows and programs (registry integration). The rest of my drive is D: and holds my mp3s, movies, downloads etc.

The reason why I have this is because in case I have to reformat windows (which I do on occasion anyways), all I have to do is reinstall the OS and my programs. I don't risk losing any of my data files at all.

Lyrics. Wasted time between solos.

 

[10Mhz8086]

NTFS is much safer that FAT32, let say you have an power outage, your files will have a better chance of survival than FAT32. Less maintance = less wasted scandisk time

Its also less prone to fragmented files and acutally has security options unlike FAT32.

Downside is thats a little harder to access from a boot disk standpoint (but much easier by booting from a Win2k/XP disk and goto a console)

Don't know too much about Linux, but I'm trying it myself (on a different machine). I just don't understand why it needs more than one partition.

<i>"The FAA issued a wind sheer warning for my PC, I think I may have one to many fans in it..."</i>

 

[silverpig]

Linux uses one partition (ext2, ext3, or journalised...) for it's data and everything, and a separate partition for swap. This setup minimizes disk fragmentation.

Lyrics. Wasted time between solos.