One Large Partition with WinXP - Disadvantage

[Albert]

Is it considered to me much a disadvantage to format some of the large
Hard Drives for a single partition to run the operating system. Have
a 500gb drive and I formatted it for one large C drive under WinXP.
Long ago I remember formatting large hard drives increased the mb per
sector and was considered not to be recommended since it would slow
the system down. Has this problem become less of a concern with the
newer technology?

 

[Ed Medlin]

Is it considered to me much a disadvantage to format some of the large
Hard Drives for a single partition to run the operating system. Have
a 500gb drive and I formatted it for one large C drive under WinXP.
Long ago I remember formatting large hard drives increased the mb per
sector and was considered not to be recommended since it would slow
the system down. Has this problem become less of a concern with the
newer technology?

I haven't seen any real life difference as far as partitioning or not
goes, or large single drive for OS. HDDs, although they look the same as
15yrs ago have gone through a lot of improvements and many of the older
methods simply do not apply much anymore. Raid can improve performance some
and going to the 10,000rpm drives can speed up access times too, but for the
average user if you want to partition, do so for organizational reasons but
not for any major speed increases. I use partitions just to keep track of
where all my "stuff" is located......


Ed

 

[Guest]

Is it considered to me much a disadvantage to format some of the large
Hard Drives for a single partition to run the operating system. Have
a 500gb drive and I formatted it for one large C drive under WinXP.
Long ago I remember formatting large hard drives increased the mb per
sector and was considered not to be recommended since it would slow
the system down. Has this problem become less of a concern with the
newer technology?

While the specific answer to your question is yes, huge partition
sizes, especially for an OS partition are still not recommended
for a long list of other reasons, e.g. the logistics of backing up
the partition, restoring it from backup, defragging it etc etc.

 

[sandy58]

Is it considered to me much a disadvantage to format some of the large
Hard Drives for a single partition to run the operating system. Have
a 500gb drive and I formatted it for one large C drive under WinXP.
Long ago I remember formatting large hard drives increased the mb per
sector and was considered not to be recommended since it would slow
the system down. Has this problem become less of a concern with the
newer technology?

In the event of a crash your loss would be great or don't you believe
that's a possibility?
The concern of HDD speed is hardly worth bothering about. You won't
notice any diff what-so-ever......unless your a real techno-head.
I'm 100% FOR partitions if only for the back-up reason.

 

[Conor]

While the specific answer to your question is yes, huge partition
sizes, especially for an OS partition are still not recommended
for a long list of other reasons, e.g. the logistics of backing up
the partition, restoring it from backup, defragging it etc etc.

All of which are utter crap.

Data still needs backing up no matter what size the partition and 30GB
of data on a 500GB partition is still only 30GB of data on a 500GB
partition and takes just as long as backing up 30GB of data split over
two partitions. Same applies for restoring and defragging.

 

[Michael Cecil]

All of which are utter crap.

Data still needs backing up no matter what size the partition and 30GB
of data on a 500GB partition is still only 30GB of data on a 500GB
partition and takes just as long as backing up 30GB of data split over
two partitions. Same applies for restoring and defragging.

It's not crap if you think about the system partition needing to be
recovered. Which would you rather do - restore 500GB of system and data
or just 30GB of system files, if that's all that is needed?

 

[JAD]

All of which are utter crap.

Data still needs backing up no matter what size the partition and 30GB
of data on a 500GB partition is still only 30GB of data on a 500GB
partition and takes just as long as backing up 30GB of data split over
two partitions. Same applies for restoring and defragging.

what are YOU using to backup 30g of data on a 500 gig partition? are you saying that it
makes a difference whether the whole 500 gigs are used or not? If you are creating an
image of the drives partition, your saying that it takes less time when the 500 gigs is
not completely used?

 

[Conor]

It's not crap if you think about the system partition needing to be
recovered. Which would you rather do - restore 500GB of system and data
or just 30GB of system files, if that's all that is needed?

But it's one hard drive. In what situation do you think you're just
going to end up restoring one partition?

If you've ended up with an infected computer, would you trust the files
on the other partition not to be infected?

If it's a hardware problem, would you trust the rest of the drive to be
OK?

If it's a borked Windows installation, surely a repair install would
sort it out without the need to delete documents, pictures, music etc?

 

[Conor]

what are YOU using to backup 30g of data on a 500 gig partition? are you saying that it
makes a difference whether the whole 500 gigs are used or not? If you are creating an
image of the drives partition, your saying that it takes less time when the 500 gigs is
not completely used?

Buy decent software and it doesn't image "slack space".

What SHIT are you using to back up a large partition if it's so shite
it backs up 100 Gb's of nothing?

 

[Guest]

It's not crap if you think about the system partition needing to be
recovered. Which would you rather do - restore 500GB of system and data
or just 30GB of system files, if that's all that is needed?

Exactly. The same is true on the other side as well, i.e. most
computer users backup (and need to backup) their data
partition(s) more often than their system partition.

 

[Guest]

Buy decent software and it doesn't image "slack space".

What SHIT are you using to back up a large partition if it's so shite
it backs up 100 Gb's of nothing?

Good lord you're an airhead.

 

[Bob Fry]

Conor> But it's one hard drive. In what situation do you think
Conor> you're just going to end up restoring one partition?

Conor> If it's a borked Windows installation, surely a repair
Conor> install would sort it out without the need to delete
Conor> documents, pictures, music etc?

Uh, sure. That works real well. Not! Easiest way to recover a borked
OS is to reinstall last night's image and THAT works best from a small
image.

