dxpertjr
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what would be the optimal HD partition configuration?
Hi,
I am going to be purchasing one of the new performance Maxtor drives, a 60GB one.
I heard from some people that if you keep your partitions small, then you will have better performance since it will take the computer less time to retrieve the information that you want.
So, would my computer be faster if I were to make a 10GB partition for system and programs, then another 10-20GB partition for games and another one for Misc stuff?
would splitting it up this way make it faster, or should I just make a really big partition for everything all together?
If it is any concern, I am on windows XP pro
thank you in advanced for your help,
Rody
I am going to be purchasing one of the new performance Maxtor drives, a 60GB one.
I heard from some people that if you keep your partitions small, then you will have better performance since it will take the computer less time to retrieve the information that you want.
So, would my computer be faster if I were to make a 10GB partition for system and programs, then another 10-20GB partition for games and another one for Misc stuff?
would splitting it up this way make it faster, or should I just make a really big partition for everything all together?
If it is any concern, I am on windows XP pro
thank you in advanced for your help,
Rody
I don't think the size of partition on the disk actually makes a great deal of difference to the access speed, whether you're using FAT32 or NTFS. On FAT the number of files in a folder will certainly make a difference, so if you decided to drop 20 thousand documents into your My Documents folder with no subdirectories then access to those files would be slow.
However, one thing that splitting your drive into partitions gives you is the opportunity to limit fragmentation, which slows things down a LOT. What I always do is set up a separate small (1-2Gb) partition, then move Temporary Internet Files and the TEMP folder onto it, since these cause a lot of fragmentation. It's also useful to have a separate partition for documents, since they tend to change more frequently than system files (or program files) do and therefore again cause fragmentation. I wouldn't say there's much point having more than 4 partitions--I have one for the operating system, one for games (which get installed and uninstalled a lot), one for documents, and one for temporary stuff.
As for cluster size, don't worry about it. The default size (4096 bytes for all NTFS drives, variable size according to partition size for FAT32) works well enough; making the clusters smaller will make more efficient use of disk space but will cause more fragmentation, whereas larger clusters will waste more disk space. The default size strikes a nice balance between these two issues.
However, one thing that splitting your drive into partitions gives you is the opportunity to limit fragmentation, which slows things down a LOT. What I always do is set up a separate small (1-2Gb) partition, then move Temporary Internet Files and the TEMP folder onto it, since these cause a lot of fragmentation. It's also useful to have a separate partition for documents, since they tend to change more frequently than system files (or program files) do and therefore again cause fragmentation. I wouldn't say there's much point having more than 4 partitions--I have one for the operating system, one for games (which get installed and uninstalled a lot), one for documents, and one for temporary stuff.
As for cluster size, don't worry about it. The default size (4096 bytes for all NTFS drives, variable size according to partition size for FAT32) works well enough; making the clusters smaller will make more efficient use of disk space but will cause more fragmentation, whereas larger clusters will waste more disk space. The default size strikes a nice balance between these two issues.
>>I heard from some people
You should consider the source of such information. Most "people" who have such opinion have no technical basis for such.
As a matter of fact, there is no performance degradation from a single 60GB partition vs. multiple smaller ones UNLESS you are foolish enough to be using FAT16 as a file system.
Neither FAT32 or NTFS suffer from partition size related performance issues.
I also disagree with the fragmentation concern. First, fragmentation is rarely the issue it once was. With 60GB of space there is no need for the OS to fragment files. And, in fact, smaller partitions increase the chance of fragmentation since there is guaranteed to be less contiguous free space available at any one time.
You should consider the source of such information. Most "people" who have such opinion have no technical basis for such.
As a matter of fact, there is no performance degradation from a single 60GB partition vs. multiple smaller ones UNLESS you are foolish enough to be using FAT16 as a file system.
Neither FAT32 or NTFS suffer from partition size related performance issues.
I also disagree with the fragmentation concern. First, fragmentation is rarely the issue it once was. With 60GB of space there is no need for the OS to fragment files. And, in fact, smaller partitions increase the chance of fragmentation since there is guaranteed to be less contiguous free space available at any one time.
"I heard from some people"
These people are absolutely right... ten years ago. Happily, this information is now extremely dated. Yes, back in the days of 70MB RLL drives, it took DOS much less time to locate another partition than it took to read to three or four directories deep. Modern innovations such as filesystem cacheing (Win9x and newer), NTFS formatting (WinNT/2K/XP) or e2fs (Linux), combined with blazing fast had drive speeds have made this benchmark disappear. There is only the smallest of theoretical lags in any current system between finding folders 10 deep and finding a different partitions.
Use patitions for organizational purposes and see pjknibbs's comments about fragmentation. As an additional idea on partition use, I use a seperate partition dedicated to swap space, since the swap file is not moveable by the defragmentation utility and so it often gets in the way.
These people are absolutely right... ten years ago. Happily, this information is now extremely dated. Yes, back in the days of 70MB RLL drives, it took DOS much less time to locate another partition than it took to read to three or four directories deep. Modern innovations such as filesystem cacheing (Win9x and newer), NTFS formatting (WinNT/2K/XP) or e2fs (Linux), combined with blazing fast had drive speeds have made this benchmark disappear. There is only the smallest of theoretical lags in any current system between finding folders 10 deep and finding a different partitions.
Use patitions for organizational purposes and see pjknibbs's comments about fragmentation. As an additional idea on partition use, I use a seperate partition dedicated to swap space, since the swap file is not moveable by the defragmentation utility and so it often gets in the way.
ASKER
Ok, so i am thinking of making a partition for my swap file, my temporary internet files and my temp directory.
How big should I make it and also, how do I set it up in windows XP? is it the same thing as the paging file? how do i set it to be only on that drive?
How big should I make it and also, how do I set it up in windows XP? is it the same thing as the paging file? how do i set it to be only on that drive?
ASKER
Ok, so i am thinking of making a partition for my swap file, my temporary internet files and my temp directory.
How big should I make it and also, how do I set it up in windows XP? is it the same thing as the paging file? how do i set it to be only on that drive?
How big should I make it and also, how do I set it up in windows XP? is it the same thing as the paging file? how do i set it to be only on that drive?
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and once you change the location of your temp folder, restart the computer, and you can then delete the original temp folder.
sorry, I missed your comment about the games. It probabbly wouldn't hurt to also create a games partition. And when you create a new swap file, if you have 512mb or more ram setting it to 250-300mb should be pleanty. If you don't, set the minimum to 2.5 times your ram, and leave the max alone.
ASKER
Thank you for your help, all of your comments were really useful to me.
I would also like to thank everyone else who posted for their input
I would also like to thank everyone else who posted for their input
jhance: AFAIK the FAT32 file system will drop files in the next available space on the drive whether the said space is large enough to make the file contiguous or not, so the size of the partition won't make any difference at all to how fragmented it gets. I don't know whether this is also true for NTFS, though. In addition, however little a partition would get fragmented anyway, it's always going to get LESS fragmented if you're not constantly creating and deleting loads of small files on it, which is exactly what moving the temporary stuff onto its own partition does for you.
ASKER
anyone have any thoughts on cluster sizes for:
a games partition, system partition, documents partition, and swap/temp partition?
a games partition, system partition, documents partition, and swap/temp partition?
ASKER
what would be the best cluster size settings?