Partitioning hard drive

[brookelh]

I have a new computer with a 160 G hard drive. I read someplace that you should partition your hard drive and put all your captured and edited video on a partition away from your operating system and programs. So I partitioned my hard drive. Then I read someplace else that this will just make your programs work harder, so you shouldn't! Any advice? If I should use the partition, do I install the tools that I will be using to edit and encode on the same partition as the files, or on the partition with Windows?

I figure I will eventually buy another hard drive, but since the one I have has almost nothing on it, I wanted to wait until I actually needed the space. Seems hard drives get cheaper daily!

[Goober57]

I use Partition Magic and I love it. Very easy to use.

I put my applications on the C partition and video files on the others.

My video partitions range from about 30GB to 60GB. Works great!

Remember to defrag often.

[penamty]

Without separate physical disks video editing is considerably slower when the source material and output are on the same disk, I don’t believe partitioning your disk will solve this, because it will still be limited to read and write using the same physical heads. On my computer it takes almost twice more time when editing to the same disk, than to a separate one. As for OS system upkeep, I am a firm believer in keeping the OS in a partition or disk separate from any other files, although I wouldn’t recommend installing the applications separate from the OS, windows was not designed to work that way.

[NickSaunders]

I do not believe that having your captured and/or video files on a separate partition of the SAME hard drive will boost performance. However, it will make it easier to perform backups and/or images since you can select an entire partion to back up and not waste time identifying which files and folders...simply backup the partition with your OS and programs.

You WILL experience a performance boost if your captures and/or video files are on a separate physical HARD DRIVE. The best would probably be to have your OS and programs on 1 hard drive, your captures on a second hard drive and your conversions on a 3rd hard drive.

[NickSaunders]

damn...someone beat me to it!

[jimmalenko]

I would install the software your are going to use on the same drive as the OS, then keep the 160GB drive for your source (captures, video files) and destination files.

[brookelh]

Thanks for the help. Assuming I had only two drives, then it would seem like it might help to have the programs in the partition with XP, the capture files on another partition on that drive, and then put your conversions or edits on a second drive. Is that right?

[HiDefDon]

I am running Windows XP Home Edition. Is it possible to add a second partition to the existing C: drive without reformatting the whole disk and without reinstalling all the software in the new C: partition?
Thanks.
DonP

[syeager]

I suggest using at least 2 drives.

The first drive is for windows and your programs, each in seperate partitions. Windows should always be in its own partition as C. This optimizes backups and reinstallation of the operating system without impacting programs or files. I know that you will have to reinstall programs anytime you reinstall windows, but most or all of your configuration files and patches should still be available. Please note that in some cases, Ulead in particular, will not reinstall over an existing installation, even though a new installation of windows does not recognize it; in these cases, you must delete or rename your old directory before installing the app.

The second harddrive is for capture. This is very important. No applications should be installed to this drive or any partitions on this drive. This will help prevent dropped frames should windows need to access some random file for a running app.

That is a great idea, to rendor to seperate disk from the source! It makes perfect sense and should save a lot of time. So, rendor to a third drive, or a back to the first drive (possibly to a seperate partition, but this is not necessary and probably wasteful of disk space and either way would not optimize performance).

As someone stated before, to repartition you disk without losing data, you have to use an app like partition magic.

[Goober57]

Just a quick note.............Even though I love Partition Magic, I ran into a huge problem a while back. Seems like you can't have Norton installed while you use PM.

I kept getting errors while partitioning. So I completely uninstalled Norton, then used PM, and it worked. I tried it on several different computers just to be sure and it happened on all of them.

Norton can be reinstalled after Partition Magic is finished. Don't know why that happened.

[absinthecarolinas]

Go here.

[vhelp]

Here is what I have, as my setup so far, for my DV capture projects 8)



--> more info here !!

I only just got it to work today - finally.

I'm using ADS's USB2.0 Drive Kit (USBX-804) in my Win 98 system. Because my
40 (I said some time ago it was an 80g but in error, anyways) is not being
rec'ized, I decided to use it as an external capture drive, by using the
USBX-804 kit., an enclosure for spare hard drives/CD/DVD drives.

Here's my experince so far with this setup..

After installing the USBX-804 enclosure, and Win 98 drivers, it worked at first
boot. Anyways. I set it as Drive G:\ ..which is my DV capture drive.
Capturing to this G:\ drive is flawless and no dropped frames, over USB-2
connections. Firewire transfer from DV devices (ie, CAM's and ADVC-100 etc)
only require aprox 3.6MB/sec. After capturing for over 20 minutes using the
freeware AVI_IO app, the buffers only went as high as 5/50 with no problems.
However, vdub doesn't seem to handle the buffers very well and causes the CPU%
to stay burned at 100% over-drive. So, I probably wouldn't recommend using
vdub to capture DV through firewire to a USB-2 drive. But AVI_IO is perfect
for this. And, with a 40g drive, that's THREE full hours of capture time,
which is more than I need for a single capture project.
.
However, performing regular Analog Capturing (ie, RGB; Huffy; Uncompressed)
is too much for this USB-2 (on my setup) and causes AVI_IO buffers to reach
the 50/50 (over flow) error and crashes out of capturing.

Also, I don't think that a separate drive needs to be defragged. If it is
strickly used for capturing to, then all that is needed is a delete (or
even a re-format, using quick format) and you're good to go.

The great benefit about my new capture setup (for DV) is that I can install
a different HD or newer one, or larger capacity at any time, and w/out buying
a whole new drive-kit.

