Partition Performance

  • Thread starter Thread starter Poul Wittig
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Poul Wittig

I am receiving a new computer this Friday which will be running Vista
Business 64 bit. It will contain a 500 gb Sata 2 hard disc.

Now I will try to explain my question as simple as possible:
Will having a partition dedicated for Windows and another for everything
else perform worse than having one whole partition where everything is in?
Considering that in both scenarios everything is defragmented?

In my imagination, it would perform worse because the hard disc head will
have to move all the way from windows system files to program files all the
time. But I'm not the expert, that's why I'm writing this right now :)

The reason I ask is that it is extremely convenient to clone my windows
partition for ease in backup. But the primary role of the computer will be
gaming so performance is first priority.
 
I am receiving a new computer this Friday which will be running Vista
Business 64 bit. It will contain a 500 gb Sata 2 hard disc.

Now I will try to explain my question as simple as possible:
Will having a partition dedicated for Windows and another for everything
else perform worse than having one whole partition where everything is in?
Considering that in both scenarios everything is defragmented?

In my imagination, it would perform worse because the hard disc head will
have to move all the way from windows system files to program files all the
time. But I'm not the expert, that's why I'm writing this right now :)
Click to expand...

In theory, you are right: it will be "worse". However, I'm not sure
that you will notice any difference. It might only be noticable to a
benchmarking tool.
The reason I ask is that it is extremely convenient to clone my windows
partition for ease in backup. But the primary role of the computer will be
gaming so performance is first priority.
Click to expand...

Be sure to also keep current backups of the second partion as well.
Just in case...
 
Thanks for your consideration but nothing valuable will be on this computer.
Just for gaming. Just want to keep performance top notch by always keeping
my OS no older than 1 month.
 
Thanks for your consideration but nothing valuable will be on this computer.
Just for gaming. Just want to keep performance top notch by always keeping
my OS no older than 1 month.
Click to expand...

I've been able to keep mine "top notch" for as long as almost 7 years
without a reinstall.

I think you're being obsessive, but what da hey.
 
Whether you have a single or multiple partitions is immaterial to a decent
Imaging application as it will image it all.
Generally a single partition is best, but whether you would actually notice
any performance differential with multiple partitions is a mute point.
Presumably you realise win & the drive is only part of the performance
process
 
I am receiving a new computer this Friday which will be running Vista
Business 64 bit. It will contain a 500 gb Sata 2 hard disc.

Now I will try to explain my question as simple as possible:
Will having a partition dedicated for Windows and another for everything
else perform worse than having one whole partition where everything is in?
Considering that in both scenarios everything is defragmented?

In my imagination, it would perform worse because the hard disc head will
have to move all the way from windows system files to program files all the
time. But I'm not the expert, that's why I'm writing this right now :)

The reason I ask is that it is extremely convenient to clone my windows
partition for ease in backup. But the primary role of the computer will be
gaming so performance is first priority.
Click to expand...

Funny you should ask. Just yesterday I was wondering the same thing,
because I wanted to partition a new hard drive with one partition for
the a Vista x32 partition, and a second partition for data, and I ran
across a tech article (I think it was written by Microsoft), that said
Vista runs best on a single partition drive because Vista is a
'dynamic' OS. The technical details of the article were beyond my
comprehension, but I decided to partition my new hard drive with just
one partition. I've looked for the article again to link here, but I
can't find it.

Common sense says the same thing,

As someone else has said, a good imaging program will handle what you
want to do just fine.

BTW, while I hear that a lot of users like to reinstall their OS every
6 to 12 months, I've had a machine with the original (March 03) XPHome
install running fine for over five years.
 
Hi, Poul.

Part of your question requires a "religious" debate. But one point can be
answered clearly.
the hard disc head will
have to move all the way from windows system files to program files all
the
time.
Click to expand...

If you have only a single hard drive, then you have only a single set of
read/write heads, all locked together into a "gang". They can do only a
single read/write operation at a time, no matter how you have divided the
physical surface of your hard drive platter (or lock-stepped multiple
platters).

But if you have 2 physical hard drives, then you have 2 sets of heads and
each set operates independently of the other. So your game can be reading
instructions from Disk 0 and simultaneously writing data onto Drive 1.

Now, your next question might be whether your operating system or software
(game or otherwise) is written to take advantage of multiple physical
drives.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)
 
If you look at just one aspect of "performance" (say read/writes per second
or such) you miss some other aspects in general computing performance.

Advantages of multiple partitions come from saving time for: backups,
searches, malware scans, data safety; ex, you can encrypt a partition with
sensitive data or, you have a partition with pics, music whatever that you
update now and then and thus not need to image it daily and so on. Another
advantage is that if you cannot boot in the original system partition you
can install an OS on another partition and recover from there and save on
same new OS partition.

In this particular case, though, since some games do not install/run well on
another partition other than the default c:\whatever, I'd make a 400 GB
system partition and another 100 GB partition for email, whatever else you
want to save - say, game progress files, mods etc.

Michael
 
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