Partition question

Plec

I'm just about to install a 120gig Maxtor SATA - and have a couple of question to do with partitions.

1. Is it best to install windows applications (e.g. Office 2000) in the same partition as XP or should these apps be installed in a separate partition along with games etc?
   
2. I'm thinking of having a separate partition for the swap file (4 x memory?) but i've read on another site that having a small partition for a swap file will wear out that part of the HDD very quickly as it will be accessed all the time - is this true?

Any help on the above would be appreciated.

Plec

Enverex

Have JUST the OS on one partition, and games programs everything else on the other partition. That Swapfile wearing the HD out is utter crap. Make the swapfile around 500-700MB, its always worked for me (plus its what Windows seems to recommend too now). Unless you play Operation Flashpoint then it needs to be about 2GB.

NS

dydx

Some parts of Office act strangwly when on a diferent partition to the OS, esp VBA and whatnot.


mD

Enverex

Ive never had a problem with any parts of....... er.... anything using seperate partition, except sometimes programs install things to C:\Program Files anyway, so you have to leave space to deal with the odd occurances.

NS

Asmo

I always have used, C: for primary OS and program files (such as office, adobe etc) in default locations C:\program files
games, mp3s, downloads, all on seperate partitions.

Swap file, seperate partition does nothing, it has to be on a seperate physical hard drive on another hard drive controller (not slaved to your primary HD) Just let windows manage the size, no reason to change it unless very rare some program requires more.

Just keep your partitions defragged (I'd recommend a 3rd party program like disk keeper or perfect disk) but default defragger will work fine too.

Plec

Thnaks guys; appreciate the help.

Asmo, would a separate partition for swap files reduce fragmentation/defragging? Or is it too marginal to warrant?

Plec

Cool-Canuck

I'm not a great believer of many partitions. I would put the OS and all programs on one partition. Data on another but thats about it.

The thinking is that there should not be a bunch of deleting on your Program Partition, therefore not much requirement to defrag it.

The data being on it's own partion is easily backed up. Having only to defrag this partition saves some time.

Shivian

Personally I don't think having a separate partition is going to be, on the whole, that beneficial. Better to have the swapfile on a different drive. That will definitely perform better under the circumstances.

But you'll definitely drop your fragmentation...

topherice

It is usauly bettoer to install any M$ app. the that utilizes M$ OLE (Oject linking and embedding) or MDAC (M$ Data Access Componets) feature such as MS Office, Money, etc., on the same patition as the OS. As far as the paging file...you will only see a performance increase if the paging file exists physically on a separate drive.

topherice

Backup is another consideration. Will you be using drive imaging software such as Symantec Ghost? If so, do you want to be able to backup only the sys partition or do you want to be forced to back up the entire drive and span it over numerous disks. Not as big of a deal if you have the capability to backup to DVD.

Plec

Thanks for all the replies, really appreciate it.

Originally posted by topherice
It is usauly better to install any M$ app. the that utilizes M$ OLE (Oject linking and embedding) or MDAC (M$ Data Access Componets) feature such as MS Office, Money, etc., on the same patition as the OS.

Does the above mean any program that uses a windows style GUI? (I'm afraid you lost me when u mentioned OLE - but i think i know what u mean )

What i mean is; should any program that resembles a windows GUI be on the OS partition (e.g. Paintshop, Adobe etc)?

Additional: What about firewall & antivrus programs etc - should these go on the OS partition?

I don't really want lots of partitions - just enough to ensure managable chunks for defrag & re-format.

Plec

topherice

For the most part, Microsoft apps that use embedded OS features, programs that integrate with Explorer or IE should go on the system partition. Anything else should be fine on another partition. OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) is Microsoft's framework for a compound document technology. Briefly, a compound document is something like a display desktop that can contain visual and information objects of all kinds: text, calendars, animations, sound, motion video, 3-D, continually updated news, controls, and so forth. Each desktop object is an independent program entity that can interact with a user and also communicate with other objects on the desktop. Part of Microsoft's ActiveX technologies, OLE takes advantage and is part of a larger, more general concept, the Component Object Model (COM) and its distributed version, DCOM. An OLE object is necessarily also a component (or COM object).

