Re: Do I need to partition?

From: Bob Dietz (rbdietz_1999_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 02/15/04 

Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 06:49:36 -0600

Donald McDaniel wrote:

> Bob Dietz wrote:
>
>>Neptoone wrote:
>>
>>>Alex,
>>>
>>>Thanks for the information, wow that is quite a site, but I'm
>>>wondering why you said that dividing my HD four ways with 40GB is
>>>not a good arbitrary number
>
>
>>Because it's arbitrary. Why not 3 x 53.33Gb or 5 x 32Gb.
>>
>
> I hate to tell you this, Bob, but dividing a HD into 3x52gb or 5x32gb
> partitions is also "arbitrary". So using the term "arbitrary" in a
> negative sense, as you are doing is not a proper usage of the English
> language.

It might have been clearer, had I said, "It's not a good number, because
it's an arbitrary number."

>>You have the empty shell of a building. When you partion it, you're
>>putting in walls - creating rooms. It's probably not a great floor
>>plan
>>if the livingroom and the broom closet are both the same size.
>>
>
>
> A hard drive is not a house, and the "walls" are not laid out in the shapes
> of a parallelograms. The fact is, ANY division of a hard drive is going to
> be "arbitrary"

Of course it's a house - it's a split level ranch with a patio, garage
and swimming pool.

Dictionary.com
> ar·bi·trar·y ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ärb-trr)
> adj.
>
> 1. Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle: stopped at the first motel we passed, an arbitrary choice.

If the division of my hard drive is based upon a reasoned analysis of
how I intend to use it, then I don't think you can say the division is
arbitrary. My reasoning may be incorrect and the division may be less
than optimal to my purpose, but it is not arbitrary.

> There is no hard and fast rule for subdividing a Hard Drive. There are as
> many theories for dividing up a HD as there are users. Personally, I prefer
> not to divide my HDs into partitions, unless I am using the partitions for
> other Operating Systems. Fragmentation is no problem, because my defragger
> can defrag system areas of the HD, as well as user areas. As for speed:
> Modern hard drives and their controllers are approaching and surpassing the
> speed of the Bus as it is. When hard drive platters are in danger of
> blowing apart from the extreme rotational speeds approached nowadays, any
> talk of "faster" is more along the lines of comparing the sizes of sexual
> organs.

Controllers are approaching the speed of the Bus; hard drives are not!
    http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20030501/index.html
      ^^^ Review of WD360 Raptor - Serial ATA - 10K RMP drive.
    http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20031119/index.html
      ^^^ Four SCSI Ultra320 Drives With 15,000 RPM reviewed.
    http://www.lostcircuits.com/hdd/
      ^^^ Read all five parts of "As the Hard Disc Spins"
    http://www.storagereview.com/

> Partitioning is, in my opinion, a relic of the '80s and early '90s, when the
> Operating System would only address 2gig. As a result, hard drives larger
> than 2gig HAD to be divided into several partitions. Not only that, the OS
> could not handle the file structure of a huge HD.
>
> With modern Operating Systems, this is not necessary: Most Operating
> Systems will address huge volumes easily, so further partitioning is not, in
> the strictest sense, needed. Unless, of course, you are booting multiple
> Operating Systems.

Or maybe you want to segregate your data for easier back-up. Or maybe
you don't worry about backing up the data on that 160 Gb drive?

While putting the paging file on the first partion of a secondary drive
and placing temp folder in their own partion has negligible effect it's
not a non-existant effect. If you make enough tiny optimizations, they
eventually add up. If I'm going to partion anyway, I don't see a draw back.

Bob

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