** Need help from every user in this forum. **

[EarthDog]

Yes, a stopwatch is not the most accurate. Any suggestions for something better would be great!

I just dont think that finding the "sweet spot" or "ultimate sweet spot" is worth the time over the advice "smallest partition you can use". IMOG is touching on this with his disgust at the idea of the stopwatch as the differences wont be much at all............................Sure its faster than a non raided drive, but does loading the same amount of data regardless of the partition size matter if its the OS we are talking about at the begning of a drive?

Lets think about it for a minute, and please dont hesitate to correct me if I am wrong...
Regardless of the size of the partition, if your OS/APPS = 30GB and is placed at the front of the drive (which it always is unless its a dual+ boot) then its always going to use the fastest part of the drive regardless of where the partition is. And until your data gets out of the "sweet spot" this shouldnt change the results depending on partition location. Right?

EDIT:

Example

30GB data on R0 40GB partition = xx boot time
30GB data on R0 80GB partition = xx boot time
30GB data on R0 160GB partition = xx boot time
30GB data on entire drive (no partitions) = xx boot time

 

[Joeteck]

Yes, a stopwatch is not the most accurate. Any suggestions for something better would be great!

I just dont think that finding the "sweet spot" or "ultimate sweet spot" is worth the time over the advice "smallest partition you can use". IMOG is touching on this with his disgust at the idea of the stopwatch as the differences wont be much at all............................Sure its faster than a non raided drive, but does loading the same amount of data regardless of the partition size matter if its the OS we are talking about at the begning of a drive?

Lets think about it for a minute, and please dont hesitate to correct me if I am wrong...
Regardless of the size of the partition, if your OS/APPS = 30GB and is placed at the front of the drive (which it always is unless its a dual+ boot) then its always going to use the fastest part of the drive regardless of where the partition is. And until your data gets out of the "sweet spot" this shouldnt change the results depending on partition location. Right?

That is correct, but when you have 2 or more drives feeding the system, boot time should be faster. My two Vraptors in RAID 0 at home sure smokes! I'm impressed, and I'm not going back to a single drive ever again!

 

[EarthDog]

Understood Joe. You are right. But that is not my point at all.

R0 > single drive on boot times ANY day of the week. That should be common knowledge to a lot of us. I am specifically talking about partition sizes in R0 vs boot times and what affect, if any, it will have on a set amount of data (OS install). (SEE EDIT IN MY LAST POST)

You stated at the begining of this thread that it will help this "time consuming" process of selecting the size of the partition for your needs. But what is quicker than "smallest you can get away with"? Im just quite curiious to see all the effort you are going through to compile this data is going to be worth it for results of the user above and beyond the already noted advice.

Thanks in advance for at least humoring me on my question(s) here joe.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Well, there's definite benefit there ED... If you are guessing at how much space you need, you may be selling yourself short and not using the most optimum portion of your disk.

Say a 60 GB slice would be optimal, but you think you could probably get away with a 30GB OS partition - there's 30GB worth of disk that you aren't putting on your OS partition, where its made painfully clear by Joe's method that it's the best place to put data needing fast access when possible.

 

[Joeteck]

Understood Joe. You are right. But that is not my point at all.

R0 > single drive on boot times ANY day of the week. That should be common knowledge to a lot of us. I am specifically talking about partition sizes in R0 vs boot times and what affect, if any, it will have on a set amount of data (OS install). (SEE EDIT IN MY LAST POST)

You stated at the begining of this thread that it will help this "time consuming" process of selecting the size of the partition for your needs. But what is quicker than "smallest you can get away with"? Im just quite curiious to see all the effort you are going through to compile this data is going to be worth it for results of the user above and beyond the already noted advice.

I understand what your point is now.... OK.

This is going to a long reply, hopefully you'll understand MY logic.

Lets take a 1TB drive for the example. Lets make the entire drive the boot drive. Single partition. By design the OS is installed at the beginning of the drive. You have the page file there, install some programs and a few games and 1000's MP3 songs that would go beyond the 100gig sweet spot for this drive. Lets say 500gig. Do you think the OS files are still at the beginning of the drive after it has been fragmented beyond belief? Even if you defrag it, I'm sure your page file has grown and is fragmented as well. And is located in the middle of the drive or possibly at the end, depending on how full it is.. including some OS files too. SO now you have system files scattered all over the drive, and is why systems start to slow down. Some files are at the beginning and some are not. Why would anyone want this?