Plec

Thanks for the concise & reader friendly explanation topherice, really appreciate it.

I think I’ve decided on:

• 10 -15 gig for XP, drivers & related apps (plus firewall & virus checker)
• 40-50 gig for other programs
• 40 - 50gig for data, music etc
• and maybe a fourth partition as 2nd backup for important work files (as I’ll be using a spare 20 gig IDE drive for my main backup).

Plec

Shivian

Sounds like a pretty good plan Plec

Paul

Originally posted by NightShade737
Unless you play Operation Flashpoint then it needs to be about 2GB.

NS

I play that game, how would a 2gb partition help?

That wouldn't be why the game acts laggy if I have a ton of guys placed, would it?

Enverex

not a 2GB partiton, a 2GB SWAPFILE. The game is majorly CPU intensive, but having a huge swapfile will fix any crashes to the desktop you may ever get with it.

NS

Keelhaul

This is my setup (Maxtor 160GB):

C: (10GB) WinXP, Office, Visual Studio and any other programs that have to be reinstalled if you reinstall windows (cept games), page file

D: (80GB) 'My Documents' (including music), drivers, installable programs, ISOs, movies, tv episodes etc.

E: (50GB) games only (50 might be a bit too much for games)

Rest of the HDD (12GB): Red Hat 9

Plec

Well, installed the SATA drive plus the partitions last night. So far nps what-so-ever - v impressed with the speed.

Not so impressed with XP Pro - works fine just hate the interface - changing everything to classsic at the mo. And what is that dog about on the SEARCH utility?..

Computer loves it though, feels a lot more solid running under XP Pro than Win 2k Pro.

Oh; i opted for

• 20 gig for OS & Window Apps, Webby Codey stuff, Paintshop Pro etc...
• 60 gig Other progs, games
• 30 gig Music
• 10 gig A 2nd backup to my primary backup (20 GIG IDE drive) for important files.

On reflection i probably made the OS/Apps partition too big - but i figured i would have to use it for a few months to fully appreciate what partition sizes i would need.

Thanks again for all the posts. It made it a v painless experience & luckily i didn't have any eventualities - then again there's still time...

Plec

dydx

M$ did a good job of laming up windows xp.


mD

danball1976

Doesn't having all your programs on one seperate partition cause a problem when reinstalling windows? Wouldn't you have to reinstall the programs anyway?

Enverex

There are some things that will still work......

WinAmp
WinRAR
WinZIP
Any single executable files
WinUAE (notice something about Win infront of them?)
CloneCD
DeliPlayer
VNC
Most FTP programs

Infact LOADS of programs will work after a reinstall.

Even Office will install in about 2 seconds. If you point Office to the same folder then it checks and only installs the DLL's, shortcuts and a few other files as the other stuff already exists, which is useful.

Plus all your music, files and pr0n will still be there.

NS

dydx

Set up the partitions how you like them, then image the OS one and maybe the programs one with Ghost (use the corporate version) or Drive Image Pro.

Makes setting the computer back up when it starts to slow down a breeze.


mD

MERRICK

I have my swap file on a seperate drive. It "feels" better for sure. I also keep it a fixed size. On my next install however, I want to partion the drive so the swap file has a) it's own partition and b) that partition is on the outermost part of the physical disk.

More details about partitions in these handy guides:

http://partition.radified.com/

http://fdisk.radified.com/

Now here's a few questions regarding win98 SE FAT32 swap files:

1] What's the smallest size I can partition?

2] What is the ideal cluster size for a swap file partition?

Cool-Canuck

My experience with Win98se was not good with fixed swap file sizes. For what ever reason IE would suffer memory leaks and after a couple of hours of internet surfing, I would have to reboot to get back my mem. Took me a long time to figure out it was related to the fixed Swap File. Your milage may vary.

