Question about a 2nd hard drive

[kayumidome]

I'm planning to add a second SATA hard drive to my computer to place just video, pictures and music on. Since I'm only going to use it for video pictures etc. should I partition it? Any advice would be appreciated.

[glockjs]

you have to partition it no matter what. chose ntfs

[ViRaL1]

you have to partition it no matter what. chose ntfs

I think they were referring to creating more than ONE partition. Or were you talking about formatting?

[waheed]

No need for creating additional partitions.

I use two SATA hard drives. My WD Raptor is used as the main hard drive with Windows installed and all the program applications. I use the second one (Seagate) for storage purposes like videos, mp3s, pictures etc.

It should be fine. Just create a single partition, format as NTFS and you're ready.

[reboot]

No way. A drive that size?
I'd give it at least 3 partitions.
Imagine the time you'll save in defragging

Personal preference. Partition as you like. There is no right or wrong way to do it.

[waheed]

True. If someone wants multiple partitions, then thats an individual choice.

Ive personally had problems with multiple partitions.

[glockjs]

i've got my 250gb seagate at 50gb os partition, and 200gb storage partition...no probs

[rallynavvie]

I never understood multiple partitions unless you like to keep your OS on a seperate one to repair it without losing everything. Even then I only do that at work. I guess I just don't like having to assign a bunch of drive letters or having to remember which drive letter I save things under. It's bad enough having to deal with 5 different physical drives in the PC at once anyway

[redwudz]

Let's see. Is it faster to defrag (3 )100G partitions of of 300G drive or one partition of a 300G drive?

What rallynavvie said.

I'm no fan of multiple partitions. Seems like something left over when drives were slow and disk space was at a premium. I admit I use small drives, generally 80G and stay away from the large 200G+ drives.

I can see if you only have one large drive, it would reasonable to isolate your OS from your large video files. However, with one OS drive, and one or two additional drives for storage and editing, it seems that partitioning is not really necessary. This is the type of setup I prefer. Just my opinion.

Bottom line: IMO, I would just opt for a single partition on a second drive. I don't see any advantage to multiple partitions in this case.

[jakol]

hi,
I have read somewhere that using multiple partitions in XP slows down the system ... I could be wrong.
cheers.

[kayumidome]

Thank you everyone for your advice. I think I'm going to make just one partition with this addtional hard drive.

[glockjs]

why would it be slower with certain files in a set area and nowhere outside that boundry vs files that could be anywhere on a drive?

[ViRaL1]

I agree with rally about having an OS partition that's separate from your other docs. Most of my larger drives I don't parition. Although, concerning defragging 3 100GB partitions vs 1 300GB partition, a single larger partition should become fragmented more quickly unless you're just saving files arbitrarily on different partitions. Plus, you don't have to defrag all 3 partitions at one time.

[alsyed]

since it will be your second drive, why not just partition into 2 seperate partitions. The first partition, which wall be the fastest part of the drive, should be read purposes in terms of video editing, just fast format it after every project, and destination i would use as your first drive. Storage would be on the 2nd partition of your second drive.

[jakol]

hi,

copied from a tech forum:

Do not partition the hard drive. Windows XP's NTFS file system runs more efficiently on one large partition. The data is no safer on a separate partition, and a reformat is never necessary to reinstall an operating system. The same excuses people offer for using partitions apply to using a folder instead. For example, instead of putting all your data on the D: drive, put it in a folder called "D drive." You'll achieve the same organizational benefits that a separate partition offers, but without the degradation in system performance. Also, your free space won't be limited by the size of the partition; instead, it will be limited by the size of the entire hard drive. This means you won't need to resize any partitions, ever. That task can be time-consuming and also can result in lost data.

just a thought...

[kayumidome]

Thanx for that post Jakol. Very informative.

[waheed]

Let's see. Is it faster to defrag (3 )100G partitions of of 300G drive or one partition of a 300G drive?

You can always defrag at night while you sleep

[ViRaL1]

hi,

copied from a tech forum:

Do not partition the hard drive. Windows XP's NTFS file system runs more efficiently on one large partition. The data is no safer on a separate partition, and a reformat is never necessary to reinstall an operating system. The same excuses people offer for using partitions apply to using a folder instead. For example, instead of putting all your data on the D: drive, put it in a folder called "D drive." You'll achieve the same organizational benefits that a separate partition offers, but without the degradation in system performance. Also, your free space won't be limited by the size of the partition; instead, it will be limited by the size of the entire hard drive. This means you won't need to resize any partitions, ever. That task can be time-consuming and also can result in lost data.

just a thought...

