To partition, or not to partition...

[rubank]

Defragging should be done on a regular basis, and for that you need a good tool. <a href="http://www.oosoft.de/cgi-bin/download2/download-e.pl" target="_blank">Here</a> is a well perfoming, freeware version, from O&O that runs instead of the default "Diskeeper light" (which is uninstalled during setup) in win2k and XP.
It´s not guaranteed for XP but I´ve run it for months without any probs.

Stay clear of Diskeeper, it´s associated with the Scientology Church, unless you want to support those religious fanatics.

rubank

[rugger]

Originally posted by rubank
Defragging should be done on a regular basis, and for that you need a good tool. <a href="http://www.oosoft.de/cgi-bin/download2/download-e.pl" target="_blank">Here</a> is a well perfoming, freeware version, from O&O that runs instead of the default "Diskeeper light" (which is uninstalled during setup) in win2k and XP.
It´s not guaranteed for XP but I´ve run it for months without any probs.

Stay clear of Diskeeper, it´s associated with the Scientology Church, unless you want to support those religious fanatics.

rubank

Who said you had to defrag regularly? You system files and program files arn't going to be moved by the OS unless you are constantly removing and installing them.

There are only 3 things to be gained by defragmenting:

1) Better performance, or so the legend goes. I have never noticed any improvement in performance after a defrag.
2) Easier recovery from file system corruption. I haven't seen any serious file system corruption on my hard drives since moving to Windows 95. I used to see it a fair amount before that, but file systems seem to be very safe and foolproof (even if you do stupid things, like shut your computer off with the power switch, or modify a file system under vmware and the host os at the same time)
3) Undeletion of files from FAT volumes. It simply doesn't work if the file isn't contiguous on the file system. But I haven't needed to undelete anything for several years.

While I would advocate a defrag occasionally (once every 3 months or so) for item 1, I don't see why anyone should do it regularly.

About the church of scientology, I agree. PLEASE don't do anything to support this evil cult, (I rarely ever mean evil strongly, but in this case, I am really serious about its use) including the purchase of Diskeeper.

[Paddy]

Cheers!

I did partition the drive to start with giving the OS 6GB.
The whole installation felt slow... I dont know if this is because I am going from a SCSI RAID 0 rig to this 'cuda IV, but it prompted me to reformat and just shove all of it on one big partition.

It seems nice an nippy now! Perhaps it was just a duff install.

Cheers!

[DentyCracker]

I defrag regularly and I do notice an improvement in performance. I move a lot of files often. I'm running Diskeeper 7 "easynews download edition"

[Gurm]

Whoa, nelly.

Who ever said anything about PAYING for DiskKeeper.

I don't want to fund "engram reduction" or any of that crazy shit.

Frankly, I'm beginning to get more than a little sick of John Travolta, too.

- Gurm

[cjolley]

Get some rest Gurm, you're losing it
chuck

[rugger]

Oh Damn

Originally posted by Gurm
Whoa, nelly.

Who ever said anything about PAYING for DiskKeeper.

I don't want to fund "engram reduction" or any of that crazy shit.

Frankly, I'm beginning to get more than a little sick of John Travolta, too.

Here's a hint to any scientologists that are reading this:

IT WAS A JOKE.

HUBBARD MADE IT UP.

HE ADMITTED THAT HE MADE IT UP BEFORE HE DIED.

YOU'RE FOLLOWING A DUMB MADE-UP RELIGION INVENTED BY A SCIENCE-FICTION AUTHOR.

Ok, public service message over.

- Gurm

P.S. In an effort not to offend Jammrock, I have failed to include a rather similar public service announcement for Mormons.

P.P.S. Attention all Jehovah's Witnesses:

CHRIST DID NOT RETURN LAST YEAR!

HE ALSO FAILED TO RETURN IN 2000.

AND 1984.

AND 1976.

YOU WOULD THINK, THAT WITH YOUR DISMAL TRACK RECORD SO FAR, Y'ALL WOULD STOP ****ING PREDICTING WHEN HE'S COMING BACK, HUH?

OH NO!, who got grum involved in this discussion.

I know scientology (and jehovah's witnesses) are evil, but I didn't think it as a big enough situation to bring out the "Grum!"??

[cjolley]

Turns out Army of darkness was on last night
chuck

[grey bear]

yer all nuts, eh ?

ya gotcher session files should be on the outside of the disk :

- swap
- spool
- temp or tmp

ya gotcher weekly files :

- usenet newsgroups
- downloads (pre-evaluation)
- internet cache
- history

ya gotcher 'toolbox' regularly backed up or moved to a cdrw

- program .ini files
- driver downloads
- utilities
- logs
- recovery disk images
- reg backups

ya gotcher 'personal' files, also regularly backed up

- windows 'favorites'
- mail
- personal porn colletction
- tax returns

ya gotcher fixed files should be near the outside of disk

- os
- drivers
- helper apps
- main programs
- big games

ya gotcher fixed files rarely used (can be on the inside)

- cd images for convenience

and ya gotcher video disk (should be a separate disk)


Of course there's the fact that Windoze will rarely let you get away with all that (impossible for instance to separate newgroups and mail folders, registry's stuck on OS drive, etc.), but ya get my drift.

All the above should be on separate partitions: each has it's own optimum maintenance schedule.

F'rinstance, until a certain Graphics Hardware manufacturer and myself come to some sort of agreement as to what certain words/phrases mean, I'm stuck reinstalling Windows a coupla times a week :-(, but this way at least I can (mostly) just reformat c: and reinstall Win-Millenium in about an hour. And it takes *alot* less time to format the partition with the Internet Cache on it than waiting for a 'deltree' or some such.

Grey Bear

just my .02

[rugger]

ack

grey bear,

The only problem with your suggestion is that you spend your life managing your disks instead of doing work :-)

And all for a performance improvement that isn't noticable, unless you computer isn't properly optimized, and using the hard drive too much.

There may be some justifications for 1 or 2 drive optimizations given specific need, like having a separate disk for video, but most people shouldn't bother.

[SoBizarre]

RE: To partition, or not to partition...

<BR><BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;If you gonna do it, do it right. <P><P><P align="center"><img src="http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/sitesap/partition.jpg"></P><p align="center"><b>Figure 4.4</b> shows partitioning of the drive using an ordinary hacksaw.<BR>Partitioning in this manner is advantageous over fdisk because it allows partitioning<BR>of individual platters and is independent of operating system.<BR>You also get to make cute designs.</P><P>Source <P>Cheers,<BR>SB

[cjolley]

ROTFLMAO!!!!

Does that work on the glass disks manufacturers use nowadays?
Chuck

[grey bear]

OK OK

maybe that's a *little* overboard, but you should keep at least your swap/temp/spools/cache on another partition if not another disk entirely, those things play hell with file fragmentation on your main partition. Same with video.

GB

[High_Jumbllama]

You could . . .

You could solve all those problems and use one of these.

[TnT]

Eh, I just have a different hard drive for everything.