how to partition an external harddrive

[maggot]

hi i just got an external 250gb harddrive i want to split it in to 5 50gb partitions,any ideas??
thanx in advance

[canyon]

Easy if you have Windows XP:
Control Panel (Classic View) > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management (under Storage).
This should give you a window with a list of your physical disks, and show the partitons on them. If you right click on the external disk, you can delete partions/format/create partions etc.
Initially may find that the disk is fully formatted, so you have to delete the partition, then you csn right-click on an empty area of the disk and create new partitions. The Help in Computer Management Console gives more details.
Alternatively, you could buy a disk management application, such as Partition Magic from Symantec (Norton).

Nowadays, with NTFS, I'd advise against splitting disks into too many partitions, unless you have a real need to (old BIOS/PC, not having WinXP, actually want completely seperate "drives"): Why do I say that (just a personal view!):
1. No need, NTFS works fine and reliably with any size partition.
2. Creating lots of small partitions Fixes the max amount of data you can get on any "Drive": Often in the past I've done this myself, then more data has come along than i expected, and I've run out of space, so my carefully organised data is now spanning two drives. If you just use folders on the full drive, they grow and shrink as you want.

[normcar]

I believe that partitions also increase the likelyhood of having data problems on the HD. Everything you do to the HD may increase the likelyhood that one of the partitions may become corrupted. I have had many fewer problems with bad partitions since I do not partition anymore. Just use different folders. You should be able to map a folder to a drive letter as well. This is a better way of using your HD than partitioning. Partitioning can create headaches later on.

[SingSing]

Just use different folders. You should be able to map a folder to a drive letter as well. This is a better way of using your HD than partitioning.

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[maggot]

hi i only want to partition the drive to make defragmenting the drive easier,are there any ways to make a defrag quicker??

[normcar]

You shouldn't have to defrag often, but if you want to, I would purchase a 3rd party defrag program. MS tries to add everything into their software, but excels at nothing. Defragging can also lead to disk problems, which is another reason to use 1 partition.

[lordsmurf]

Partitions will also slow down the drive. You're better off just keeping folders organized.

I prefer Norton Speed Disk for my defrags.

[holistic]

Partitions will also slow down the drive............

Do tell. Please supply infomation on such. I would like to know why.

To answer OP. Partition in XP Administrative Tools / Computer Management / ... as suggested. Or use the manufacturer supplied software.

There is no correct way to partiton.
Make as many partitions as you see fit to control your data.

Too many drive letters are a PITA to manage though. I myself have 3 * 120Gb SATA drives as well as a 250GB external USB (archive disk). The two internal SATA 120GB drives are partitioned.
(0) ~38Gb XP / 38Gb DOWNLOADS / 38Gb GAMES (120Gb drive is about 114Gb)
(1) 14Gb XP (image) / 100Gb VIDEO
(2) 38Gb MY DOCUMENTS** / 38Gb WORKING / 38Gb MUSIC


** I organize all my stuff in the "My Documents" folder and then I moved the location of the "My Documents" to another partition (drive) so that no important data is lost if i get a nasty virus (not yet thanks to AVG). The "My Documents" is occasionally 'backed up' to my external drive whenever i get to it. If i loose something, it will be my undoing.


Hope this helps you with some partitioning ideas.

][

[Jester700]

Partitions CAN slow down the drive, due to the head assembly needing to shuttle between more widely spaced disk sectors.

Say you have two 100GB drives, and one has been "split" into 2 equal partitions. Then you put 10GB of OS & data on it. Now when you go to read & write a new file to the unpartitioned drive, it uses the next free sectors - very close to where your OS, swapfile, and any other data is (and thus not far from where the HD heads are likely to be). On the partitioned drive, though, saving to the 2nd partition moves the heads halfway across the drive, slowing the process down for each affected seek operation.

Now, this situation is possible with a single partition, and is more likely as the drive fills up. But why start OUT that way?

There are valid reasons to partition, IMO, but that doesn't mean there aren't tradeoffs.

[handyguy]

You should consider buying Partitition Magic, it takes care of things.

[normcar]

You should consider buying Partitition Magic, it takes care of things.

I used PM. The partitions got messed up, and I had to purchase recovery software to get most of my data back, but I still lost some data.

IMHO, partitions are not worth the risk of losing data.

[RLT69]

Here's a good article about partitions:

http://partition.radified.com/

Partitions are not bad and you are at no greater risk of losing your data because you use multiple partitions. Some thought needs to be put into their layout. There are reasons why you would use multiple partitions and reasons why you wouldn't. The above article addresses those.

[normcar]

Here's a good article about partitions:

http://partition.radified.com/

Partitions are not bad and you are at no greater risk of losing your data because you use multiple partitions.

I disagree, but is it worth the risk? Every time you do something to a file structure, you are at risk of damage. Is the possible risk worth losing data, when the alternatives are acceptable. I lost the partitions made by Partition Magic a couple of days after using it. If I had realized the risks, I would not have used it. It was certainly not worth the time, cost, effort and loss of data.

[Skith]

Partitioning/resizing of drives with data (one wants to keep) without backing up is alway a bad idea regardless of what software you use. I have never had a problem with partition magic, but that doesn't mean I perform potentially data-destroying operations without full backups.

On an emtpy (physical) drive there is nothing to worry about.

[normcar]

I partitioned an empty drive and copied the data to it, before it became corrupt. I have used the same drive for several years, and have had no problems with it. I simply believe that partitioning a drive increases the risk of corruption leading to data loss. I have about 4 TB of disk space, and there is no real good way of backing up that much data. I use disk monitoring software and hope I do not lose too much data, while backing up only the most critical data. Even backups can become corrupt, so backups are not the end of all problems either.

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