I'd have to disagree there. While a format may not be NECESSARY to reinstall the OS (i.e. installing over the top), if you actually come to a point where you NEED to reinstall the OS, installing over the top is generally not a good idea. Besides, in XP an NTFS quickformat during setup takes all of what...5-10 SECONDS? Keeping a separate partition allows you to reformat and not have to backup your documents or other data (you can even set the My Documents folder to a second partition). Truth be told, if I had the room and 10GB drives were as good and as fast as today's drives, I'd use one just for my OS, but I've got a WD 120SE, so I've got 15GB for the OS and the rest is storage.

[rallynavvie]

You can always defrag at night while you sleep

Or while you're using the computer. I've been using O&O ever since BJ_M recommended it and I love it. It does take up some system resources since it runs in the background. It monitors where fragmentation is occuring and then when my PC is idle I can hear it moving stuff around. Checking my framentation it's never above a few percent. Worth checking out if you're worried about fragmentation.

[reboot]

Let's see. Is it faster to defrag (3 )100G partitions of of 300G drive or one partition of a 300G drive?

It's faster to defrag 3 smaller partitions than one large. Try it and see.

Windows XP's NTFS file system runs more efficiently on one large partition. The data is no safer on a separate partition, and a reformat is never necessary to reinstall an operating system.

Bullshit! I'd like to meet this "tech"
XP runs more efficiently if you use a 4k allocation unit size than a 512k one.

Set up the task manager to defrag all your drives once a month, then forget about it. XP's native handling of files is far superiour than previous MS OS's, and the performance increase you'll see by defragging once per week, vs once per month is so small as to be stupid.
Of course, if you're still running a 5200 rpm 40 gig Quantum Bigfoot, then you shouldn't defrag at all, because that's about when the drive will decide to die, if it hasn't already.

[Rivers]

I have a 200gb external HDD for video etc. I decided that when it reaches the point where it needs defragging I shall just reformat as that took one and a half hours wheras defragging will take nearly a lifetime!

[jakol]

hi'
so wat happen to your files when you reformat it? can you just delete it? why defrag then?

[waheed]

hi'
so wat happen to your files when you reformat it? can you just delete it? why defrag then?

I think Rivers meant to say he would backup all his files before formatting. Formatting and defrag are two seperatre cases. Format will erase all files from the hard disk. Defrag is the process or reorganising and rewriting files so that they occupy one large continuous area on your hard disk rather than several smaller areas.

Defrag generally makes a system run faster after a defragmentation.

Rivers prefers format as it is quicker.

[ViRaL1]

Copying, THEN formatting, THEN re-copying vs defrag? I'm not sure that's a time saver.

[waheed]

Not if you use Ghost. Loading up an image of a freshly installed OS takes 20 minutes. Then copying your required files.

[ViRaL1]

I have a 200gb external HDD for video etc. I decided that when it reaches the point where it needs defragging I shall just reformat as that took one and a half hours wheras defragging will take nearly a lifetime!

Something tells me Ghost wouldn't save much time here.

[rallynavvie]

[waheed]

Well, I was talking about using ghost on the main drive with the OS.

For an extrenal drive full of videos would be pointless using ghost.

[Rivers]

Waheed is right, but I mainly store captured AVI on the external for temporary use for editing. The original footage is still on dv tape and the edited version on DVDs. Any other bits and pieces I would like to keep I would copy to dvd or to the laptop's HDD.

[JeffD]

I appreciate all the good advice in this thread. I still have a question, tho.

I'm about to have my computer tech install a Western Digital 160GB HDD (WD1600JBRTL) as a second HDD in my Dell Precision 360. I would definitely be inclined to install this as a single-partitioned HDD if it weren't for this warning regarding Defrag in the TROUBLESHOOTING section of the instruction sheet:

Certain operating system utilities such as ScanDisk and Defrag may not function properly on the drive partitions exceeding 137GB. Creating multiple partitions less than 137GB will allow proper functionality.

My computer tech hadn't heard of such a limitation. Any experience from forum members?

Thanks,
JeffD

PS: Win2K 5.00.2195, SP4