Also, stick lots of memory in there and don't worry about the swap file. It will barely use it.

MERRICK

Thanks for the word. Good insight on finding that problem. My swap file will be for a dedicated audio workstation(DAW) as it is now. I don't have many problems but then again it is a very dedicated system. I'm working now on a quasi embedded o/s and the beta tests have been encouraging (an under 20MB 98SE install with 95 explorer/shell and some ME system files). I'm looking forward to going with 2k one day but I'm not in need of gaming, media intensive etc. systems.

I figure the swap file will get the biggest cluster size it can. If I'm correct, isn't the smallest FAT32 partition allowable 512 MB? I presume I'll have to make that with a 256MB fixed swap? (right now my 512 MB RAM system uses a 32MB fixed swap without a problem).

As a side note, I'll be putting in 896MB RAM Now I know that there are many topics/issues about the 512MB 9.x Ram limit. I have been researching this for a while and I have found that anything over 1000MB is a definite no-no. But many people have had success with greater than 512 MB; but it is based on what they are doing with it. In my case, I have loaded my VST drum machine with ride cymbals and had my RAM counter read "0" Yikes! yet the system still was able to perform- though adding any more drum samples crashed it. In this case more RAM theoretically will help. However these stats are based on 133 SDRAM I don't know if DDR will result in different issues. I will purchase 512, 256 and 128 Crucial sticks of the same brand at the same time for optimal compatability.

Ageek

Smallest *practical* size per partition is 2+ a tib GB for FAT32, by def.

Swap is one huge file if set up right which IMHO is fixed at 2X RAM-- smallest practical cluster for 2 GB is 4096 bytes or 4K, and that is also the smallest FAT32 really allows. For SWAP per se, I woudl expect a 1\4MB chunking minimum as optimum for swap. So 32K cluster is not bad just for that-- it would calc 8 clusters per 256 KB chunk thta way.

The reason I say fixed is that you NEVER get swaps broken up this way, and rarely get them broken\corrupted when fixed. I have seen spws in 20 or more pieces,with the consecutiveness of th swap not even in progrssion over the HD but scattred all over the place randomly as the DOSy underlying core said there was space available.

I hav been told by MCSE's that by definiton 98 will not use more than 2X ram (under normal circumstances) for swap. SE will not use more than 512MB RAM normally, so typically a GIG is max swap that is really useful. Only a misbehaving app, very huge print or scan job, or other unusual thing will cause swap to more than double RAM with 98 or SE.

John Danielson.

Ageek

What happens is this-- unless an app requests a max that is over end of the RAM Windows maps itself and can directly address the RAM, registry hacks are needed to get Windows to use over 512 MB at any one time. And windows typically goes unstable when that is tried. In your case, I think you might have reached an app memory addressing size limit also. This is true for 98-- as for 98SE, only some video editing apps and graphics apps that directly access scanning subfunctions can create buffers outside Windows map space for those versions AFAIK.

John Danielson.

MERRICK

Nice to see ya John

More answers means more questions. Hope you or someone can shed light:

As far as extra ordinary RAM usage, I think a sampling DAW is in that catagory and my samplers do have option to acess the RAM directly.

I'll start by asking about the chunksize. I've heard so many conflicting views. I see you are in favor of using it.

So in my theoretical 896MB RAM system:

1] I have fixed 2.1 Gig swap on outermost partition of seperate drive.

2] Cluster size is 32k

3] Chunk size 512?? Outta my league.

This is the [Vcache] chunksize= of system.ini I presume

Ageek

But optimum cluster relates to size of part. Swaps over 2 GB usually never get fully used. So minimum part size rules smallest part as smallest FAT32 part is 2GB plus one cluster. This is true for the 9X family of Widnows from 95OSR2 up to and including Me.

Best cluster is minimum expected-- or most common-- chunk size expected. Windows actively triggers heavy swap use when more than 3\4 of RAM is in use. That is 128 MB open if you have 512 MB RAM. So, chunk is less than 128 MB. In fact, it is smaller by a bunch. I would still say 32K is minimum chunk I would expect, and 1\4 MB would be very common. So cluster size of 32K to 64K is fine for swap.

