One Big partititon or file splitting?

[alexago]

To capture 2 hours of video with Huffy I must have many GB (for example 32) avalaibles in my HD: it's better to do a single BIG 32 GB partititon (NTFS, 64K cluster, as first HD partition) or to use file splitting method (any decent capturing program it's be able to split data in some file)?

Do you any suggestion?

Thanks in advance

[LanceSteel]

If you have an NTFS capable OS (WinNT, Win2K, WinXP) and a large HD then I would just capture the stream as one big file. I think the only reason to split the file up is for those people who still are using a FAT16/32 filesystem.

Are you asking whether to capture as a large file or have the partition on your HD a large partition?

[alexago]

Both,

I have a new 120GB HD and I am not sure if it's better a single 32 NTFS partition (dedicated to capturing video) or to use, for example, two 16GB partition with filesplitting.

[LanceSteel]

Ok, personally I have a 120GB HD that I just have as one big partition and I capture DV as one big file (usually 17-30GB) and I've never had any problems. I would just make the partition 120GB and capture as one big file which will save you the trouble of dealing with 4 or 5 4GB files.

[Gazorgan]

My 2 cents (US) worth.

If it's your only drive; make an 8 GB partition to install W2K/XP on and make all the rest a second partition. This doesn't gain you any speed, it just lets you keep things clean( all those little capture files everywhere, you can easily lose GB's by forgetting a clip now and then :P )

If you have more than 1 drive, then one great big NTFS partition. That way you won't have to deal with splitting files, and sync issues that can happen doing that.

Side note: If you format in NTFS and use a non-standard block size( bigger block size means you can capture faster, less FAT Table entries while capturing) you may not be able to Defragment it. My 80 GB capture drive has huge blocks, and I can't defrag it(3rd party disk manager software). Doesn't matter for me, since everyhting get's deleted in a matter of days. It does matter if you only have 1 drive and 1 partition. Or use the capture partition for other things.

[alexago]

Thanks boys for yours suggestions.

I have 3 HD: on first (3 partitions) I installed Win2K (NTFS 4GB) for OS only, Win98 (2GB FAT32) and 8GB NTFS for WIN2K applications.

I would like to use my second HD (120GB WD 8MB cache) to capture and edit video: I will do a NTFS 40GB primary partition (with 64K cluster) only for video capturing (as the first partition, I think that the first partition is the fatest) and 2 other NTFS extended partition with 2 logical volume for each with 20GB size for video editing (MPEG2/DIVX).

On the third HD I installed Linux, Amiga and one FAT partition to share files between OS.

What do you think about 2nd HD partitioning?

Bye

[Gazorgan]

You don't need to do logical volumes in NTFS. You can do 4 primary partitions. If I had that drive(soon maybe?) I'd make it one big 120 GB partition.

Please remember, your IDE drives are are only as fast as the the slowest drive on the chain. don't mix UDMA 100 with a slow UDMA 33 drive on same cable!

[alexago]

Garzogan, I know it but in this moment I don't want to reinstall Win2K and Win98.

I will try to do only one 120GB partition as you suggested.