Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: falcon23 on May 15, 2009, 07:32:07 AM
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I have not partitioned my windows xp on my HD, and am wondering what the general concensus is on this,and why.
Thanks, :salute
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If you partition your HD in two parts - one for operating system and one for programs and other data - you can easily reformat or reinstall your operating system without having to resort to extensive data migrations between backups and hd (most people have no media to back up to in the first place).
So if you reserve 50 gigs for OS and rest 100-1950 gigs for your daily stuff, you can fix this 10x easyer if disaster strikes and your OS goes bad or you get a virus.
So, partition in two sections and save all your data / games etc. on D: drive instead of C:.
You will still need to take backups from all your sensitive data though. But after this you can recover from OS booboo much easyer.
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I agree with Ripley but I install the OS and all my programs on one drive or partition and store all of my data on another. Not sure how Ripleys method would work as a new OS install wouldn't have the registry entries to run the applications. Maybe he can explain.
Beyond system recovery the OS and applications are relatively static while the data is in a constant state of additions, deletions, revisions, etc. so this also reduces both the need, and the time it takes to defragment each drive. I also like to save my Outlook pst file and my Explorer temp files on the storage/data drive/partition due to the constant flux.
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I agree with Ripley but I install the OS and all my programs on one drive or partition and store all of my data on another. Not sure how Ripleys method would work as a new OS install wouldn't have the registry entries to run the applications. Maybe he can explain.
Beyond system recovery the OS and applications are relatively static while the data is in a constant state of additions, deletions, revisions, etc. so this also reduces both the need, and the time it takes to defragment each drive. I also like to save my Outlook pst file and my Explorer temp files on the storage/data drive/partition due to the constant flux.
Some games do not need any registry markings to fully work after a format - AH is a good example. Some games will require a reinstall - but even then chances are that your savegames etc. have been saved in the previous install location and you can keep things as they were. Too bad more games are following the trend to save stuff to user profile - absolutely horrible idea made a necessity by Vista's dumber than dumb UAC.
So while it's not a 'save all' solution it's heck of a lot easyer when you can just format wham bam thank you Mam and reinstall a couple badly made applications again if necessary.
Oh and those who use e-mail programs, very good idea to store the mails to D: as suggested.
I also like to extend this to having several harddrives, sometimes even raid setup. But good raid cards are expensive so it's not everyone's cup of tea. Built in solutions are fake raids and more trouble than anything else.
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Many games and applications are just migrating outside the "Program Files" folder so everything will be kept where it should be.
The alternative is a support nightmare, as we have discovered.
Back on topic. I too put programs and data outside of the OS partition. Why? Most applications default to saving data wherever they are installed. My Wife never pays attention to where data is being saved. This insures her data files are not installed in the OS partition.
The stupid ones which default to saving in the "Documents and Settings" folder will ask where to save, as I mark that stupid directory as read-only after everything is installed and then hack the registry to point that folder to the other partition. It is surprising how many things get hidden in that folder.
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does a partition with the OS and all other programs help the apps to run more efficent?
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does a partition with the OS and all other programs help the apps to run more efficent?
I assume you mean ONE partition for the OS and ANOTHER partition to store your programs.
In that case, the answer is NO, it isn't more efficient.
Here's why I partition my drive:
1. Multiple OSes. My main HD has the following OSes: DOS, Windows XP for general use (has lots of background applications running), Windows XP for Games (just has bare minimum drivers for my gaming hardware and almost no background programs running), Windows 7, and Linux.
2. To separate personal data from the OS. My "MY Documents" folder is on a data partition, as my my iTunes folder and my mailstore folder. I can boot into any of my OSes and still have direct access to my mail, my bookmarks, my music, my videos, my personal data, and so forth.
3. To make taking backup images easier. I regularly use Ghost to make a disk image of my OSes, usually before installing something big or that I'm trying out. If I don't like the program, I can Ghost it back from one partition image (stored on the data partition) to the OS partition itself. People who say they "reinstall their OS every 6 months are totally nuts" as far as I'm concerned - they need a good partition imaging program and setup to easily roll back the OS after trying something.
4. The beauty of keeping the personal data off the OS partitions when I ghost one back, none of my data changes - it's all on the partition that doesn't get ghosted.
5. A lot of games can happily live outside the Program Files folder. I have a folder on my data drive called Steam Games and all the steam games live there. Even when that drive letter changes, all the exes in the Steam Games folder work directly by double-clicking the EXE. It's very slick.
-Llama
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does a partition with the OS and all other programs help the apps to run more efficent?
Here's another take on that question:
If the OS is on a partition and the applications are on the same partition then that would be somewhat more efficient than having the OS on one partition and the applications on another partition on the same drive.
The reason for this is hard drive head movement and seek time.