I would recommend partitioning a only for OS setup and Program apps and
other files.. (ie, C:\ for OS; and programs/apps as D:\ drives) and then
put your separate capture drive as E:\
.
Or, you could try out my setup (already discussed above)

Good luck,
-vhelp

[Gurm]

No offense, but the "radified" people are retards.

Until hard drive technology improves DRASTICALLY, partitioning makes your system run like dog turd.

What you're doing is GUARANTEEING that you will be achieving the WORST possible seek times on the drive.

Y'know how the drive has an "average" seek time of 9ms?

Well, continuous reads have 0ms seek time... and seeks to the other end of the drive (which is where a SECOND PARTITION would be) take like 30ms. Guess which one it'll be doing ALL THE TIME if you add a partition to your system drive? Ayup.

Adding a second partition to your boot drive is, in effect, changing it from a 250GB SATA drive into a 250GB IDE PIO2 drive.

If you need help organizing your files, make root folders and map NT virtual drives to them.

Case closed.

[Manhattanite]

If I understand things correctly, then it is recommended to capture on a separate (designated) HD.

I have two HD's and have put the page file on the second (D-) drive, following an advice on videoguys.com.

When capturing on the D: drive, is it better to keep the page file on the C: drive (which also has Windows on it) or to put it on the D: drive (together with the captured files)?

Thanks

[vhelp]

TGIF :P

Well, if you're having trouble with frames dropping, you could turn off
the page swaping (through device manager) and when finished, turn it back
on 8)

Or, you could keep your swap on your C:\ drive with windows (its ok)
.
You just don't want to have a file that is constantly being read/writen to
while all along, is also sending large captured data to the same C:\ drive.
One of the reasons why not, is because A) the swap file (as it is being writen
to) is fragmented constantly. That means, more seek time across many
fragments.., all the while it's also trying to write its large captured data to this
same C:\ drive.
.
DMA adds more stable throughput and is good, but if the above is your case,
then you only have *one* DMA for your C:\ drive.
.
Sending these large captured data to *a partition* is not helping you in the
above scenario either, because it's STILL the same C:\ drive.., just split
up a little. The *heads* are still from the C:\ drive.

That's why it's always good the send captured data to a whole separate
drive. Its makes things much smoother and faster, not to mention one
more dedicated DMA channel for large data transfers, without having to
seek from track to track. There is no additional work being done on that
separate drive (ie, say it was a D:\ drive you were capturing to)

Every little tweak counts, when it comes to capturing.

Your next step is to fine the right *capture app* for your setup, and fine
tune it.
.
The two main choices are:
* virtualDub
* avi_io

You'll find that one will work better than the other, when it comes to dropping
lesser frames. But you'll have to trial n error it until you find the right
one for the job (that is, ...your given setup)

-vhelp

[Manhattanite]

Thanx a bunch, Vhelp!

Assume I will just move the swap file back to the C drive and give it a shot.

[handyguy]

The new computers I bought have 2 partitions on them when I bought them. One has a complete OS backup & the other one is for general use.

[shelbyGT]

My computer has 2 120GB in a Raid 0 configuration. It came from the factory with one partition of about 230+ GB and one partition of a few GB's for the factory image recovery file.

How do I go about partitioning this thing without losing any data? I thought, in my past researching, that you have to lose data on my config if you want to partition.

Any help?

[Phoebos]

VHELP

you mentioned :
"However, performing regular Analog Capturing (ie, RGB; Huffy; Uncompressed) is too much for this USB-2 (on my setup) and causes AVI_IO buffers to reach the 50/50 (over flow) error and crashes out of capturing. "


Do you have any idea about the reason I m not able to capture using resolutions like 352X576 or 720X576 (DVD PAL) but only 352X288 (or less) ?

I was thinking that the problem was related with PowerVCR settings, or something having to do with PowerVCR in general, but using Mainconcept 1.4.2 I had the very same problem. The messages are not the same but say the very same thing

PVCR--->” S0028 : Unable to run caprure graph”
and Mainconcept ---> “error during capture!”

what is the problem? (1,6Ghz CPU, 512 Mb RAM, Win XP, FlyTV Platinum 3 capture card)

Thanks in advance

[racer-x]

shelbyGT wrote:

How do I go about partitioning this thing without losing any data? I thought, in my past researching, that you have to lose data on my config if you want to partition.

You can use Partition Magic or other non destructive partitioning tools out there. I like to use Partition Manager, it's free and can fit on a boot-floppy. Be very careful and know what you're doing before you atempt to create partitions on a drive that contains data.

The best aproach would be to transfer the image file to the first partition. Then defrag that partiton to move all the data to the begining. Now you can shrink the first partition down to the piont where the data ends. You can then expand the second partition, or create multiple new ones.

Like I said, be careful. But it can easily be done.

[Gurm]

A separate partition to hold infrequently-used-yet-vital data is one of the few GOOD reasons to have separate partitions at this point.

[brookelh]

Well, I have definitely decided to buy another hard drive. Sounds like I should use it for capture, then render back to the big partition on my main hard drive. My next question: Another great thing about another hard drive would be that I could then have a place to make a disk image of my operating partition for recovery purposes. Can I just put it in a partition on my second capturing hard drive, assuming that I don't update the backup it while I am capturing?

[Gurm]

Yes, that would work. You can make a nice little backup partition with a fixed size, and yeah just make sure nothing accesses it while you're capturing.