Partitions for best perfomance

[smartech]

Hmm... Yes, maby, but I did, as was adviced in the article (http://aumha.org/a/parts.htm):

Put the swap file partition as the first partition on the second drive. If you do not have two separate hard drives, the performance gains from this placement will be offset by certain performance degradations, and only by experimentation on your unique computer with your unique usage pattern can you determine whether the net change is a gain, a loss, or no difference at all.
In either case, there are other significant advantages to having the swap file on its own partition, so you may want to do this even if you get no performance gain, or even if you get a small performance loss. Some of these issues are discussed more completely elsewhere in this article, but, to mention them briefly, they include containment of “fragmentation contagion” to the rest of the drive (which can have quite a significant positive effect on overall machine performance);

 

[killians45]

well, its up to you but most system will see deterioration in performance due to a spastic HDD arm.

 

[ekÆsine]

My recommendation is never to use more than 2 or 3 partitions for each physical disk. The fewer partitions you have the better, but you should have at least 2 total partitions. On every computer I fix or build I always dedicate the 15-20GB for the first primary partition which holds the operating system and all of the installed programs. Then I allocate the rest of the 80GB or more to a second logical drive to store only data including a hard disk image of the first partition using ghost. On my personal computer I create a hidden 5GB partition to store only the Ghost image. If anything happens the the operating system or programs I can restore the Ghost image and my computer is fixed in 5 minutes. All data on the second partition is intact when the image gets restored. I also encrypt the entire second partition so it is not accessible unless mounted in windows XP which is why I need that third hidden NTFS partition.

 

[smartech]

Hey, I decided, that I will create 6 partitions. Here the sizes:

Total: 76317 MB (80 GB Hard Disk)
-C: 5120 MB (Windows XP only)
-D: 1024 MB (Page File)
-E: 1024 MB (Temporary Files)
-F: 10240 MB (Programs)
-G: 12821 MB (My Documents, Music, etc.)
-H: 46080 MB (Games)
-8 Mb unpartitioned (to keep partition info)

And I have some questions. Are the sizes ok? Should I reduce a little the size of documents partition, and create another 2GB partition for another OS?

And also, how can I create hidden partition.
And where can I download any good free Disk Image tool.

Thanks.
-AndreiD

 

[TheMajor]

sizes are fine

I use drive image v2i for imaging..but its not free

my partitions:

DISK1
C:3.12GB (WindowsXP+some apps)
E:3GB Backups1(all setups and backups of docs etc etc)

DISK2
D:6.58GB Docs, most pograms wich are not included in my image
F:3GB Backups2 (EXact copy of Backups1)

 

[sippin codeine]

Hey, I decided, that I will create 6 partitions. Here the sizes:

Total: 76317 MB (80 GB Hard Disk)
-C: 5120 MB (Windows XP only)
-D: 1024 MB (Page File)
-E: 1024 MB (Temporary Files)
-F: 10240 MB (Programs)
-G: 12821 MB (My Documents, Music, etc.)
-H: 46080 MB (Games)
-8 Mb unpartitioned (to keep partition info)

And I have some questions. Are the sizes ok? Should I reduce a little the size of documents partition, and create another 2GB partition for another OS?

And also, how can I create hidden partition.
And where can I download any good free Disk Image tool.

Thanks.
-AndreiD

there is really no need for that many partitions in my opinion, i have 2 partitions and i'm doing fine.
Root (C) 20GB WINDOWS XP\Program Files
Local Disk (D) 20GB Games\shared folder\download files

 

[TheMajor]

you don't need to put your swap and temp on different partitions
you will only gain speed if they are on different HD's

 

[smartech]

TheMajor:

you don't need to put your swap and temp on different partitions
you will only gain speed if they are on different HD's

I would do this. But the problem is, that I have only one "normal" physical HD. I do have one old 600 MB Hd (5400 rpm, or even less), but I don't think that it will be a good idea to use it, I think it will only slow down the comp.

 

[TheMajor]

that's right...
i think less partitions is more performance

 

[smartech]

By the way, how can I hide a partition?