On the other hand, if the OS is on one partition and the programs are on another partiton on a completely seperate hard drive then that would be the most efficient as both drives heads could be in use simultanelously.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
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I agree and its the scheme I use as well as additional drives for emergency recovery images and I also have a home server setup to backup everything.
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Here's another take on that question:
If the OS is on a partition and the applications are on the same partition then that would be somewhat more efficient than having the OS on one partition and the applications on another partition on the same drive.
The reason for this is hard drive head movement and seek time.
On the other hand, if the OS is on one partition and the programs are on another partiton on a completely seperate hard drive then that would be the most efficient as both drives heads could be in use simultanelously.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Would you use a small drive? Seems like a waste for a large drive.
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Would you use a small drive? Seems like a waste for a large drive.
You'd use a small partition on one drive for the OS and whatever you need on the other drive for applications. The rest could all be converted to data storage partitions.
For the most efficient use of the drive you'd also want the OS and apps to only utilize 50-80% of the available space on thier partitions. This allows the smoothest operation of defrag.
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You'd use a small partition on one drive for the OS and whatever you need on the other drive for applications. The rest could all be converted to data storage partitions.
For the most efficient use of the drive you'd also want the OS and apps to only utilize 50-80% of the available space on thier partitions. This allows the smoothest operation of defrag.
It gets complicated.
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There's no performance benefit through partitioning a single drive. There _is_ a performance benefit however when using two separate drives. This is because now you have two SATA buses in use instead of one, two hd's seeking separately instead of one. So if you keep your OS on one drive and your data and swapfile on another, this can give some performance gain. However it's very marginal and probably not worth the trouble / cost.
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So if you keep your OS on one drive and your data and swapfile on another, ...
This doesnt make sense to me. Shouldnt every drive that is accessed from a Windows based OS have a swapfile associated with it?
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There's no performance benefit through partitioning a single drive. There _is_ a performance benefit however when using two separate drives. This is because now you have two SATA buses in use instead of one, two hd's seeking separately instead of one. So if you keep your OS on one drive and your data and swapfile on another, this can give some performance gain. However it's very marginal and probably not worth the trouble / cost.
I will probably google this however let me ask, How do you load an OS and make sure the program files are on another drive? That is if you go to start and chose programs you will see the loaded applications.
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GB, when you install apps, you generally get a chance to change where they install. Standard installation is into program files, on drive C:
When you get the box pop up saying "is this where you want this installed" change that to whichever other drive you want to use, click on ok/next and away you go
hth,
Wurzel
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This doesnt make sense to me. Shouldnt every drive that is accessed from a Windows based OS have a swapfile associated with it?
There is no reason to have more than 1 swapfile. It's used by OS to dump stuff and since you run only 1 OS at a time..
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You'd use a small partition on one drive for the OS and whatever you need on the other drive for applications. The rest could all be converted to data storage partitions.
For the most efficient use of the drive you'd also want the OS and apps to only utilize 50-80% of the available space on thier partitions. This allows the smoothest operation of defrag.
Splitting your Windows applications and your Program Files strikes me as a very poor idea.
Almost all of the major windows applications, when installed, dump things into BOTH the "Program Files" folder (which you suggest putting on a separate drive than Windows), AND the Windows folder (or the Windows\system(32)) folder PLUS the Documents and Settings folder.
In other words, once you install Adobe Acrobat you've got Adobe files littered across two partitions.
Then, when you've got to do a backup or restore, the Adobe files are going to be out of sync.
There are very very few Windows programs out there that really don't touch anything outside the Programs File folder, meaning that you can't count on the software working after backups and restores. Plus now you have the hard drive head flying all over the hard drive to load programs.
I would therefore never recommend installing Windows applications onto another partition away from your Windows installation.
-Llama
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Splitting your Windows applications and your Program Files strikes me as a very poor idea.
There are very very few Windows programs out there that really don't touch anything outside the Programs File folder, meaning that you can't count on the software working after backups and restores. Plus now you have the hard drive head flying all over the hard drive to load programs.
I would therefore never recommend installing Windows applications onto another partition away from your Windows installation.
-Llama
I concur.......most all applications even if installed to your root directory ( example C:\<whatever folder>.......will still post / put files that are constantly used in the program files folder........ whether it be in the C:\programfiles\common files\ folder or it may even add its own application folder to the program files folder.......
some programs.as Skuzzy mentioned will even load a folder in your My documents folder.( refering to Skuzzy's post about the "Documents & Settings Folder" )......a good example of this would be VSO's Blindwrite or ConvertXtoDVD programs......... ULead is another application example that throws folders all over the place........
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Splitting your Windows applications and your Program Files strikes me as a very poor idea.
Almost all of the major windows applications, when installed, dump things into BOTH the "Program Files" folder (which you suggest putting on a separate drive than Windows), AND the Windows folder (or the Windows\system(32)) folder PLUS the Documents and Settings folder.
In other words, once you install Adobe Acrobat you've got Adobe files littered across two partitions.
