Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Sandwich on August 03, 2004, 05:55:33 am
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I'm asking you guys not because I can't decide (I dislike partitions), but because I'm interested in what you prefer.
With me, it went like this:
Way way back when, nobody (including me) had HDD's big enough to partition.
Then came the age of partitioning, when I had a drive for storage, a drive for games, a drive for the OS, etc etc ad nauseum.
Currently, I hate partitions. If I run out of room on my (hypothetical) 20Gb MP3 partition, then what? Why in the world should I limit myself like that? So now I have one single fairly highly organized drive. Instead of a "Downloads" partition, I have a "Downloads" directory, which by nature is not limited in space.
So, anyone else followed this path of reasoning?
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Multiple partitions. Why ? Since Windows gets slow and messy after a year (tops), I need to reinstall from time to time. So I have a partition for the OS (around 10 GB), which can be formatted without losing the data on the other partitions. Simple as that.
Of course when you use multiple HDs you can live without partitions, but I prefer it anyway for organisatorical/aestethic reasons.
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I would use a partition for different OS' (if i had the HD space), but that's about it.
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Winders and program files on one partition, everything else on t'other (most games don't need to be reinstalled). And if I'm getting short of space, I just use Partition magic to add an extra GB :nod:
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Never had anything else than 1 partition per drive unless you need different filesystems. The only other reason is having a backup partition on a single drive system, although I've got an old 60GB in there for that purpose.
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Its always better to keep operating system on the fastest HDD on your computer. Almost always this is also the biggest of one of the biggest HDD's you have in the particular computer, meaning it most likely is big enought to be partitioned.
I don't like to have a lot of partitions. Just two is enough for system drive. 10 Gb for Windows and installed applications, thats enough. If a HDD is not a system disk, then its in one partition.
That way you can reinstall Windows and not lose anything important in a moments notice or in a case you can't get OS to boot anymore. And this also leaves all remaining space to anything you put to other partitions.
That's what I prefer, keeping OS in its own primary partition and everything else in secondary partition.
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Like Fishguts said. Problem isn't as bad these days as it was with 95 & 98, but it is still a problem.
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i keep my 40 gig drive for the OS and some important programs..(browsers, that sorta thing) word processing, etc.
my 120gb drive is for my game installs, foxfire, and photoshop.
it's a security thing, really, i can safely scrub my primary drive with minimal concern.
it depends on how many drives you have, really, altho some OS's like to be on their own little slice of HD (i.e separate partition).
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i have 2 hdds with 5 partitions
C:\ (Windows) 1.07GB/5.00GB(21%), D:\ (Progs & MusiC) 16.4GB/37.2GB(44%), E:\ (Zoggn :o) 30.5GB/60.9GB(50%), F:\ (WaYne) 5.9GB/10.7GB(55%), G:\ (Movies) 28.5GB/37.2GB(76%) {Local total} 82.4GB/151GB (54.5%)
:)
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Of course there's the multiple OSes, that would mean partitions for sure. Apart from that, though, I do like to have two partitions - one for data (like images, downloads, the such) and the other my OS and programs. Makes formatting easier. :)
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I have 3 120GB HDD, so partitions are pointless...
If I had a simple pc, I would still choose a single partition, seeing that in some cases making partitions is a pure waste of space... if the OS had a specific, maximum use of space, in that case it might be ok, but if you want to partition so it doesn't get confused in there, why just not put the whole OS dir as unviewable (don't remember the correct term, invisible?)
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Currently, I hate partitions. If I run out of room on my (hypothetical) 20Gb MP3 partition, then what? Why in the world should I limit myself like that? So now I have one single fairly highly organized drive. Instead of a "Downloads" partition, I have a "Downloads" directory, which by nature is not limited in space.
So, anyone else followed this path of reasoning?
:nod: :nod: :nod:
The only patition i have is set up for FRAPS movies, (10Gigs) since they can get into 4-5Gigs uncompressed. That way it forces me to format them so i can keep recording, and i won't accidentally run out of hard drive space with huge movies with indiscrimate names...
Oh, that and i've got a 3gig partition set aside for VirtualRam...
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yeah, since i've been formatting so often, i considered having a 40 GB partition or so just for movies, MP3s, etc. but i bought another hard drive instead.
it would make life easier i'd think
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I've got 3 partitions.
