To partition or not?

[Ney]

I bought a 80gb hdd for my girlfriend. For best ntfs performance, should I keep it unpartitioned when I format it during windows xp installation?

What about a 10gb partition just to keep system files and programs + the rest to keep personal data? Will I lose performance?

Thanks!

[HawK]

NTFS is at his best on big partitions,
but i do like to have atleast one seperate parttition for data storage & pers files, this way i don't loose it, when reinstalling windows..
so my advice would be, to do 2 x 40 gb parttitions.

[PangingJr]

for machine with only one HDD, i'd suggest you install every programs on the same partition as windows, the pagefile should remain on C: also,. you can put anything else that you do not often use it on different partition. the sysem performance can/may be degraded if you have to access other partition on the same HDD all the time like installing programs that you often use it on different partition. otherwz you wont feel any diff that much at all between partition or not partition. its also a good idea to give some free space on the system drive as much as you can, you may need to reformat the other partitions in future so then you can use your C: drive to park files moving from the other partitions. so How big of your C: drive..?, depending on how many main apps and programs you'll have AND how much space that you plan to have/use for the other stuffs/backup files on the other partitions.
in another manner, when you have/use more than one HDD, partitioning can improves performance drastically for some setups.

[Judas]

lately i'm been trying some of panging suggestions that he's pm'ed me.... work great...

and some of my own...

do to the fact i have a fairly nice chunk of space.... i've been setting up such as this:

60gb

10gb-C: windows programs
5gb-D: Pagefile - min:1536 MAX 4096
25gb-E: Games
20gb- F: Other (downloads)

so far... i'm rather impressed....

[Dyre Straits]

I guess I'll throw my own experience in here with this.

I've gone the route of partitioning a HD and then had to deal with what to do with what when one of the partitions started filling up faster than I imagined it would have. (I'm sure many of us have had this happen.)

Since those days about 3-4 years ago, I've been simply using the entire partition of a HD and then simply using Folders to keep things organized.

But, I DO have a situation that's just about the same as partitioning: I have 2 HDs in my main computer and 4 in the other one and networked. So, I now have (80 + 40) + (40 + 30 + 40 + 30) GBs of total storage on HDs.

Guess what? I STILL deal with running out of space.

[Judas]

man.... i've never had a problem with running out of space.... only in the 6.4gb times... and fure sure the 1.6gb ..... with 20.. i was pushing it.. with 30... meh..... 60gb though... PLUS 80 in the server.....

[Dyre Straits]

Originally posted by Judas
man.... i've never had a problem with running out of space.... only in the 6.4gb times... and fure sure the 1.6gb ..... with 20.. i was pushing it.. with 30... meh..... 60gb though... PLUS 80 in the server.....

You'd be surprised how fast space fills up when you're doing video capturing for games you're testing as well as running a business where you do a lot of graphics.....let alone the records you have to keep.

Also, I'm notorious for keeping old saved game files tucked away somewhere away from the game's install location. I even have saved games from the first Baldur's Gate, Blade Runner, Deus Ex, Descent 3....and many others from way back.

[Judas]

...i know about making raw MPG files..... a 1gb of stuff takes all of zero time to fill......

[Vampyromaniac]

Originally posted by Dyre Straits
But, I DO have a situation that's just about the same as partitioning: I have 2 HDs in my main computer and 4 in the other one and networked. So, I now have (80 + 40) + (40 + 30 + 40 + 30) GBs of total storage on HDs.

Guess what? I STILL deal with running out of space.

Yep, time to buy an Xserve RAID

[Dyre Straits]

Originally posted by Vampyromaniac
Yep, time to buy an Xserve RAID

LOL! $6000 will buy a lot of HDs.