Partitioning

[djxander]

OK-

 

So I'm back, new 250 GB hard drive and all. I realize that it would probably be quite intelligent of me to partition this mofo, but there are 2 questions then

 

1. How should I partition it? e.g. how many partitions and for what (i need this computer for production, all the typical office stuff, photoshop occasionally, and general music/movie viewing)

 

2. How do I ACTUALLY partition it?

[Steve]

Personally I would only have three partitions. 1 for the OS and applications, one for data and one for the swap file. If you split your drive up into many partitions, e.g. one for mp3, one for videos, one for photos etc. etc. then in some cases you are forcing the drive to do more work - the heads of the drive need to travel further to get to where the data is because they are passing over free space that's unutilised in other partitions.

 

I would have partition C for Windows and applications and obviously that would go at the start of the drive. The size depends on how many apps you are going to install (obviously leaving room to add more later), but you don't want to go too huge. Then I would have D as the swap file. The size of this would depend on the amount of RAM in your machine. Then the last part of the drive would be E, your data. When you defrag drive E, all the data is pushed to the front of that partition, leaving all the free space at the end of the hard drive. With more partitions, this would not be the case.

 

You can partition your disc using Partition Magic, or you can even do it using the XP setup disc.

 

BTW - If you have more than one hard disc, the best place to put the swap file partition is as the first partition on the disc that doesn't contain Windows. This gives you the fastest access times.

[2ndhand]

good advice here

co signed

[Max]

co-signed as well. Just to add, The ideal hard drive setup for a DAW is probably a hot-swap scenario. Ideally, you want to have three drives. One drive contains all system files and non-audio programs, the second contains all of your production software, including sample libraries, and the third is for storing audio data. The second and third drive setups are so that the drive isn't caching, editing, deleting, and creating data all in the same area. Partitioning gives you a similar effect. Oh and somebody feel free if i'm wrong on part of that.

[dextrous]

Personally I'd set up a dual boot.

 

One super clean boot for music and one normal boot for games internet etc.

[Steve]

I agree to a point Dex, but really all boots should be super clean. The only thing that starts on my PC when I boot up is my firewall and that's cos I have an always on broadband connection. Anything else I start manually, including my antivirus software.

[Steve]

Oh yeah, you might want to consider a 4th partition for backups of files that are really important. If you make that the last partition and only put things in it that are not going to be accessed very often then you'll be OK. If you have a second hard drive or CD or DVD writer, your better off using that for backups of important data though, because if the hard drive physically fails you'll lose everything.

[dextrous]

I guess it's just because I'm not that disciplined.

I install a game and then uninstall it - but don't make a point of going through my registry etc and removing everthing. Demos utils etc all get uninstalled and leave shit in the reg.

 

Also I disable network connections in my audio area - hence no need for firewalls etc

 

At a guess it probably doesn't make that much difference but whenever I've had dual boot I notice the difference in my audio production area.

[Guest Deeswift]

Agree 100% with Sigma.

 

The only thing that starts on my PC when I boot up is my firewall and that's cos I have an always on broadband connection. Anything else I start manually, including my antivirus software.

 

same here. There's no need for anything else starting up, including Messenger type progs, program update checks, even the Nero Filter Check thing or whatever it's called when you install Nero Burning Rom.

 

I have 4 partitions on this 160 GB SATA drive.

 

C: System (Windows XP Pro and all program Files) = 5 GB.

D: Swap File (Virtual Memory) = 2 GB, with a 1536 MB fixed (min and max) pagefile.

E: Audio, Games, Video = 120 GB.

F: Downloads and Storage = 28 GB.

 

I used to have 8 partitions, everything was split up so I'd have a seperate drive for audio, one for video, one for games, etc. This was good and easy to defrag, but not too practical and made the drive work slightly harder.

 

By the way -- there's really no need to go through your registry manually after uninstalling a game or an application, just use a registry cleaner and the work will be done for you.

 

Try RegSeeker. Don't be scared to delete everything it finds in the registry, it makes an automatic backup file.

 

You might also wanna try CrapCleaner. These two little apps are pretty much all you need for general maintenance and keeping your system clean. I also use NTREGOPT, plus a good defragmenter (Raxco PerfectDisk 7.0).

[Chee]

I've never heard about making the second partition the swap file. Sounds like good advice.

 

So how do you go about making windows recognise this as the swap file?

[Guest Deeswift]

Right-click My Computer icon > Properties > Advanced > Performance > Advanced > Virtual Memory > Change > Set min and max to 1.5X your physical RAM (set both to same value. Mine is 1536 MB on a 2 GB partition).

 

While you're in that area, you can disable all those performance killing effects (on the Visual Effects tab), if you haven't already. I just leave Visual Styles and Smooth edges of screen fonts ticked.

[2ndhand]

remember where these settings are if you ever add a temporary hard drive and dont (or cant) set it as a slave

 

on windows 2000, if you add another HDD as a master, the paging file gets shared onto it. when you start up, you'll get a message saying "windows has finished blah blah blah restart now"

 

if you have just put that in to copy data off and are taking it out again make sure you check that windows hasnt shared the paging file onto it. when you start windows without that drive - it'll blue screen.

[Clownstyle]

I have a 250gb sata drive and a 200gb storage drive.

 

Would it benifit me to partition the sata drive? I have all my music and movies on the storage drive.

 

If i had a partition for windows on the sata drive say 5-6gb

Would i have to install my programs - say photoshop, cubase etc to a diffrent partition? And can you set the drive that programs automatically install to?

[Chee]

Am I right in assuming Partition Magic will help you re-partition your drives without needing to re-install Windows, orlosing any data?

 

Has anyone ever done this before?

[Steve]

Yeah mate, you're right. You can create, delete and alter the size of partitions with no data loss. I have heard of it going wrong for the odd person on other forums, but it's always worked spot on for me. I'm guessing that Dee would say the same.

[Clownstyle]

I have a 250gb sata drive and a 200gb storage drive.

 

Would it benifit me to partition the sata drive? I have all my music and movies on the storage drive.

 

If i had a partition for windows on the sata drive say 5-6gb

Would i have to install my programs - say photoshop, cubase etc to a diffrent partition? And can you set the drive that programs automatically install to?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Bump!

[Guest Deeswift]

Do it however you want mate. I have my apps on the same drive as Windows these days. I would rather have them on drive E, but I'm trying to save the hard drive from doing too much work. I would recommend doing it as I have, or if you plan to use any large programs, increase the size of the Windows and Apps partition by a couple of GB. 10 GB should be plenty.

 

Whatever, you need to have the swap/page file as near to the start of the disc as possible, so keep the OS on drive C and move the page to drive D. I'd stick games, audio files and video on drive E, and maybe have one more partition, drive f, for storage and downloads.