Hard Drive Partitioning (Please Help)

[Alex]

Alright, I just got a new 750Gig (698.63 actual size) Hard Drive and want to partition it for various things.

And just so everyone knows why it's 698 and not 750, Windows shows the size of the drive in binary,
but the drive size is advertised in decimal.

1GB binary = 1.074 decimal (rounded)
698.63 x 1.074 = 750 decimal (rounded)

Anyways, back on topic. I want to partition it into the following sizes:

-In Gigabytes-
60 - Operating System, Drivers/Codecs, AntiVirus/Malware programs and have at least 20GBs free
all the time, so programs run smoothly.

250 - Graphics Design / Video Editing software

350 - Games, Music, and Movies

38 - Will be unallocated and used when I need more space.

I have already partitioned the 60 and its working 100%. I want to know how I need to partition the other
600 gigs. When I go into Disk Management and select the unallocated memory to be partitioned, it gives me
2 choices for partitioning. The 2 choices are "Primary" and "Extended"; "Logical" if I am partitioning an
Extended partition. I want to know which option I should choose for the 250 and 350 partitions. I don't intend
to run any other operating systems, so I thought about using the Extended/Logical partitioning, but wanted to
get a second opinion on the matter.

My PC specs are in my sig.

[ghost]

20gb free so the O/S runs smoothly ? How much paging space do you need... seriously I'd warrant a guess you've got a manual page set anyway so 20gb is kind of pointless. NOT that it matters, 20Gb is chicken feed ultimately.

I just want to note that partitioning drivesis not as good a solution as having two drives. however a single 750gb drive is a little over the top.

I make all mine primary. That way when i get bored and want to install an extra OS or need to quick boot on someone elses machine my 'spare' hard drives are always handy. However realisticly it dosn't matter. It's all the same. Just remember to format in NTFS.

I would however use AT LEAST 80gb for my windows install. There are some applications that like to be installed on the same drive as the O/S.

Currently I have 200 GB but i also keep my steam on c. Steam = lots of space so. Go figure.

[Alex]

Thanks for the info.

Also, referring to this:

20gb free so the O/S runs smoothly ? How much paging space do you need... seriously I'd warrant a guess you've got a manual page set anyway so 20gb is kind of pointless. NOT that it matters, 20Gb is chicken feed ultimately.

I didn't say "so the O/S runs smoothly". I run several programs that require at least 20 Gigabytes free on the OS's partition to run without worry of 'space' errors. Most of the programs are just encoding/decoding software used for music and videos, and they write all of the data to Windows' Temp directory. Once the data is saved to another area, that temp file gets deleted. So if I am encoding a video with new data, it will use a lot space on C, even if the program is located on D.

And another thing:

I just want to note that partitioning drivesis not as good a solution as having two drives. however a single 750gb drive is a little over the top.

I do have 2 drives. One is the 750 and the other is a 150, which contains a clean install of Windows just in case at some point the 750 won't boot windows or something (it's happened before).

The 150 is also partitioned as 55.8(OS) and 83.8(everything I used before I got the new 750). It will also go towards providing space to save the Videos/Music that I do or for any misc programs.

Also, a single 750GB hard drive may seem over the top to most, but it is very useful for the things that I do on my PC; ie HD Video/Music Encoding/Decoding and HD Video/Music recording. Twenty minutes of video recording could take up anywhere from 20 to 80gigs, so space is a main concern for me.

Especially since the hard drive was pretty cheap($75) at the time, so it's easily replaceable. All important data is also kept on an external hard drive, so I don't have to be worried about anything important being lost due to a crash.

~Anyways~

Again, thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.

[ghost]

I was going to post a quick response before about how silly 20gb and 750 and whatever. As I was writing it I realised I was wrong. So just to quickly iterate. I can understand how 20Gb can be used and thanks for pointing out Decoding/Encoding software. I was thinking older Photoshop's share windows page file as well as some 'odd' applications that deal with compression. So I'll restate my statement in a more practicle and factual way.