Then, when you've got to do a backup or restore, the Adobe files are going to be out of sync.
There are very very few Windows programs out there that really don't touch anything outside the Programs File folder, meaning that you can't count on the software working after backups and restores. Plus now you have the hard drive head flying all over the hard drive to load programs.
I would therefore never recommend installing Windows applications onto another partition away from your Windows installation.
-Llama
So what you are saying is install the os as normal and then save the data to a different drive. Correct? For instance. Use excel on drive C but then save the spreadsheets to drive D.
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I was simply taking Ripleys idea of installing applications to a different partition to an extreme. There is no doubt that having two hard drive's heads working simultaneously would provide a performance boost, allbeit a small one.
You wouldn't have the hard drive head flying all over the place as the OS and whatever files the application placed on the OS drive would be relatively compact. In fact, there would be less head movement than placing the applications on the same partition. That is exactly however, why I said in the first place that seperating applications from the OS on a single drive wasn't a good idea.
Regardless, I always let all applications install to their default locations except in rare instances so they are always on the same drive partition as the OS.
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Double post
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So what you are saying is install the os as normal and then save the data to a different drive. Correct? For instance. Use excel on drive C but then save the spreadsheets to drive D.
Exactly right.
What I normally do on my personal machines (desktops and laptops) is make that data partition and then make a folder called "MyDocs" on it. Then I right-click the desktop "My Documents" icon, choose Properties from the popup menu, and set the "Target Folder Location" to (for example) E:\MyDocs.
When you do this, all your software that normally opens and saves files into the My Documents folder AUTOMATICALLY goes to your data partition, including Office, iTunes, CS4, and everything else.
Very handy for backups and restores...
-Llama
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I use the 3ware 9650SE RAID controller on a PCI-E x16 slot to control six 300 GB velociraptors (3 2 HD volumes) as is and I have it setup about like llama is saying here but it sound like I may want to add another 74 GB velociraptor off the MB SATA just for a swap/page file. The 9650 can handle up to 24 drives but Im already running an external 18" fan to keep cool air directed at the case intakes and more HDs are only going to make things worse for heat. I have been running swap/page files off of each volume so buying another drive and using it alone for swap/page file will help to speed things up and increase my volume free space?
Should I buy two 74 GB HDs and will the extra speed of another RAID volume speed things up even more or not?
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I would think your going to start running into vibration resonence problems pretty soon unless all those drives are cusion mounted or are (which they are not) server series drives.
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Splitting your Windows applications and your Program Files strikes me as a very poor idea.
Almost all of the major windows applications, when installed, dump things into BOTH the "Program Files" folder (which you suggest putting on a separate drive than Windows), AND the Windows folder (or the Windows\system(32)) folder PLUS the Documents and Settings folder.
In other words, once you install Adobe Acrobat you've got Adobe files littered across two partitions.
Then, when you've got to do a backup or restore, the Adobe files are going to be out of sync.
A good reason to steer away from Adobe, very poorly made software. Link to critical security flaw advisory in Adobe software (http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/165031/pdf_flaw_patched_but_does_anybody_know.html) If you need only a reader, Foxit reader does everything that Adobe does, only much faster and with smaller footprint.
There are very very few Windows programs out there that really don't touch anything outside the Programs File folder, meaning that you can't count on the software working after backups and restores. Plus now you have the hard drive head flying all over the hard drive to load programs.
It is a known good programming practise to develop software that is constricted to it's own private enviroment. If a software alters system configuration and/or installs files to system folders it's essentially bad software that will break either itself or the OS sooner or later. Or most likely both. Software (read: badly made ones that write stuff to registry/system/user profiles) is the reason why Windows installations go bad with time. You can move AH by copying the folder to anywhere you like and it will work after that. Same with Foxit reader, a single .exe that will work after you copy it from a zip file.. Any application that relies on data written to user profile or system locations will inevitably break itself with time, if not sooner then the next system restore. Don't you just HATE games that hide your game saves to user profile or other hidden locations and then you need to move your stuff to a new computer and/or fix the existing one? Absolute nightmare to hunt them all down - or submit to losing your game progression.. :mad:
Which is why many people just disable system restore as it generally breaks more things than fixes.
Now, if your OS gets porked through installing several badly made applications that write registry entries, alter system dll:s in system locations etc. they will mess up the Windows without a doubt. When that happens it's 10x easyer (and reliable due to returning back to an unaltered system configuration) to reformat the system partition and reinstall the couple absolutely necessary badly made programs which hopefully were not the ones conflicting and messing up the system. This way, only the absolutely necessary apps do their bad karma on the OS while restore essentially leaves a potpurri of past bad karma to background.
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I would think your going to start running into vibration resonence problems pretty soon unless all those drives are cusion mounted or are (which they are not) server series drives.
They are mounted in an Antec case with the silicon vibration dampening grommets but I almost want a seperate case just for HDs because of the heat generated.