Topic: Hard Drive partitioning, why?

[Tony]

Here's a very simple easy reading explination why partitioning your hard drive can improve your computing experiance.

http://help.sandiego.edu/Articles/partition.shtml

[Lona]

Thanks Tony, I wish I had read that ages ago. It would take forever to sort out my hard drive the state it's in and I can't think to start all over. I defrag regularly and I am hoping to buy more ram, so I hope that will make a difference.  

[Tony]

One for the Techies here.......would I be right in thinking, that a Virtual Memory partition would be even better if it was on a different HDD altogether, than on the same one as the OS.

And whilst I'm on the subject, would it be even better if my OS/Programs partition was on a different HDD to my Data, Media,and VM partitions?

[Simon]

My Gawd!  I'd never find my way round that.    I can never find stuff just on one partition!  

[Tony]

It's simple Simon  

The J: K: L: and O: partitions on the Samsung HDD are not in use, they are mearly setup up ready to ape the Maxtor HDD in case it fails.

The O: partition is the ?Backup? partition where you store images of the working partitions, so you only visit that when you do a backup or restore job.

And F: is the ?Virtual Memory? partition, so you never need to go there.

C: partition is the ?OS/ Programs? partition, so I have no need to go there as a rule.

So you see, there are only two partitions to bother about, D: the ?Data? partition, which in all reality is the ?My Documents? folder, which is accessed via a toolbar icon. And E: the ?Films/Photo?s and Music partition is accessed direct from a tool bar icon also.


See it's ezee peezie  

[Simon]

I'll take your word for it.  

[Adept]

Tony, OSs like Linux and Apple OS/X (Unix based) have the concept of a Virtual Memory partition built-in. When you install the OS, it asks you to assign a VM parttion automatically. Windows doesn't work like this.

You will get a small performance boost if you move the Windows VM to a different drive from the drive on which Windows is installed. Dedicating a partition for the VM won't make any difference AFAIK.

I've been running my PC with the swap file on another drive for ages. I can't say it has made any difference to the speed of my PC

[Tony]

Thanks for your reply Adept, I do apprieciate and value your advice

I appreciate what your saying about noticiable performance improvements. It's just that the opening thread article advised a separate partition for VM, Also moving web browser "caching" to another partition other than that on which the OS is on.


RAM is much faster than your hard disk, however, and so it needs the ?virtual memory file? on your hard disk to be as fast as possible. If your virtual memory file gets fragmented, you will notice definite speed and reliability problems.

It makes a lot of sense to create a completely separate area of your hard disk that is used only by your virtual memory. This area should be at least the same size as the amount of real RAM that you have, and perhaps up to twice or three times as much, depending on how much overdraft protection you want. You should put your virtual memory partition at the end of the list of partitions, because the last partition is the fastest part of your hard drive.

Anyway you know me, I just like tinkering with my PC  ::)that way, I seem to learn more sorting out my cock ups  

[Sandra]

In the way that you describe your set up its probably ok to have as many partitions as you have Tony, especially as I expect that you keep your pc tidy and dont duplicate too much stuff and remove unneeded files and progs from time to time.
I came across a pc a few weeks ago with about 6 partitions with under a gig spare on each drive and the guy was getting worried about running out of space.
If he had the OS on one partition and everything else on another hed have had almost 4 gig of useable available space instead of a few humdred MBs on several partitions  

[Tony]

especially as I expect that you keep your pc tidy and dont duplicate too much stuff and remove unneeded files and progs from time to time.

Oh you know me so well Sandra  

I came across a pc a few weeks ago with about 6 partitions with under a gig spare on each drive and the guy was getting worried about running out of space.
If he had the OS on one partition and everything else on another hed have had almost 4 gig of useable available space instead of a few humdred MBs on several partitions  

 

I agree with what you say in regard to PC not blessed with plenty of spare capacity. But as you imply, I run a lean machine, my Backup Partition is the only partition in use on my 40 GB HDD. And on the working 30 GB HDD, I'm only using 5.2 GB

[dcys02647]

Anyway you know me, I just like tinkering with my PC  that way, I seem to learn more sorting out my cock ups  
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Enough said!, Me  2 :rock:.

Well, not rock on.(bit cheesey)
But you know what I mean.

I work that way 2.
I agree with your "f it up & then sort it out" mentality      .
 Works well for me  
Well the f it up does, I'm still working on the "sorting it out" bit. & learning every day

[Tony]