3 GB partition for XP
24 GB for Games / Movies
11GB for Apps / Scratch disk / Music / Storage
It's suited me well enough for my needs.
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I don't have enough HDD space to effectivly partition. :(
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I have to use partitons as I use FAT32 and try to keep the cluster size as low as possible, which basically means 8GB partitions.
I also have one ultra-large partition for random crap (i.e. mp3s, movies, games etc.).
I would like to use NTFS and just have 2 partitions (One for OS and programs that refuse to go anywhere else, and one for data and nice programs), but the problem with NTFS is that if your OS goes tits up, you're totally screwed (Ever tried to recover stuff or repair an OS on an NTFS partiton? It ain't easy...)
In Linux I started off with 1 big partition, but when I started running low I moved /home onto new HD and then mounted that on /home.
Now it's getting full again so I may mount my user area on a seperate HD :D
I have grown to love the Linux filesystem :D
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Well I don't need partitions because I have 2 HD's 160&80 GB
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3 partitions:
- OS (small)
- highly "volatile" stuff (large)
- archived/a bit more permanent stuff (huge)
To reduce fragmentation of OS & archived stuff due to "tmp" files.
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if i had an extra HDD id put all my games videos and music on one drive and my OS and all my documents on the other. So when im playing a game, one renders things and one runs the OS in the backround. Keeps things more efficient behind the scenes
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I use separate partitions, this can be useful to keep important files in their own partitions (separating system files/programs/data in a sense) and because I don't necessarily use the same filesystem across my system. Nowadays I stick /tmp on its own partition with the ext2 filesystem, but I use ext3 (or reiserfs) on most other partitions.
My current computer is partitioned like this:
/dev/hda6 274M 252M 8.3M 97% /
/dev/hdb2 7.4G 5.4G 1.7G 77% /usr
/dev/hda2 2.3G 1.6G 633M 72% /home
/dev/hda7 1.4G 376M 959M 29% /var
/dev/hdb3 16G 14G 1.3G 92% /home/shared
/dev/sda2 1.1G 1.1G 2.6M 100% /home/wine
With a 1 gig swap partition and a small /boot partition
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of course you do realize that your hard drive is partitioned regardless.
it's whether you want multiple partitions...
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Did you even read the poll?
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i wasn't referring to the poll. i was referring to the numerous people who've posted who incorrectly assume that "partition" means having multiple partitions
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I'm with Fishguts. Keep important stuff on other partitions and then the system on another.
Currently I have way to many partitions (15) and going to shuffle things around a bit (getting rid of some of the 10GB parts.).
Usually I have 2 system partitions and swap between the two when I re-format. This way I won't have to worry about losing data in a re-format, because the 'old' system is still available. If that makes sense. :blah:
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I have only one 200GB partition for everything but I regularly make backups to an external drive.
At one time it was a good idea to have Windows on its own partition but these days almost all of the programs put their junk in the Windows directories and registry (very bad trend IMO), so if you reformat that partition and put a fresh new windows on it, you will have to reinstall almost everything anyway.
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My view is to just get one super big hdd for all my junk and one small but fast hdd for my os. I can then reinstall my OS from time to time for maintenence.
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i perfer to keep everything that would have to be re-installed (should the operating system ever die) on one partition. i mean if its gonna kill the program to reinstall the os ya might as well keep it all together. i keep my files (mp3s graphics and so on) and games on a seporate drive alltogether, mirroring critical suff on the same partition that windows resides.
i broke personal tradition and put windows on a very small partition, keeping programs on a seprate partion. i have 3 other partitions for backup, for linux (which i never installed) and for dos (which i also never got around to installing). from now on im keeping it simple by limiting each drive to one partition. it causes me much fewer headaches.
i can tell you that by spliting up your swapfile between 2 or more drives will increase its performance (especially if those drives are on seprate chanels).
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The problem with placing Windows on its own, smallish partition, is that, like CP said, anything installed tosses files under Windows' own directories as well (esp. if you're running 2k or XP). Just check to see how large your "Documents and Settings" (how effing vague can a dir name be, anyway??!?) folder is.
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ah i miss the days when installing software was as easy as typing 'copy *.* C:\proggiefolder' :D you could copy that folder somewhere else as a back up and if ya copy it back it will work. take quake 1&2 for example, i havent re-installed them sence i bought them. infact i only installed them once, been copied a million times to 4 different operating and it always works. microsoft tents to ignore the first rule of engineering....
KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!!!!
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Originally posted by Sandwich
(how effing vague can a dir name be, anyway??!?)
Unix (and its clones) beats Windows on yet another thing, vague names. I don't think a casual user could tell what /etc is used for. :p ;)
Then again the average user doesn't need to know what /etc is with modern Linux distributions.
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I don't even use Linux, but I do know /etc used for documents and settings. :p
Partitions is definitely the way to go. One for vital system stuff (basically Windows), one for apps, and one for documents and such. Works good, and you almost don't need a start menu since all your programs are in one place. Stuff like Firefox and Thunderbird can have their userdata directories changed too.
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I still don't understand partitioners. What do you do when you run out of room on that 30Gb game partition, you have plenty of GBs on the movies partition, and you really really want to install UT2006?
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Sandwich: Let's say I want to install UT2k6 into /usr/games/ut2k6. /usr is out of space so I can't do it normally. What I do is chop up the movie partition in two and mount the new partition as /usr/games/ut2k6. That way /usr and /usr/games/ut2k6 are on separate partitions.
Alternately (since I'm a lazy hacker bastard) I'll install ut2k6 in my movie partition and symbolic link from /usr/games/ut2k6 to /movies/whatever/the/heck so ut2k6 pretends to be in /usr/games/ut2k6 (even though it's not).
I'd only do that if I was desperate and couldn't uninstall some other game though.
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Originally posted by Sandwich
I still don't understand partitioners. What do you do when you run out of room on that 30Gb game partition, you have plenty of GBs on the movies partition, and you really really want to install UT2006?
the only time i'd say run multiple partitions on a personal, regular-user computer is when you're running multiple operating systems.
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Originally posted by Sandwich
I still don't understand partitioners.
For me, it means I can format at a moment's notice - because none of my data is in danger. The opportunity is given for problems with lack of space in one partition or another, but it's a risk worth it for the ease when format time comes.
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I have 5 partitions on an 80GB SATA hdd
Windows - 16GB
Programs - 13.8GB
Games - 13.4GB
Design/Dev - 16.4GB
Data (Practically Everything else) - 14.7GB
Though I am planning on partitioning the Windows and Program Files together on my next format, thanks to Microsoft and every other company out there not allowing me to install files where I want them! Still I think the point of partitioning was to be able to format the OS and keep Program Files separate but its a bit of ***** not being able to control where certain .DLLs and common files end up... Formatting can be such hard work especially when progs have to be installed in a certain order, it can take up to a whole day plus windows update... sheeeesh!
Originally posted by Sandwich
I still don't understand partitioners. What do you do when you run out of room on that 30Gb game partition, you have plenty of GBs on the movies partition, and you really want to install UT2006?
To run out of room on a partition is a bad mistake on the user's part.. you can run into unwanted trouble.
Disadvantages
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- Each partition has its own recycle bin that takes up space. There is a workaround by deleting things permanently and avoiding the recycle bin altogether.
- Virtual RAM (HDD Space), every partition needs it and if your hdd partition is full its going to run slower.
[/list=1]
Advantages
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- I think it increases performance.
- Defrag takes less time, and you chose a part of the drive that needs it more often as well.
- Like a few others have already said, you can format the partitions you want or reinstall the OS without getting rid of the others, but I still recommend formatting the entire drive once every 2 years.
[/list=1]
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What the others said: other than having a seperate partition for the OS (something everyone should have), for easy reformatting, partitions really don't have that much of a point.
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Why format? Delete the \windows\ or \winnt\ folder, and reinstall. If you format, you're likely to lose the \documents and settings\ folder, which stores each user's My Documents (by default), as well as a crapload of other crucial data (most email clients store mail there).
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Originally posted by Nuke
ah i miss the days when installing software was as easy as typing 'copy *.* C:\proggiefolder' :D you could copy that folder somewhere else as a back up and if ya copy it back it will work. take quake 1&2 for example, i havent re-installed them sence i bought them. infact i only installed them once, been copied a million times to 4 different operating and it always works. microsoft tents to ignore the first rule of engineering....
KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!!!!
AMEN TO THAT!!!
It was just nice when programs installed all their bits in ONE PLACE and had all their config files in ONE PLACE...
