Do disk partitions increase disk access speeds?

jozi

Would my pc have faster disk access if i had several partitions?

I just got a new 160 gig sata drive and was wondering shoul i partition it and then instal windows on it, at least that way i can re-install windows without loosing data (have 2 other hd's to)

What are recomended partition sizes?

Jozi

secret_squirrel

Ok main advantage of partitions are smaller cluster sizes which means less space is wasted when saving lots of small files.

Its also handy for keeping data and programs seperate, when thinking about backing up.

As a general rule I dont think multiple partitions will speed things up, unless you have a drive with multiple heads or platters and you can contrive to match each partition to a head/platter.]

Theoretically I spose having say a data and a programs partition will prevent you're program files becoming fragmented, not sure it thats much of a problem in these days of 200GB hd's.

jozi

I think i'll partition the drive into 3 then, windows, linux, and spare storage.

Whats a decent size for a windows and linux partition? I was thinking maybe about 20gig for each partition?

thanks for the fast reply

jozi

EDIT: was looking at the windows formatting uttility, what does it mean by allocation unit size it then gives 4 value in bytes and a default in the pull down menu

Mutant_Fruit

i tihnk 4096 is the default for NTFS partitions, so you should probably use that.

10gb would be plenty for windowsXP. I have a 6.5gb partition for my install, and i have 2 gigs spare. All my programs and crap go on a different partition.

jozi

I'll go for 10 gigs then.

Have had all my apps and stuff on a diff hd ever since i lost a load of stuff re-installing windows. You have to learn from your mistakes

Thanks,

jozi

Giblet

Linux should be installed on 1 partition, with another 200mb partition for swap space.

Duffman

format your windows partition as FAT32 if you want to be able to play around with it in linux...

silverside

Well I have 10 gig for windows OS +swapfile, 20 gig for most programs, and 4 30 gig partitions for data/other programs, and it seems to work well.

whosurpaddy

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
10gb would be plenty for windowsXP. I have a 6.5gb partition for my install, and i have 2 gigs spare. All my programs and crap go on a different partition.

id reccommend at least 15, if not 20 if your going to be installing a lot of programs or games.

tman

i had 12gigs of my 160gb drive as my primary windows xp partition until recently.
now it's 6 gigs & there's still 3 gigs left over. 10 gigs is the perfect size for most people tbh (unless you're lazy and cba changing the installation path of all your games to d:\games\)
6 is a hell of a lot handier for formatting and reinstalling windows, and there's less of a chance of you installing a game there and then forgetting to back up your savegames when you reinstall windows (/me shakes fist at far cry)

zAbbo

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
i tihnk 4096 is the default for NTFS partitions, so you should probably use that.

use 512bytes, more efficient, less amount of internal and external fragmentation

Civilian_Target

And slower access speeds thanks to an increased number of blocks.

jozi

Originally posted by Giblet
Linux should be installed on 1 partition, with another 200mb partition for swap space.

What's the swap space for? Can that not be part of the pertition?
(This is all new to me??)

Originally posted by tman
unless you're lazy and cba changing the installation path of all your games to d:\games\

That how i used to do it and will keep doing, seen a tread somewhere about changing the default instal path for apps to something else.

Jozi

silverside

10 gig should be plenty for Window (OS only) if you do the following
From google

Directions
I have always been a two hard drive kinda guy. I like to keep my main drive running mean and lean with mainly just the OS running. On my second drive I like to install the majority of my programs. However, windows always wants to install programs to "c:\program files" and changing it everytime can be a pain.

After you back up your registry, this is how you can change this default location.

1. Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
2. Find ProgramFilesDir whose default should be C:\Program Files
3. Change this to whatever directory you wish. I changed it to \Program Files for example.

Remember you have to reboot for your changes to show.

GreeBo

Originally posted by silverside
Remember you have to reboot for your changes to show.

or kill and restart the explorer.exe process....

vibe666

Originally posted by jozi
What's the swap space for? Can that not be part of the pertition?
(This is all new to me??)

linux makes partitioning a bit of a chore because the swap,files are a seperate partition with their own little file system. then you have your bootloader and.....yadda yadda yadda. can be a pain to figure out if you're trying to move from windows to linux.

you might want to think about getting yourself a linux book. i've been trying to break into linux for ages but something always gets in my way.

Caliden

any1 have a rough idea how much room for these o/s?:

win2k?
winxp-home?
winxp-pro?

i want to keep them seperate and not waste space in the process

Mutant_Fruit

WinXP should be on at least a 6-6.5gb partition. That allows some space for critical updates etc ,and all those files that have to go into c:\program files