Pros And Cons To Segmenting A Hard Drive

[Hobart]

Finally getting a new desktop with a 160 hard Drive.

The guy in the shop is suggesting that I partition it up so that windows runs in one section and then I can spit the remaining free space up into two other areas.

I can see what he means but can anyone briefy explain to me wht this is advisable or inadvisable.

I surf the internet but also store alot of work info on my hard drive as well. he is telling me that if windows crashed the hard drive then the remaining areas will not crash ?

Can anyone enlighten me please.

Thanks

Edited April 17, 2009 by Hobart

[dave_boo]

If you're fastidous about where you install things, it can make the re-install of windows much easier.

There's also a performance benefit from what's know as short stroking. Basically, if you limit windows to the outer edge of the disc, your seeks will be faster since its angular velocity is so high.

I don't know of any cons (other than the miniscule loss of space from the partition information). REAL (*nix) operating systems use multiple partitions....

Edited April 17, 2009 by dave_boo

[webfact]

telling me that if windows crashed the hard drive then the remaining areas will not crash

I understand it this way. The shop guy suggested to have your OS = Operating System on one partition, which is mostly C:

and all your data i.e., pictures, movies, word documents etc. on the second partition D: stored.

If it is necessary to reinstall Windows, (format yor drive) your personal data is save on the other partition except "My Documents"

Wait for other replies.

[dave_boo]

Actually you can point your Windows to "My Documents" on a different 'drive' than C: So really, there's no reason not to have multiple partitions.

[Hobart]

telling me that if windows crashed the hard drive then the remaining areas will not crash

I understand it this way. The shop guy suggested to have your OS = Operating System on one partition, which is mostly C:

and all your data i.e., pictures, movies, word documents etc. on the second partition D: stored.

If it is necessary to reinstall Windows, (format yor drive) your personal data is save on the other partition except "My Documents"

Wait for other replies.

Yup, that sounds like what he was trying to explain to me. Seems logical.

So, would you recomment 2 or 3 partitions as I am a very unlucky person when it comes to computers and viruses.

Question, If I stick windows on the C drive, would I also stick the anti virus and my fotoshop on the same drive or in the other one ?

Can anyone direct me to a site when I can get info on how to encode a section of my hard drive as I have alot of personal stuff i want to put on it.

[zzdocxx]

Actually you can point your Windows to "My Documents" on a different 'drive' than C: So really, there's no reason not to have multiple partitions.

Yes that was the main quirk for me, somehow I still get some documents over on C drive, no big deal though. I think we discussed this before.

Maybe he needs a pal with a little computer savvy to help him out.

BTW just checked out that link, awesome!

Edited April 17, 2009 by zzdocxx

[Hobart]

Actually you can point your Windows to "My Documents" on a different 'drive' than C: So really, there's no reason not to have multiple partitions.

Yes that was the main quirk for me, somehow I still get some documents over on C drive, no big deal though. I think we discussed this before.

Maybe he needs a pal with a little computer savvy to help him out.

BTW just checked out that link, awesome!

Yeah I need a " pal " who would work for imported beer on my tab

But I am here and there and difficult to pin down.

Is it encoding I am asking about ?

have I got the correct ternanology ?

I keep alot of bank info on the comp so I need it very secure just in cas the comp gets stolen.

[webfact]

Actually you can point your Windows to "My Documents" on a different 'drive' than C: So really, there's no reason not to have multiple partitions.

I didn't say "there is no reason to have another partition". You are right. You can have My Docs on another drive or partition.

I pointed to the fact that "My Document" and all its content will be lost when you reinstall Windows!

Including all your installed programs. I tried to "translate" the shop guys advise.

Anyway personally I am not in favor for a second partition but agree some users simply do not want or do not need a 2nd HDD.

Edited April 17, 2009 by webfact

[ernest1966]

One of the benefits of your OS on a seperate partition (say of about 50gb) is that you create a compressed ghost image of your c drive on the other drive partitions easily and quickly, maybe only taking as much as 10-15gb.

[Monokuro]

I always keep Windows on the first partition, Swap file on second partition (size = 1.5 x amount of RAM in PC) and documents on third.

[JetsetBkk]

My C: drive is a small partition (35 GB, 22 GB used) and I don't use the "My Documents" folder there for storing data.

This means I can make a complete image backup of it and store it on my other drives.

So if ever there is a problem on my C: drive I can, as a last resort, simply re-load a previous image backup. I have in the past re-loaded Windows, but it's a lot more time consuming than re-loading an image, especially when you have to re-load all the programs and re-configure them.

[dave_boo]

ernest brings up a good point; if you have a secondary partition you can keep a back up imaging programme that will dump images of the C: drive that you can use to restore it quite quickly.

