I posted this in the appropriate discussion forum on the Dell website, but I figured I'd post it here for your opinions:


I just recently installed a new 40Gb Hitachi/IBM 40GNX (8 megs cache) in my Inspiron 4100 laptop, and I'm not sure the best way to partition the HD for maximum performance, stability, etc. I am installing Windows XP.

I've received the following suggestions:

a) a 10Gb partition for the OS, and the rest for programs
b) a 6Gb partition for the OS, a 1.5Gb partition for Swap file(s), and the rest for programs
c) install the OS as normal, all on one large partition

those of you with some experience installing/configuring operating systems, how do you have your drives partitioned and why? how do you think I should partition mine? I've read in another thread (on the Dell site) about creating a separate partiton just for music and video files, so that they don't get as fragmented and thus saving on wear-n-tear on the drive during playback.

all input appreciated. thank you!

 

Partitions won't help your system performance at all. In fact they may cause it to decrease, especially if you try to confine your OS and programs to a small partition.

Include a small archive partition, big enough for all of your data, and use that for backup. Make that entire backup partition read-only. All of the rest of the space use for the OS and your applications. Whenever windows starts to go crufty on you, copy your data and other precious files to the backup partition and do a format/clean re-install on the system partition.

If you want performance, forget about the 40GNX and get a 7k60.

 

I'm not a fan of partitions either, I just use multiple HD's...that might be a problem on a laptop tho.

I vote one big partition fwiw...

 

I agree with proto... as long as it's a single physical drive, I can't see how you'd see any perfomance increase by splitting it up.

On home systems, I usually go with at least 2 drives, connected to different controller ports if possible. I put the OS and other "routine" files like MS Office on the first drive and all my data on the second. I do that more for recoverability and upgrade reasons than performance.

 

go for a 6gb C: partition and the rest as another partition

this will save u the hassle if u try to format the computer
you'll have all ur programs songs files on D:....and OS on C:

if you're looking for performance...go raid

 

the logic I've heard so far in favor of partitioning a single drive is as follows (note, I'm on a laptop):

separate OS partition of 6Gb-- when OS issues crop up, you can format and re-install the OS on that partition without losing all your other files. since XP is 2Gb installed, with any updates and add-ons, 6Gb has been found to be plenty.

separate Swap partition of 1.5Gb-- probably a bit on the large side, but by having Swap files written here, which cannot be defrag'd, it allows the other partitions to be more efficiently defraged. also keeps the HD heads from having to seek all over for swap-file data. I've been told by putting this Swap partition on the innermost part of the drive you will see a very slight performance gain as well.

separate Audio/Video partition-- since these files are typically huge, by having them in their own separate space, they can be defrag'd easier and also the HD doesn't have to work as hard seeking out this data to play real-time.

separate Back-up or Norton Ghost partition-- a place on the drive that is pretty much untouched, so in case of any loss of data integrity on another part, you can restore data from this untouched part of the drive. also nice for backing up your important files to CD; you just copy everything on this partition to CD, and get in the habit of backing up important files to this partition.


it seems pretty compelling to me to partition the single HD.

here's the thread in the Dell forums where I posted my question, with a few responses, all of which suggested partitioning the drive in various ways.

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/bo...essage.id=29381

thanks for everyone's input!

 

i think os partition needs to be bigger than 6. but if you want to do 6 you can always get partition magic and take care of it. I do a 10 gig OS partition. and then another for games/ music.

 

On my server I am running the OS on a separate 14GB HD and I have 2 80GB drives in a Raid config for everything else.
I know that isn't much help, but I'm not real familiar with many major advantages to multi partitions on a single drive other than loading different OS's on them.
Although I agree with having the OS on a different one, but I would go with closer to 10GB rather than only 6 as simioen stated above....it makes life a lot easier if you need to format, no worrys about the other data.

 

You mentioned a back-up or Ghost partition. I've become a big fan of Norton's "Go Back" (formerly from Roxio) for short recoveries and "Back Up My PC" for complete back-up sets.

I'm a big fan of IDE-drive RAID but I must admit I'll never run RAID 0 (striping only) ever again. One complete mobo crash and HDD corruption taught me the error of my ways.

 

I run WinXP Pro on a 4 gig partition, with the swap on the same partition, and that is plenty large enough. I put most software on another partition. I have three partitions, one for the OS and MS Office and swap, one for software, and one for games and media files (pictures, movies and music).

If I were to do it again, I would put just the OS (no other software) on a 4 gig partition, the swap on a separate 2-3 gig partition, and have two or three 4-6 gig partitions for software and one for media and future growth. Windows XP Pro actually only takes 1.2 gig with every option installed, so allocating 5 times that for the OS files alone seems excessive and wasteful. You're just going to use that space eventually, and defeat the original intent.

Having multiple partitions is an advantage, performance-wise. I took two identical machines, one at work and one at home. The work machine had one big partition, and the home machine had the three I already mentioned. The performance difference was negligible at first, but after three months of using the machines every day, the home machine was noticeably faster. Files and apps opened quicker, searches took less time, everything was quicker. I could locate folders much faster, because I didn't have 20 gigs of Program Files to scroll through in Explorer. YMMV, of course.

One thing to keep in mind with the swap partition is the OS and most software will use this when downloading files or burning disks. Make sure you allocate enough swap space to fit the largest file you plan on downloading, and make sure it is big enough to store all the data you might burn to a disk at one time. A gig and a half sounds big enough, but if you have a DVD burner or plan on getting one, you might very well want to burn more than 1.5 gigs at once at some point. Don't paint yourself into a corner.