Partitioning Harddrives

[Steven-1979]

I used to just use hd's as they were and never thought of partitioning. Just got 2x 750gb hd's to run in RAID 0 and also a 1.5tb backup drive to do a weekly or maybe monthly backup of the raid drives. I have a couple of questions:

1) I heard something along of the lines of it being best to make a small partition to run the OS/programs/games on? Something about it being closer to the platter's edge or something. Is this still true for RAID 0 and in drives with multiple platters? The idea of making a 100gb partition to keep the hd head from moving so much does make sense to me.

2) Is there any point of making further partitions if all I'm going to be using the rest of the space (ie- the big partition) for is storing data files (movies/music/etc)? Would there be any benefit in creating even more partitions to split the data files up based on how often I access them (ie- music/movie files being accessed commonly while some large print scans, encrypted files, archives, etc I almost never access).

thnx

 

[greenmaji]

It's a good question, I too considered the question but never asked.

I would think a partition management software application could very well partition a raid0 array.

If your considering it you could always bench before and after to see the difference.

maybe someone else has tried this and will pipe in.

 

[Bobnova]

The reason i usually here for making a small OS partition is that if you do, you can format the OS section without touching your data and movies and such. Good for when it starts failing.

 

[EarthDog]

Yes, its called SHORT STROKING.

If I wasnt running out the door from work I would search the site and link you up...so I hate to say it, but search this site and check out the info.

 

[greenmaji]

There is a review posted with instructions how to short stroke a single drive here

I don't know if the free seagate software will recognize a raid-0 array as one drive but it would be worth a shot.

If I'm not mistaking all manufactures have similar software if you dig on there site for it.

 

[greenmaji]

duh.. there is a whole thread were someone benches a short stroked raid-0 array
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=608099&highlight=short+stroking

greef Im slow

 

[Steven-1979]

Great info. thnx guys!

 

[jason4207]

I used to just use hd's as they were and never thought of partitioning. Just got 2x 750gb hd's to run in RAID 0 and also a 1.5tb backup drive to do a weekly or maybe monthly backup of the raid drives. I have a couple of questions:

1) I heard something along of the lines of it being best to make a small partition to run the OS/programs/games on? Something about it being closer to the platter's edge or something. Is this still true for RAID 0 and in drives with multiple platters? The idea of making a 100gb partition to keep the hd head from moving so much does make sense to me.

2) Is there any point of making further partitions if all I'm going to be using the rest of the space (ie- the big partition) for is storing data files (movies/music/etc)? Would there be any benefit in creating even more partitions to split the data files up based on how often I access them (ie- music/movie files being accessed commonly while some large print scans, encrypted files, archives, etc I almost never access).

thnx

1) It's the same w/ RAID and single drives. With hardware based RAID controllers the OS only sees a single logical drive. You can split this into as many partitions as you like and the first partition will be faster than the second, second faster than the third, etc.

For Intel RAID you press cntrl-I during boot to set up your array. Then while installing Windows you will see 1 huge logical disc (your RAID0 array) and you can select the size of the 1st partition. You can set up the second (third, etc) partition now or wait until after Windows is installed.

The number of platters is irrelevant to RAID, but in general the lower the number of platters the more reliable the drive will be (less moving parts).

2) There will be some benefit, but you will also limit yourself to an extent. If you arbitrarily choose 200GB for archive, but find you need more later it can be tricky to re-size the partitions. I don't think you'll hurt anything, though. Give it a whirl if you feel so inclined.

 

[mattspalace]

Just as some simple advice, I'd keep the raid 0 partition as small as possible, but not too small; probably between 120-180GB.

People use the 640GB drives because they contain two 320GB platters - the most dense currently made.

 

[jason4207]

There are 400 and 500GB platters now. Seagate's new .12 line uses 500GB platters I think.

Some of the 2TB drives use 4x500GB platters and some use 5x400GB platters.

The 640GB drives are still beasts, though! Tried and true performers!