When you short stroke your drive either single or in RAID 0 it will use the fastest part of the drive forever! Your OS will always stay where it should be. and the system will always be fast as when you first installed it as its using the fastest part of the drive, all the time...

Naturally, you would not install games on this partition, just applications. Games would be installed on another RAID 0 array... (off topic) Website just changed....

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Earthdog is going to say - you should use the smallest part of that drive you need for OS, and just pick that size rather than use the optimal settings your finding, because that will work just as well without the work.

My comment above explains why I don't think that's the best way - but it depends on how much you care, and how big the difference is in real life... Which leads back to his point of performing the additional tests.

 

[EarthDog]

Let me first say, it is MORE than possible that I am being quite dense about this subject. Im not trying to ruffle any feathers, but simply trying to understand the point of this above and beyond the already established advice (smallest possible you can get away with).

Well, there's definite benefit there ED... If you are guessing at how much space you need, you may be selling yourself short and not using the most optimum portion of your disk.

How would that be possible if my theory is correct? 30GB at the front of the drive is 30GB at the front of the drive is 30GB at the front of the drive. Regardless where you partition the drive , that 30GB is still going to have the fastest throughput being at the front of the drive...yes? So if thats true, partitioning wouldnt matter until your data grows outside these "sweet spots" Joe is talking about which can be done with or without partitions.

Say a 60 GB slice would be optimal, but you think you could probably get away with a 30GB OS partition - there's 30GB worth of disk that you aren't putting on your OS partition, where its made painfully clear by Joe's method that it's the best place to put data needing fast access when possible.

Doesnt that still fall under "smallest size partition you can get away with". Key words 'what you can get away with'?

Again, both of you, sorry if I am being abnormally dense on this subject. Honestly I didnt even want to bring it up but couldnt test it myself to see.

 

[Joeteck]

Just in case you missed it:

When you short stroke your drive either single or in RAID 0 it will use the fastest part of the drive forever! Your OS will always stay where it should be. and the system will always be fast as when you first installed it as its using the fastest part of the drive, all the time...

Naturally, you would not install games on this partition, just applications. Games would be installed on another RAID 0 array...

EDIT: Since the performance curve exists, and if I were a crazy performance nut, I would get 4 1.5TB drives, short stroke them @ 200 gig each, and set that in RAID 0 for my games! 800 gigs of per speed, all the time!

 

[EarthDog]

I understand what your point is now.... OK.

This is going to a long reply, hopefully you'll understand MY logic.

Lets take a 1TB drive for the example. Lets make the entire drive the boot drive. Single partition. By design the OS is installed at the beginning of the drive. You have the page file there, install some programs and a few games and 1000's MP3 songs that would go beyond the 100gig sweet spot for this drive. Lets say 500gig. Do you think the OS files are still at the beginning of the drive after it has been fragmented beyond belief? Even if you defrag it, I'm sure your page file has grown and is fragmented as well. And is located in the middle of the drive or possibly at the end, depending on how full it is.. including some OS files too. SO now you have system files scattered all over the drive, and is why systems start to slow down. Some files are at the beginning and some are not. Why would anyone want this?

When you short stroke your drive either single or in RAID 0 it will use the fastest part of the drive forever! Your OS will always stay where it should be. and the system will always be fast as when you first installed it as its using the fastest part of the drive, all the time...

Naturally, you would not install games on this partition, just applications. Games would be installed on another RAID 0 array... (off topic) Website just changed....

Ahh ha! Now were are talking turkey!!!

Fragmentation. Thats one variable I never though of in this situation. But defragging with a GOOD program should put things back together no? (no clue on that)

Do you think the OS files are still at the beginning of the drive after it has been fragmented beyond belief?

But yes, after your initial install, your OS files are in the same place. Why would they move? I would also put my MP3's on the other partition or drive or after I installed my all my apps/games. Even with a partitioned/short stroked drive you will run into this issue of it being on a slower partition/drive!!

Also, your page file remains in the same place unless you have it set to system managed size and then it can expand. I would think a lot of people, at here which is the target audience, have it set so it really doesnt change position. I know when I (used to) defrag it was the same block to me on the display.