What you're talking about is encryption. If you want to encrypt a drive beware there are performance penalties. If you have a beefy system, probably not enough to worry about but if you want the best bang I'd suggest setting up 3 partitions. One that has the OS, one that is encrypted with personal folders, and the last for just general data storage that you don't worry about others seeing.

If you're hardcore about Photoshop, look into getting a second drive and putting the Windows and the Photoshop swapfile onto. Right now the first gen Western Digital Raptors are fairly cheap and would be a great speed up for a photo editing system.

You do not want to put the Windows/Photoshop swap on a single drive with multiple partitions unless it's on the C: partition. Reason being is that if the head has to move quite a bit from the C: drive toward the centre of the drive to arrive at the partition you're losing time.

Putting in another drive on the other hand is another expense, extra power usage, and increased heat (slight amount) inside your case.

[Hobart]

ernest brings up a good point; if you have a secondary partition you can keep a back up imaging programme that will dump images of the C: drive that you can use to restore it quite quickly.

What you're talking about is encryption. If you want to encrypt a drive beware there are performance penalties. If you have a beefy system, probably not enough to worry about but if you want the best bang I'd suggest setting up 3 partitions. One that has the OS, one that is encrypted with personal folders, and the last for just general data storage that you don't worry about others seeing.

If you're hardcore about Photoshop, look into getting a second drive and putting the Windows and the Photoshop swapfile onto. Right now the first gen Western Digital Raptors are fairly cheap and would be a great speed up for a photo editing system.

You do not want to put the Windows/Photoshop swap on a single drive with multiple partitions unless it's on the C: partition. Reason being is that if the head has to move quite a bit from the C: drive toward the centre of the drive to arrive at the partition you're losing time.

Putting in another drive on the other hand is another expense, extra power usage, and increased heat (slight amount) inside your case.

Yes Encryption is what I meant, got too much sun today or possibly too many beers at dinner time.

Do I will get a 160 Gig Hard drive.

How does this sound :

C drive = 30 gig

d drive = 110 gig

e drive = 20 gig and encrypted

So the next question is, how / where do i found out about basic encryption, the learners description if possible.

Hey, one more. i am running www.sandboxie.com at the moment ( sandbox ). Wil I set that up in the C drive then ?

[Tywais]

Simple answer is TrueCrypt.

//edit - just to clarify. XP has it's own file/folder encryption built in while truecrypt requires creating a virtual disk encrypted file so need to anticipate how big you want it to be. TrueCrypt does support encrypted partitions, but there are caveats with that.

[dave_boo]

Yes Encryption is what I meant, got too much sun today or possibly too many beers at dinner time.

Do I will get a 160 Gig Hard drive.

How does this sound :

C drive = 30 gig

d drive = 110 gig

e drive = 20 gig and encrypted

So the next question is, how / where do i found out about basic encryption, the learners description if possible.

Hey, one more. i am running www.sandboxie.com at the moment ( sandbox ). Wil I set that up in the C drive then ?

Partitioning sounds good to me; in fact if you're putting the personal information in the slowest part it's a dam_n good idea.

True Crypt is a good Windows based programme to utilise for encryption.

And yes, set sandboxie up on your C: drive since that's where you're going to be storing your programmes.

[sensei]

Try Acronis Disk Director Server for an effortless partitioning of a hard drive.

I would agree that Truecrypt is one of the best encryption software available.

My only suggestion is that you might consider getting a bigger drive.

[Supernova]

I always keep Windows on the first partition, Swap file on second partition (size = 1.5 x amount of RAM in PC) and documents on third.

How many 'physical' drives do you have? If your computer only has a single harddisk, putting the pagefile on a second partition on the same drive won't do you any good. Actually, it will lead to performance degradation.

If you have two harddisks or more, then by all means, move the pagefile on to the first partition of second harddisk for optimal performance. Also split the pagefile leaving a small amount (64-128mb) on drive C: (kernel memory dump requires this) and move the rest to a dedicated partition on another physical disk.

[MTH]

With a 160Gb drive, I would not do any partitioning. The separate partitions would just be too small to be useful. I would suggest adding a secondary drive of about the same size, move “My Documents” to the secondary drive and encrypt it. Let the OS, Swap File and Program Installations live on the C drive, and keep your personal and application files encrypted on the secondary hard drive.

[webfact]

With a 160Gb drive, I would not do any partitioning. The separate partitions would just be too small to be useful. I would suggest adding a secondary drive of about the same size, move “My Documents” to the secondary drive and encrypt it. Let the OS, Swap File and Program Installations live on the C drive, and keep your personal and application files encrypted on the secondary hard drive.