Under normal circumstances 20Gb is probably a bit over the top in regrads to spare space for windows O/S. I only say this becuase I get a lot of my customers asking me to clean upt here machine when it's not nescesary. Your point however is vallid and true and my point was not explained properly.

As for the drives, I was mearly pointing out the most practicle reason for having a second partitionis for backup. However a second drive is superior in this sense. Even so, a single 700gb drive might become quite a burdon to handle. Without a good indexing system it'd be a bightmare to traverse.

I would like to knowa comparison. Would 2 partition on a single drive interact faster than two hard drives (For this lets assume were all using SATA II) I'm not sure if theres any practicle reason for the comparison but it would be interesting.

[Alex]

So far, I haven't noticed any difference in speed with my 750(7200 RPM) versus my 150(10K RPM). That could just be because I haven't used that much space, yet. Although, that comparison could be, as you said, interesting.

As for this:

Without a good indexing system it'd be a bightmare to traverse.

I never do any file searching, so indexing is pointless. I have a photographic memory, so it's always like "I know exactly where that is." However, I do see your point. It would take forever to search with indexing enabled.

~Anyways~

Thanks, again, for your reply and further info.

[ghost]

So far, I haven't noticed any difference in speed with my 750(7200 RPM) versus my 150(10K RPM)

I fiddled around with a system recently using the Raptor's and although general system performance wasn't dramaticly increased (Boot tie was faster from the raptor) when setting up a swap file for photoshop it was noticeable.

Also with game loading it made a differance.

Now day's with a suggested minimum 4GB ram (And the fact I've been using 64 bit O/S since XP 64bit) Swap files are less and less usefull. So I guess the raptor would make less and less differance.

Fact: Raptor's make a speed differance.

Fact: Im not sure if it's noticable enough to justify the price hike. Alex' statement is
proof of that.

Fact: I have attrocious spelling and typo's. )

[Alex]

Thanks for the info! There are some things that you brought up that I would like to comment on.

Now day's with a suggested minimum 4GB ram (And the fact I've been using 64 bit O/S since XP 64bit) Swap files are less and less usefull. So I guess the raptor would make less and less differance.

And since Windows XP doesn't use all of the RAM, it's kind of pointless to get 4GB when using XP. Although, I will be getting vista in a couple of days, so I'm not sure if that will make a huge difference in speed or not. On my dad's computer, I did notice that certain games did run better. Even with the same hard drives and everything.

Fact: Raptor's make a speed differance.

I am using a WD1500ADFD and the is little to almost no difference in -noticable- speed versus my Samsung HD753LJ.

Specs of the WD:

Storage
Capacity: 150 GB

Interface
Interface Connection: Serial ATA - 7 pin
Interface Type: SATA (1.5Gbps)

Performance
Access Time: 5.2 ms
Host Transfer Rate: 150 MBytes/sec
Cache Size: 16 MB
Rotational Speed: 10,000 RPM


Specs of the Samsung:

Drive Configuration
Capacity: 750 GB
Interface: Serial ATA 3.0 Gbps
Buffer DRAM Size: 32 MB
Byte per Sector: 512 bytes
Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM

Performance Specifications
Average Seek time(typical): 8.9 ms
Average Latency: 4.17 ms
Data Transfer Rate / Media to/from Buffer(Max.): 175 MB/sec
Data Transfer Rate / Buffer to/from Host(Max.): 300 MB/sec
Drive Ready Time(typical): 12 sec


A 1.5Gbps 10K RPM hard drive is about the same speed as a 3.0Gbps 7200 RPM hard drive.

Fact: Im not sure if it's noticable enough to justify the price hike.

It's not.

Fact: I have attrocious spelling and typo's.

Don't worry. I do too. You will notice that most of my posts have been edited at some point. I can't stand to have a spelling mistake when I am writing/typing something. I guess it's OCD or something.

~Anyways~
Again, thanks for your info and insight into this matter.