But now, jeez, I did a log of one program and it installed stuff into Windows, WinSys, Program Files, ProgFilesCommon, had registry entries up the wazzoo... *sigh*
The worst part is when you install gargantuan beast like Microsoft Office and the installer crashes leaving you with all these bits strewn everywhere and a broken installer (It won't let you remove because it's not installed but it won't let you install because it detects bits of itself... the one time this happened to me I ended up reinstalling Windows because I couldn't be arsed to step through the registry to manually fix it!).
Originally posted by Sandwich
Why format? Delete the \windows\ or \winnt\ folder, and reinstall. If you format, you're likely to lose the \documents and settings\ folder, which stores each user's My Documents (by default), as well as a crapload of other crucial data (most email clients store mail there).
This is VERY dangerous - When you do a re-install Windows will create a totally new set of directories in here for the Administrator and All User accounts, but if for some reason it doesn't, OR you try and force it to use the old ones, you run a high risk of FUBAR'ing the system because the split-registry files get funny about being forced together.
Ditto for leaving Program Files intact.
When re-installing Windows, I usually burn the whole partiton to a CD and format it from scratch so the installer doesn't trip over it's former remains, and then re-install programs by hand and then restore data from the CD.
For this reason I keep Ghost images of newly installed partitions in case they ever need to be restored.
Stuff like this is why partitions can be a good idea but this is a fairly extreme example. As you say, for the average user it's far easier to just have one big-ass partition. (Multiple partitions can be a big hassle sometimes ;))
Given I frag my Win2k partition on such a regular basis I prefer to keep it on it's own and also keep programs and data on another drive so I don't have to keep backup-restoring it :)
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Why format? Delete the \windows\ or \winnt\ folder, and reinstall. If you format, you're likely to lose the \documents and settings\ folder, which stores each user's My Documents (by default), as well as a crapload of other crucial data (most email clients store mail there).
Yeah but you're also likely to accidently keep user settings which may have crapped up your programs. Far better is to copy the my documents etc to another drive/partition and only put back what you actually need.
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Well, whatevers - so far I've kept my OS corruption creep at parallel levels with my need for a new HDD, so every time I've needed to start with a fresh Win2k install, I've had a brand-new HDD to do it on. :p
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I have three hard drives, and this is how I have them partitioned:
Hard Drive 1 (160GB, 7200RPM, 8MB cache, primary master):
C: (System), 7GB
-Windows XP and drivers
D: (Applications), 7GB
-big programs, like Office, Visual Studio, Paint Shop Pro, etc.
E: (Utilities), 1GB
-small programs, like WinZip, WinRAR, eMule, etc.
F: (Games), 145GB
Hard Drive 2 (160GB, 7200RPM, 8MB cache, primary slave):
G: (Downloads), 155GB
-recently downloaded stuff, along with program installation files (I install Office, etc. straight off my hard drive), patches, game maps, etc.
H: (Documents), 4GB
-contains 'My Documents' and 'Favorites' directories (I used TweakUI to redirect Windows to them)
Hard Drive 3 (120GB, 7200RPM, 2MB cache, RAID IDE):
I: (Temp), 120GB
-miscellaneous crap that I don't want cluttering up my 'Downloads' partition
I'm considering buying another hard drive since I'm down to less than a hundred gigs free, a 300GB one (SATA, 7200RPM, 16MB cache), which I've seen on sale for Can$340, but it'll screw up my partitions if I do. Do you know if it's possible to have one partition span multiple drives? That way I could have the 300GB be the 'Games' drive while I'd combine the two 160GB disks to form 'Downloads'.
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[q]I'm considering buying another hard drive since I'm down to less than a hundred gigs free[/q]
:wtf: :eek2:
Are you taking the piss?
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[q]Delete the \windows\ or \winnt\ folder, and reinstall. If you format, you're likely to lose the \documents and settings\ folder, which stores each user's My Documents (by default), as well as a crapload of other crucial data (most email clients store mail there).[/q]
Because in my experience anything post win2k likes to wipe out the documents and settings folder when you reinstall. As I learned to the cost of my e-mails for the past year recently.
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Originally posted by vyper
[q]I'm considering buying another hard drive since I'm down to less than a hundred gigs free[/q]
:wtf: :eek2:
Are you taking the piss?
Well that free space is divided up over all the partitions, so each one has far less. My 'Games' partition has only 35GB free, while 'Downloads' is down to 25GB. Another month or two and it'll be used up.