Partition a large HD?

[calvert99]

I am ready to dive into the VCD hobby. I am running Windows XP with a 60 GB hard drive. Should I partition this drive for video capture (I am currently using about 5-6 GB)?

[alan_brandon]

It might be an idea to partition about 20-30 gig of your hard drive just for video files a good programme to use is partition magic its so easy...give it a go :roll:

[dumwaldo]

to add my 2 cents...

for capping you want large unpartitioned NTFS formated hard drive space, for your software you want a nice tight drive to prevent high levels of fragmentation.

the answer is a 5 to 10 gig partition to hold your OS and software formated in your choice of NTFS or FAT32 and the remaining space as one single partition of 50 to 55 gig formated to NTFS. that way you will not create alot of fragmentation on your OS drive with the constant writing and deleting associated with video creation.

i use several partitions and some require little to no defragmenting maintenance while the partition i capture to needs to be defragmented multiple times a week.

im pretty sure that will allow you to create caps larger than 4 gig in size. i could be mistaken and you may need to have you OS drive formated with NTFS as well but i dont think so. i am pretty sure as long as the drive you are capturing to is NTFS you can exceed 4 gig.

peace out,
dumwaldo

[RaymondLo]

just wanna ask...
if the partition is in NTFS, then ur OS must be NT/2000/XP?
However these 3 OSs have not very good performance in capture card support?

[dumwaldo]

RaymondLo

thats a tricky question. yes to run an NTFS formated drive you do need one of those OS's.

Windows NT - if you are still riding this dinasour i think you really be considering an upgrade to win2k.

Windows 2000 - this is in my opinion the best windows OS you can use. there may be some compatibility issues with older hardware. most if not all hardware made in the last year has win2k support. if you have an older capture card that you plan to keep using then of course before you upgrade look at the manufacturers site and see if they have any win2k drivers available. if the manufacturer does not offer drivers in many cases you can find user written drivers by searching the web. when it comes to user written drivers there are no guarantees so i would only suggest this route for more experienced users.

Windows XP - its buggy as hell. as far as i am concerned this OS is still in beta. if you were foolish enough to get an OS before even the first service pack was issued i really dont know what to say when you have compatibility problems. try calling microsoft and asking them why their preimier OS doesnt work.

[resnullius]

I agree to dumwaldo on pretty much everything except the 50 gig partition you're better off creating 3 partitions i for your OS, 1 for video capture and rendering which you drefrag very often and a third one for your files and finished video. The os partion does'nt need to be more than 4 gig (maybe up to 8-9 if you install a lot of softwarez) the capture partition should be at least 10 gig and the remainder for files. you don't want to have to defrag a bigger disk than necessary as it takes some time...

[HillJack]

Why does everybody worry about defragging a capture partition? Am I missing something by capturing my video to my 100Gig NTFS volume, converting the video, then deleting the original capture .avi? Why defrag the drive when you just erase 99% of the files anyway?

My advice, partitioning your drive won't gain you anything. It will always be the same PHYSICAL drive. Whether your windows swap file is on one partition or another, it wont make any difference... same drive. For keeping things cleaner, make a partition. Make a 5gig OS partition and leave the rest for other stuff. Keep the capture partition as big as possible (its always best to have TOO MUCH space than not enough

NTFS is the way to go though. Using VirtualDub (or any other program that supports > 4Gig files and > 2Gig AVI files) and being able to capture to a single file, saves alot of headache imo.

Stay away from Partition Magic. It's a piece of crap, just like Easy CD Creator. Again, imo. I wouldn't trust PM to partition a Maxtor If you lucked out and installed XP on a "Dynamic Drive" (as per Disk Manager (if XP has that.. I'm using Win 2000 Pro) then just use it to shrink the volume and then create another volume with the rest of the drive.

Your best bet, get another 60Gig drive for video capture. A PHYSICALLY SEPARATE drive will always be better than one single, partitioned drive. If you go the partition route, don't screw around with defragging a capture-only partition, you just delete the capture(s) when your done anyway... Defragged in one click

[resnullius]

the reason i partition my drive is that i tend to reinstal every few month to keep my computer clean and running as fast as possible... so i need to have my files on a seperate drive. lack of funds don't alow me to by several hard drives....

[Bob 4255]

I'm a newbie to video editing. Can someone pls. give me advice on drives and partitioning?

I've just purchased a new PC (Windows XP Pro) with a 120 GB hard drive and a DVD-ROM installed. I will be adding a DVD+RW drive plus another 120 GB drive for lots of video editing space.

1. I could attach all 4 drives to the internal IDE drive connections. But[color=red] is there an advantage to putting one (or both) of the hard drives on a separate ATA controller card? Would it be faster and/or more stable?

2. Partitioning: What would be your recommendation for partitioning? (I noticed that the maximum partition size using "Partition Magic" is 80 GB.)
For hard drive #1: Would 20 GB for OS, 20 GB for programs, and then 80 GB for video files be best?
For hard drive #2: Should this be non-partitioned for moving finished video files to?

any advice would be much appreciated,
Bob

P.S. Someone posted that Partition Magic is bad. Why do you say that?

[spiderman2k1]

NTFS fat is better then Fat 32 but keep in mind even NTFS use's swap file and when the swap file fill's up it will crash.With NTFS i capture DVD format 7 1/2 gig's but there no program that can open it right. Some program will open but you will not be able to cut the end of the file its just to big for some program's

I use Mpeg2vcr to cut SVCD DVD and TMPEG from time to time and
Ifilmedit for VCD

If you want to capture get the Dazzle 2 it the best capture card out there here are some site to help you

http://stop.at/dazzle2

Also there is a free time to use with the dazzle 2 if your not home to record a show

http://stop.at/TWNH

[Nelson37]

Smaller partitions have some advantages for management and smaller cluster size but for video capture these are irrelevant.
Strongly recommend SEPARATE HD on SEPERATE channel for best performance - video capture is huge throughput and any other traffic on same channel can cause dropped frames. Put DVD and OS drive on IDE 0, capture drive alone on IDE 1. Additional drives can be accomodated on ATA card.
You do not need Partition Magic, always avoid non-standard tools if no good reason to use them. For drive 0, 20 gig for OS and rest for progs would be good, or all one partition to simplify management.
I don't defrag I just format my entire capture drive periodically.
W/NTFS on XP pro, I often capture 10 gig MPEG2 files w/no problems.

[Bob 4255]

Thanks much, Nelson! Your advice makes sense; really answered my 2 questions.

Bob