--
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing
that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot
possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to
get at or repair.
Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

 

[John Doe]

what are YOU using to backup 30g of data on a 500 gig partition?
are you saying that it makes a difference whether the whole 500
gigs are used or not? If you are creating an image of the drives
partition, your saying that it takes less time when the 500 gigs
is not completely used?

Yes. Partition Manager (and probably any other disk manager) takes
proportionally less time to copy a partition that has less data on
it. That includes the operating system partition.

 

[John Doe]

"Conor" <conor_turton hotmail.com> wrote
....

Good lord you're an airhead.

He isn't tactful, but where on earth did you get the idea that
defragmenting or backing up data takes much longer with a larger
hard drive? The time is proportional to the amount of data on the
drive. The time to defragment might be even less with a larger hard
drive since the program will have lots of room to temporarily store
data.

Path: newssvr12.news.prodigy.net!newsdbm05.news.prodigy.net! newsdst01.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!
nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com.POSTED!af76947f!not-for-mail
From: <nospam sbcglobal.invalid.net>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
References: <1194588674.422741.317540 e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com>

<j6ZYi.20394$JD.18750 newssvr21.news.prodigy.net> <5pjh3eFrllrmU1

Subject: Re: One Large Partition with WinXP - Disadvantage
Lines: 16
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1807
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1896
Message-ID: <pK3Zi.2301$TR5.2218 nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 75.15.127.24
X-Complaints-To: abuse prodigy.net
X-Trace: nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com 1194641429 ST000 75.15.127.24 (Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:50:29 EST)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:50:29 EST
Organization: AT&T http://yahoo.sbc.com
X-UserInfo1: [[PGW_SGQBWKRT Y[JHD]_\ VR]^ B MCPWZKB]MPXH ETUCCNSKQFCY

TXDX_WHSVB]ZEJLSNY\^J[CUVSA_QLFC^RQHUPH[P[NRWCCMLSNPOD_ESALHUK
TDFUZHBLJ\XGKL^NXA\EVHSP[D_C^B_^JCX^W]CHBAX]POG SSAZQ\LE[DCNMUPG_VSC
VJM

 

[sandy58]

Conor> But it's one hard drive. In what situation do you think
Conor> you're just going to end up restoring one partition?

Conor> If it's a borked Windows installation, surely a repair
Conor> install would sort it out without the need to delete
Conor> documents, pictures, music etc?

Uh, sure. That works real well. Not! Easiest way to recover a borked
OS is to reinstall last night's image and THAT works best from a small
image.

--
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing
that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot
possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to
get at or repair.
Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

Spot on, Bob. Sod's Law etc.

 

[Guest]

He isn't tactful, but where on earth did you get the idea that
defragmenting or backing up data takes much longer with a larger
hard drive? The time is proportional to the amount of data on the
drive. The time to defragment might be even less with a larger hard
drive since the program will have lots of room to temporarily store
data.

Where on earth did you get the idea that a system partition
needs routine defragging, or that one should waste their time
defragging it every time they defrag their data partition(s)?
That's one of the reasons for isolating a system partition.

 

[John Doe]

He isn't tactful, but where on earth did you get the idea that
defragmenting or backing up data takes much longer with a larger
hard drive? The time is proportional to the amount of data on the
drive. The time to defragment might be even less with a larger
hard drive since the program will have lots of room to
temporarily store data.

Where on earth did you get the idea that a system partition
needs routine defragging,[/QUOTE]

I have no idea what you are replying to.

or that one should waste their time
defragging it every time they defrag their data partition(s)?

In other words, you understand that it's the amount of data on the
drive not drive size.

That's one of the reasons for isolating a system partition.

My understanding is that the original poster wasn't really asking
about whether to have multiple partitions and what they might be
used for.

Path: newssvr29.news.prodigy.net!newsdbm05.news.prodigy.net!newsdst01.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr19.news.prodigy.net.POSTED!af76947f!not-for-mail
From: <nospam sbcglobal.invalid.net>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
References: <1194588674.422741.317540 e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com> <j6ZYi.20394$JD.18750 newssvr21.news.prodigy.net> <5pjh3eFrllrmU1 mid.individual.net> <Q_0Zi.75$Z%4.49 newsfe05.lga> <5pjusuFrnbk8U2 mid.individual.net> <pK3Zi.2301$TR5.2218 nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com> <%MaZi.68365$Um6.58703 newssvr12.news.prodigy.net>
Subject: Re: One Large Partition with WinXP - Disadvantage
Lines: 18
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1807
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1896
Message-ID: <DjnZi.7777$ww2.437 newssvr19.news.prodigy.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 75.15.127.24
X-Complaints-To: abuse prodigy.net
X-Trace: newssvr19.news.prodigy.net 1194721635 ST000 75.15.127.24 (Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:07:15 EST)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:07:15 EST
Organization: AT&T http://yahoo.sbc.com
X-UserInfo1: SCSGW_SGQBWKRT Y[JHD]_\ VR]^ B MCPWZKB]MPXHDUWYAKVUOPCW[ML\JXUCKVFDYZKBMSFX^OMSAFNTINTDDMVW[X\THOPXZRVOCJTUTPC\_JSBVX\KAOTBAJBVMZTYAKMNLDI_MFDSSOLXINH__FS^\WQGHGI^C E[A_CF\AQLDQ\BTMPLDFNVUQ_VM
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:07:19 -0800
Xref: prodigy.net alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt:498429