160 GB - I'll second that. View my post #8. Lots of pros here for partitioning a HDD but I can't agree with all.

The "extra power usage and heat" should not be an argument to refrain from installing a 2nd HDD. I am running 4 in my PC and got no extra heat or a higher electricity bill...

In my opinion the OP might face problems with 3 partitions on a 160GB which is also considered to be a very small size these days.

For what he want to achieve I would suggest at least 320 GB

[spacefruit]

All interesting, and hard to argue against.

I have several HD's in a system. I use a 74gb 10,000 rpm drive for the C drive containing the system.(Tried Raid but got negligible improvement) Instead I keep the other 74gb as a clone, though not to good about updating it!

Data stored on two mirrored 1.5tb HD's, including a My Documents folder.

I tried using partitions on single physical disc and in use I found no benefit.

A side point is that the OP's 160gb HD is currently the "bottom rung" of the HD ladder and I agree that partitions will be too small in todays world. In addition its cache may only be 8mb.

Quick solution might be go and get a WD 74gb 10,000 rpm from Pantip (They are good value at the moment as they are now the smallest 10,000rpm's) and use the 160gb unpartitioned as storage.

Let us know what you do?

[Hobart]

On review of my initial posting it seems that I was watching television too closely and not what I was typing.

Its a mini laptop i am getting, one of the small notebooks so the HD is quite decent for its size and price ( not a desktop as I said ). I am getting a desktop but will get 2 HD but the question was pertaining to the Laptop.

Thanks for the advice and further comments or advice appresdiated especially when it comes to the partion size.

Thanks

[dave_boo]

webfact; I run much more than 2 drives in my machine, in fact last I counted there was 10 (5 15k SCSI in a 5" drive bay, 4x Raptors and 1 terabyte). I was just trying to show all the factors; and on the off chance the OP is sporting a micro-tower/sff it could be a problem.

spacefruit; I agree with you also..having a Raptor as your boot drive is so much nicer than a clunky 160gb drive. Even better if you go apeshit and install a SAS array (or if having unlimited funds is one of your problems going with a X-25M array).

[spacefruit]

spacefruit; I agree with you also..having a Raptor as your boot drive is so much nicer than a clunky 160gb drive. Even better if you go apeshit and install a SAS array (or if having unlimited funds is one of your problems going with a X-25M array).

Googling as I type. Mind you I have spent many an hour (days and weeks actualy) making my machine "better".

A total waste of time, if you dont count the bars it kept me away from...

Now whats an SAS array and X-25M surely is worth it just for the name?

Off I go

[dave_boo]

Googling as I type. Mind you I have spent many an hour (days and weeks actualy) making my machine "better".

A total waste of time, if you dont count the bars it kept me away from...

Now whats an SAS array and X-25M surely is worth it just for the name?

Off I go

You seriously don't know what Intel's X-25M is? It's a flash based drive with numbers like this:

SAS is serial attached SCSI; slightly better cost/MB than SSD and while not as good as performance much better than SATA.

[spacefruit]

I'm back and I've googled and I want one. I thought I might want four but the test said that I truly would be wasting my money.

Thanks .

I think I will start another topic

[Hobart]

Summing things up.

I am off to buy an ASUS N10 tomorrow.

Lots of great reviews for this computer online.

It has a 160 hard drive as I said.

C drive = 30 gig - Operating system + programmes

d drive = 120 gig - games - music

e drive = 10 gig and encrypted - My Docs, private stuff

Is this a balanced segmentation or should I change it and increase the C drive size ?

Thanks

[webfact]

Summing things up.

I am off to buy an ASUS N10 tomorrow.

Lots of great reviews for this computer online.

It has a 160 hard drive as I said.

C drive = 30 gig - Operating system + programmes

d drive = 120 gig - games - music

e drive = 10 gig and encrypted - My Docs, private stuff

Is this a balanced segmentation or should I change it and increase the C drive size ?

Thanks

here's how I would part the cake

C: 40

E: 20

or leave it as it is but increase C: 40

Edited April 20, 2009 by webfact

[Supernova]

Whatever you do, don't get a Seagate harddrive! Go Western Digital.

[JetsetBkk]

Whatever you do, don't get a Seagate harddrive! Go Western Digital.

If I take them back, do you think I'd get a refund for my 80 GB internal and two 500 GB external Seagate drives? After all, they are nearly 2 1/2 years old.

PS. How are your Western Digital shares doing?

[JetsetBkk]

here's how I would part the cake

C: 40

E: 20

or leave it as it is but increase C: 40

I'd go with that, too. My C: drive is 36 GB and usually has about 12 GB free. It's a nice size to make system images and store them on another drive, preferably on a different disk.