Also, remember something-- first partition on HD is placed where heads reach to fastest. So first partition on a physical HD is best for swap as first partition by nature is the fastest to I\O from. 98 likes it, XP INSISTS on it. Typically Master HD is a tib faster than slave(not always, but most people put fastest mech as Master, and the controllers usually poll Master first). So master primary part is best place normally.

If the swap is fixed, Norton SpeedDisk can position the swap so the heads reach it as first real file as swap is in root directory of Widnows HD tree and no subdirectories usually have to even be parsed this way.

No I did not misunderstand.

MERRICK

I have to bail out here and ask for some bottom line figures since it is going over my head.

So in my theoretical 896MB RAM system:

1] I have fixed 2.1 Gig swap on outermost partition of seperate drive. [Check]

2] Cluster size is 32k~64k when I format the partition [check]

3] Chunk size is set in system.ini [Vcache] to what?

chunksize=???

Ageek

Figure that windows is tuned to not always be writing chunks to a HD-- so, actually best size for something that needs to take minimal time is the burst DMA mode size that a HD can buffer internally. I have seen buffers of 2 MB on bigger HDs and the biggest burst that such a HD should take in one stream is about 1\2 of buffer size. So, I would expect Windows on a box like your 1 gigger (GHz) to use HD acceptance as it tries to do it fastest. Thus 512K works on most all HDs, except those which would be too slow to be swap candidates (UDMA 66 and down on your box woudl be slower than optimum).

Ok, lets talk about why cluster size is even an issue-- if we were to say cluster of 128K and Windows wrote a bunch of 64K chunks you wold have 64K waste per chunk written. If 32K, then the HD would have to write from buffer 2 chunks for each group of 64K and rebreaking things up should be minimized as that takes time. But windows is likely to want to swap reasonable size blocks, or memory chunks that are partly determined by how many chunks a give amount of RAM can be mapped into. The average number comes out to about 1\4 to 1\2 MB with the RAM sizes we are talking about so I said 1\2MB or 512 KB. HD might not want to write that much in one burst of data to heads and onto platter, but I am sure it will handle at least 32 K and probably 64 K.

Try 32K. Double if the HD churns too much (PowerQuest's Partition Magic can redefine cluster sizes on FAT32 without reformatting, though you WILL then get to SpeedDisk the partition for data safety reasons, or wipe and redefine the swap file to make windows rewrite it from scratch to match new cluster specs).

So, let's say you had 512 MB RAM. Set up your partition for th swap and tell Partition Magic that you want 32K clusters.

Let windows reboot (I usually do the PartitionMagic part from a rescue floppy boot). right clcik on My Computer. Click properities. this brings up the same applet as clicking the system applet in Control Panel would. Now, tell the Performance|Virtual Memory dialog that you want to control swap size, tell it minimum is 2X RAM. Tll it maximum is 2X RAM. Windows will scoldyou, but tell it to do this anyways. When doen reboot.

Now, expect Windows to sit at the Welcome graphic for as long as it takes to write a file of your suggested size plus normal boot time. It will use the cluster size defined by the Partition Magic format, and the sizing you told it to use and happily make the vcahe entry set by itself. Reboot once at desktop, should(works about 90%of the time) boot normally and in normal time frame thereafter unless sometime you have to wipe the swap file from a floppy boot itself instead of having to reinstall.

If you really want to edit the registry, you will actually have two settings, a minimum and a max to create. I would not bother, but

http://www.winguides.com/ has oodles of registry modding howtos if you insist. included is the instruction set for how to set the cache\swap limits and what to do before and after.

However, If I had a Norton SystemWorks CD for that Windows, I would install the utils and run the Windows Optimization Wizard and hav it set up the swap file tuning for me(including benchmarking the drives and seeing what part to stick the swap file in). But, you now know the base logic that the Wizard is programmed to use also.

John Danielson.