To partition? and cluster size?

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I am installing a new 120 GB hard drive for a Windows XP Home Edition
installation. Expected uses are photo stuff and internet with some kid
homework. Is there any advantage to multiple partitions? The setup program
allows cluster size choices from 512KB to 4 MB. If I use one big partition
am I asking for trouble with a small cluster size?
 
In
Evelyn F said:
I am installing a new 120 GB hard drive for a Windows XP Home
Edition
installation. Expected uses are photo stuff and internet with
some
kid homework. Is there any advantage to multiple partitions?
The
setup program allows cluster size choices from 512KB to 4 MB.
If I
use one big partition am I asking for trouble with a small
cluster
size?
Click to expand...


Yes. With a small cluster size, performance will suffer. If you
partition this with Windows XP, you will get an NTFS partition
(XP won't create FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB). Just use the
default 4MB clusters that NTFS provides.
 
Ken said:
In



Yes. With a small cluster size, performance will suffer. If you
partition this with Windows XP, you will get an NTFS partition
(XP won't create FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB). Just use the
default 4MB clusters that NTFS provides.
Click to expand...

Could be mistaken but don't you mean 4KB clusters?

gls858
 
In
gls858 said:
Could be mistaken but don't you mean 4KB clusters?
Click to expand...


Yes, I do. Thanks for the correction. I mistakenly copied
Evelyn's typo above, without thinking. It's 512 bytes to 4KB, not
512KB to 4MB.
 
I do. I have had to format multiple times and it is a lot easier when you
can move the data to a partition that will not be touched.
 
In
Evelyn F said:
Thanks, that helps alot. Do you recommend a partition for
documents?
Click to expand...


You're welcome. Glad to help.

Regarding a separate partition for documents (or more generally
for all your data), most people here *do* recommend such a
partition. My view is slightly different. I think you should
think about this question along with your thoughts about a backup
strategy. If you are of the school that holds that the operating
system and all your software can easily be reinstalled, and all
you need to backup is data, then having a separate partition for
data makes sense, since all you need to backup is that partition.

But if you are of the school that holds that you have a
significant investment in setting up the operating system and all
your applications, and putting it all back the way you like it is
much harder than just reinstalling everything, your backup
strategy may be to image your entire drive. In that case, the
value of a separate partition for data is much less.
 
In
Kenneth Brehaut said:
I do. I have had to format multiple times and it is a lot
easier when
you can move the data to a partition that will not be touched.
Click to expand...


This is an often-cited rationale for having multiple partitions.
I don't agree, for the following reasons:

1. It is very rare that anyone has *has to* reformat and
reinstall the operating system.


It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical
support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to
almost any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is
"reformat and reinstall." That's the perfect solution for them.
It gets you off the phone quickly, it almost always works, and it
doesn't require them to do any real troubleshooting (a skill that
most of them obviously don't possess in any great degree).



But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You
have to reinstall all your programs, you have to reinstall all
the Windows and application updates,you have to locate and
install all the needed drivers for your system, you have to
recustomize Windows and all your apps to work the way you're
comfortable with.



Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome,
you may have trouble with some of them: can you find all your
application CDs? Can you find all the needed installation codes?
Do you have data backups to restore? Do you even remember all the
customizations and tweaks you may have installed to make
everything work the way you like?



Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are few and
far between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only
after all other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person
have failed.



I've run almost all versions of Windows since Windows 3.0 (except
for Me), on at least two machines here. In all those years, I've
*never* reformatted and reinstalled any version of Windows.



2. If your data is important to you, you need an effective backup
strategy. And an effective backup strategy uses media stored
externally to the computer, where it is not vulnerable to
simultaneous loss with the original to many of the most common
dangers to your data, such as head crashes (with a backup
partition), severe power glitches such as nearby lightning
strikes, virus attacks, fire, theft of the computer, etc.



If you have a working backup strategy, and you ever have to
reinstall Windows (unlikely as that need may be), you can easily
restore your data from that backup, even if you don't have data
on a separate partition.
 
I would suggest at least two, possibly three partitions.

The first would be XP and programs, the second user data (DOC, JPG, etc),
and the third could be a spare and/or scratch space. For example, the swap
file (pagefile.sys) could go in the third partition. I would chose large
clusters. My experience with 512 byte clusters is that they take forever to
defrag. I normally use 8K or 16K, made by Parition Magic. XP can only make
them up to 4K, as I recall. However, it happily uses larger ones.

While you could also use the third partition for backups, that would provide
less than 100% security, since it is part of the same physical drive and
subject to the same mechanical, lectrical, and virus attacks. An external
USB disk would be a better idea for backups, or CDs, or DVDs.

