Re: External USB HD 1TB

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Just bought a new external HD.
What would be the best partition amount?

500gb x 2?
250gb x 4 ? or keep it 1 TB?

TIA.

As others have indicated, there isn't really any rule of thumb for it
since it mostly depends on what you want to use it for. I can give you
a few of my opinions, but that's all they are is my own opinions and
nothing more.

With judicious use of folder naming, so you don't have too long a list
of folders, you only need one partition. The biggest danger of a drive
that large is poor housekeeping and in a few months not being able to
find anything in that huge, long list of folders. e.g. WHERE did I put
those letters to widget.com for my rebates? Where did I put the pics of
my gram? I wonder if I ever saved blah-blah, and so on. Using Search
on that large a drive can be a pretty lengthy process, so you need to
develop a meaningful set of folder names.
On the other hand, multiple partitions can be handy for keeping
certain kinds of data completely separated. Since it's an external
drive, I'd assume you want to keep your backups on it. In that case I
might either:
-- Create a Folder called BACKUPS or whatever name is good for me.
-- Or I might create a partition just for backups, say it turns out to
be drive F:\, and I'd set all my backup software to write to that drive.
Nice; no folders to remember, no paths; just F:\.

Now maybe I want to be sure all my digital photographs are all in one
place. So, I can either:
-- Create a Folder called PICTURES, or
-- Create a partition, name it the G:\ drive, and have all the grouping
for my pictures under that one main folder.

If you do it all with Folders, does the list of folders get too long to
be conveniently manageable? Personally I shoot for one screen's length
as the maximum size for my top level folders. If it turns out I have a
lot more than that, making it harder to manage/see what's there, then I
might consider making a separate partition, each of which has as its
root folder, everything visible on one screen without scrolling. So, I
might end up with:
-- BACKUPS Nothing but backups; Drives, Address Book, email
addresses, Favorites, etc. etc. etc.., including other stuff on THIS
drive so I cana put a full backup on DVDs.
-- IMAGES, and within that I have Pictures, with Mom & Dad, Brother,
Sis, vacation, internet, etc. as folders under the IMAGES folder (or in
the parititon's drive letter).
-- FINANCIALS, anything to do with money. This one is encruypted, and
I DID make sure I exported my security codes when I encrypted that
folder (or Partition).
-- DOWNLOADS, for anything/everything I've ever downloaded from the
internet; applications, utilities, spyware, etc., all in one handy place
in a folder (or partition's folders).
-- And so one.
Somewhere, somehow, there is a method that will work for you. Grab a
sheet of paper and visualize the Folders you'll want to create. Is it
worth it to separate them by drive letters? Or can it all be done with
folders? Remember, whatever you do should be such that it's somethign
you can REMEMBER 6 months down the road, and that will make sense to
you.

Some perceived advantages of partitions:
-- Faster searches since there is less to search
-- faster defrags since it can be done on a drive by drive basis & not
all drives may need fragmenting very often.
-- Drives hold less; less to peruse at your leisure when just "checking
what you've got".
-- Have to remember to give drive letters meaningful names after
creating them, in addition to the drive letter.


Some perceived advantages of folders only:
-- More than 2 partitions requires 3rd party software.
-- Can make any changes to them without either losing any data, and no
3rd party app to keep updated & handy.
-- No worry about creating/deleting/modifying partitions as required.
-- Easier to create/delete/modify structures.
-- One defrag does everything, although it takes a little longer.
-- Folder names are easier to remember than drive letter contents.

I'm sure you can add to that list if you wished. See Wikipedia for some
better info & ideas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:File_system_management

There are lots more info sites available with a few searches.

HTH

Twayne





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