Earthdog is going to say - you should use the smallest part of that drive you need for OS, and just pick that size rather than use the optimal settings your finding, because that will work just as well without the work.
My comment above explains why I don't think that's the best way - but it depends on how much you care, and how big the difference is in real life... Which leads back to his point of performing the additional tests.

YES YES YES!!!!!

Just in case you missed it:

When you short stroke your drive either single or in RAID 0 it will use the fastest part of the drive forever! Your OS will always stay where it should be. and the system will always be fast as when you first installed it as its using the fastest part of the drive, all the time...

Naturally, you would not install games on this partition, just applications. Games would be installed on another RAID 0 array...

How many people have multiple raid arrarys just for that purpose though? I would think OS and games go on teh same partition, at least thats how I do it as again its at the fastest part of my available drives...

Is it worth the trouble to set such a minimal sized partition in light of the fact that one may need to change the size in the future? Is that data destructive or just an image and reinstall?

 

[lugnat]

WD Velociraptor, 150 gigs

 

[Joeteck]

How many people have multiple raid arrarys just for that purpose though?

Look at my avatar and sig..... LOL

EDIT: finding the correct size is critical. Especially, if you want to stay out of the performance curve...

Look at the image above! AMD's chipset really does not do justice for those drives.


OFF TOPIC AGAIN! Love the website change!

 

[lugnat]

I for one have multiple raid arrays just for that purpose. I have the Raid for my os and program files and a raid array for my games. This way if I was to fill up my whole raid array with my os , programs and games it would be slower than molasses!
SO my games are on the first part of the hard drives array as are my programs on a different array as well as my os..
Dont forget to put that page file off that array as well..

And where you talking about my image and my amd chipset? I agree!

 

[EarthDog]

LOL, my point Joe, is that it is an extreme minority, even at this site of enthusiasts (2 so far have two seperate R0 arrays for this). Anyway,
I would love to see those boot tests performed if you have the opportunity.

 

[Joeteck]

Earthdog is going to say - you should use the smallest part of that drive you need for OS, and just pick that size rather than use the optimal settings your finding, because that will work just as well without the work.

My comment above explains why I don't think that's the best way - but it depends on how much you care, and how big the difference is in real life... Which leads back to his point of performing the additional tests.

This is going to be very hard to do... Its over time where you start to see your system slow down.. The theory has proved it ot be faster with the synthetic benchmarking...

 

[EarthDog]

This is going to be very hard to do... Its over time where you start to see your system slow down.. The theory has proved it ot be faster with the synthetic benchmarking...

Ok, another thought in reference to your above post...:

If one selects a 60GB partition and only uses 30GB with OS/APPS, by the time they get to the 59GB, it would have been just as slow as a non partitioned R0 array at 60GB. Correct? So over time, the only variable would be the fragmentation issue. Yes? Did I miss a graph showing otherwise (looking now...)? The slope of the degrading performance across the drive is constant no matter where you break it off. The big question I have been asking here is what are the real world performance differences.

In reference to the article, what did the R0 array speeds look like unpartitioned? Did it show up to the ~70GB mark ~250MB/s and the typical slope down after?

 

[Joeteck]

In reference to the article, what did the R0 array speeds look like unpartitioned? Did it show up to the ~70GB mark ~250MB/s and the typical slope down after?

YES! Here is four 80gig drives in RAID 0, one huge partition...

Now notice the 15 gig location... running at about 245MB/s, and probably 18gig would be good too... 15gig x 4 is 60gig, making a very fast boot partition!

At the 60 gig mark would be the stop point, and would hover around 240MB/s

 

[EarthDog]

Thats not the same drive in the article......

 

[Joeteck]

Thats not the same drive in the article......

No... Those are home now... in my gaming rig... I can't use those...

However, take a look here

 

[EarthDog]

Ahh ha! Yeah I did that same comparison with the 80GB I found in a post in this thread. Well, Not sure what to say except Im looking forward to your testing and hoping that there is some kind of difference with the amount of effort you are going through to provide this information. I just dont think it makes more than a negligible difference where it is so long as the OS(data) starts at the fastest part of the drive. The bigger it is, the slower it will be. Here is to hoping Im wrong .

 

[Joeteck]

Here are three video's of the booting of XP. They're located on my companies website.. So its safe.

Single drive

2 drives in RAID 0 - 30gig slice

3 Drives in RAID 0 - 45 gig slice