As for backup methods, I prefer the simple windows command "XCOPY" to backup
my data. The recursive form, with verification, etc is XCOPY source target
/S /V /D /R /H EXCLUDE:excludefile.txt. I usually exclude \TEMP, files
that end in *.tmp, *.bak, and always exclude the "recycled" and "system
volume information", which can not be copied this simply. Type XCOPY /? in
a command prompt for more info.

For the operating system and programs, XCOPY will not work, nor will a
copy&paste from within windows explorer. Instead, get a good third-party
backup/restore program and learn how to use it. Norton GHOST is the
classic, but I personally prefer Acronis True Image. Do not bother with
Ntbackup.exe (free with XP), as it is very limited, especially if XP is not
working.

Ntbackup.exe is useful for backing up Documents and Settings, which contains
the registry, desktop, etc. If you can get into XP's desktop, but things
are flaky, Ntbackup can sometimes restore enough to fix things. However,
"system restore" or a startup using "last known good" might be equally
effective.
 
I am a firm believer in multiple partitions. My backup strategy includes an
image on a partition other than my OS. With that image, I can insert the
Drive Image disk and restore my OS drive, including installed applications,
all updates, customizations, etc, in a matter of minutes. The strategy
includes an image on an external HD that is partitioned with an empty first
partition that the image can be installed to. That drive is only connected
when I want to update it. That way, even lightening is not likely to effect
it. In the event of a system HD failure, I can just take the external drive
and install it in place of the failed drive and be back to where I was, also
in a matter of minutes. Any important data, including personal files,
downloaded applications, pictures, music, movies, etc., are also backed to
CD/DVD's.

In addition to the backup strategy, there is a time savings to be realized
with multiple partitions when it comes to system maintenance. The OS
partition should be cleaned and defragmented, etc., regularly in order to
maintain top performance. The smaller the partition is, the less time it
takes, therefore, a person is more likely to perform these chores on a
regular basis.

FWIW, JAX
 
In
JAX said:
I am a firm believer in multiple partitions. My backup strategy
includes an image on a partition other than my OS. With that
image, I
can insert the Drive Image disk and restore my OS drive,
including
installed applications, all updates, customizations, etc, in a
matter
of minutes.
Click to expand...


My standard to advice to anyone with that backup strategy is to
rethink it. It's better than no backup at all, but just barely.
The problem is that you are vulnerable to simultaneous loss of
the original and the backup to many of the most common dangers to
your data: head crashes, severe power glitches such as nearby
lightning strikes, virus attacks, fire, theft of the computer,
etc.

Secure backup needs to be on media stored externally to the
computer. For *really* secure backup (for example, if the life of
your business depends on your data, you should have multiple
generations of backup, and at least one of them should be stored
off-site.
 
In
Bob Harris said:
I would suggest at least two, possibly three partitions.

The first would be XP and programs, the second user data (DOC,
JPG,
etc), and the third could be a spare and/or scratch space. For
example, the swap file (pagefile.sys) could go in the third
partition.
Click to expand...


Putting the page file on a separate partition on your only hard
drive is *not* a good idea, and can hurt your performance. What
you've done is move the page file to a location on the hard drive
distant from the other frequently-used data on the drive. The
result is that every time Windows needs to use the page file, the
time to get to it and back from it is increased.


Putting the swap file on a second *physical* drive is a good
idea, since it decreases head movement, but not to a second
partition on a single drive. A good rule of thumb is that the
page file should be on the most-used partition of the least-used
physical drive. For almost everyone with a single drive, that's
C:.



If you have enough RAM, the penalty for doing what you've done
may be slight, since you won't use the page file much, but it
won't help you.

Also, the other problem with a separate partition like this is
that you run the risk of making it too small, in which case
programs will fail for lack of virtual memory, or too large,
which is wasteful of disk space. If you leave it on C:, it can
expand or contract as needed.
 
I think you missed the part where I said "Any important data, including
personal files, downloaded applications, pictures, music, movies, etc., are
also backed to CD/DVD's." And perhaps the part where I said, "The strategy
includes an image on an external HD that is partitioned with an empty first
partition that the image can be installed to. That drive is only connected
when I want to update it."

A house fire would be about the only real danger to my data. Theft would
probably not be an issue as, I keep my external drive in an unlikely place
and it is separate to my CD/DVD's.

In addition, I do have multiple generations of my drive image and CD/DVD
backups as well as backup copies of all of my software.

Except for the *recognized* need for off-site storage, I feel pretty
confident with my backup strategy.

Cheers, JAX
 
In
JAX said:
I think you missed the part where I said "Any important data,
including
personal files, downloaded applications, pictures, music,
movies,
etc., are also backed to CD/DVD's." And perhaps the part where
I
said, "The strategy includes an image on an external HD that is
partitioned with an empty first partition that the image can be
installed to. That drive is only connected when I want to
update it."
Click to expand...


Indeed I did. I read too fast, and my apologies.
 
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