Partitioning scary stuff.... need some serious help

Ok so im looking to partition my drive but I see it as scary because you know i dont want to have a major crash and end up with nothing but spare parts so i need help,advice ... links, free partitioning software if better etc. And how to back up my OS ,important stuff just incase please.

Im not completely ignorant when it comes to computers i have my fair amount of knowledge but im only 16 so.

Ok so im looking to partition my drive but I see it as scary because you know i dont want to have a major crash and end up with nothing but spare parts so i need help,advice ... links, free partitioning software if better etc. And how to back up my OS ,important stuff just incase please.

Im not completely ignorant when it comes to computers i have my fair amount of knowledge but im only 16 so.

insidious13

Do you mean formating a drive?

Ok so im looking to partition my drive but I see it as scary because you know i dont want to have a major crash and end up with nothing but spare parts so i need help,advice ... links, free partitioning software if better etc. And how to back up my OS ,important stuff just incase please.

Im not completely ignorant when it comes to computers i have my fair amount of knowledge but im only 16 so.

insidious13

Most Linux distros come with partitioning software. It is simple but most of the time unless you have a second hard drive or something to back up the info it will delete everything. It is not hard and there is no risk to your system or hard drive for that matter other than you will delet all of your data. Google it and find a linux that will work for what you are doing. It may sound complex but it turns out to be very easy.

Step One I download Paragon software

Step Two I ..........??????

step 2 resize current partion to leave like 20 gb unpartitioned space. then apply changes

step 3 format empty space with new partiion ntfs default settings, apply changes

step 4 copy stuff to be saved into the new partion, pics, docs, music, video whatever

step 5....what are you trying to do again?

Ok... this is the drill i have an 80gb hdd..... technically 74.6gb... but whatever right now its just one big data dump.... i want to partition it into a couple sections... you know for better performance and what not.. and in the future maybe install linux...

I want to do this without loosing any of my stuff........i dont want to re download like 8gb of steam games that i have or any of my software and stuff.

oh and i have 24gb of unused space.

Partitioning a drive won't give you increased performance, except in some situations.

Although it will allow you to (as you've said) install Linux in the future without having to touch your Windows Installation.

okay.

resize your partion with paragon

create new partion in empty space

then just move stuff over

if you have game already installed, you will need to unintall them. you cant move them

reinstall games pointing to the second partition when setup asks...it might be crytic in the setup wizards but the option is always there

If you install your games to a different partion than your os you will NOTICE a performance gain. Games intall tons of files...lots of small ones and a few big ones but the small ones congest the mft and defragging just mixes it all with the os files and moves them farther apart degrading performance. If you want to improve performance the most important thing is separating installed games from the mix. I would create a 40 gig for the os and all programs other than games and use the other space for intalled games and media.NewClean

Well firstly, the only way that you'd get higher performance is to make a partition that went around the outside of the disk, as that's where throughput is highest.

And by going with your logic, defragging will just mix up the game files together anyway, hence eliminating any performance increases that way, plus the main important thing is that a file is in one continual block so that the read head doesn't have to skip around the drive. Anything else is a negligable gain at best.

Not sure what you are talking about but the performance upgrade is very noticeable. When you streamline the os partition by removing hundreds of thousands of files you improve the performance of the "shell" (os) which affects everything...trust me. I read it in max pc years ago and have been using this method ever since. I had a huge performance gain in windows. the games themselves will load faster and so will everything else.NewClean

Can I see some benchmark's please? As I'm still not really understanding or seeing how doing something like that would affect performance noticeably.

FYI multiple partions for each game won't improve performance - set your computer to automatically boot & defrag once a month and you'll be fine. It's worthwhile to install your OS on a separate drive from your data, if you're really concerned about performance and reliability.

In fact, if anything your "idea" to partion your 80gb drive is going to trash your performance - a clean install of Vista takes what, 15gb? As does a game install - you're really just going to create a lot of difficult-to-manage partitions, and not gain a anything in return.

my advice is one partion for all games...maybe i wasnt clear...hard to be sure in forumsNewClean

Right and my question was "why"? Can you provide benchmarks demonstrating a performance gain for separating "all games" into their own partition on a drive?

yeah, slow before fast after...amazing!

Well one advantage to partitioning is that you can help make sure that apps are near the outer edge of the drive (which gives the most performance) as performance drops quite dramatically (e.g. I go from 90meg a second at the edge, to 40 in the middle) as the read head goes inwards.

But to fully utlize that advantage, you'd want your apps and OS to be on the same partition. And then you'd have your data on the other slower partition.

yeah, slow before fast after...amazing!

NewClean

Prove it, show me benchmarks from after January 1, 2007, from any major PC site, that prove your "put all your games on a partition" strategy actually improves performance. All you're showing me now is that you don't defragment often enough, or need a clean install of your OS, which is why your performance improved when you moved files onto a cleaned partition.

Well one advantage to partitioning is that you can help make sure that apps are near the outer edge of the drive (which gives the most performance) as performance drops quite dramatically (e.g. I go from 90meg a second at the edge, to 40 in the middle) as the read head goes inwards.

But to fully utlize that advantage, you'd want your apps and OS to be on the same partition. And then you'd have your data on the other slower partition.

G013M

Your drive isn't composed of just one disc - it's composed of stacks of magnetic plates, with their own data management scheme. It's unlikely, bordering on impossible, that you could partition your games, OS, and apps just right to span them in the "perfect" place on each disc. Plus, it's entirely irrelevant, since (ideally) you use fast hard drives, defragment frequently, and upgrade your RAM (to avoid touching the hard disc unless absolutely necessary).

This "partitioning" idea is a receipe for inexperienced PC users to trash their computer, much in the same way as RAID setups and software-based backup (without a back-up hard drive or disc).

I run diskeeper in the background and routinely pad the mtf's for all my drives, so now that you know im not fragmented...next, I clean install all the time on all of my machines. I even made copies of the partions of each of my machines clean os install, drivers and barebone programs. The disks I made, all within the past 6 months, allow me to do a clean instal with all working drivers and instant functionality. Something maybe you should look into doing for yourself.

I have begun searching for more evidence in the form of benchmarks.

Your drive isn't composed of just one disc - it's composed of stacks of magnetic plates, with their own data management scheme. It's unlikely, bordering on impossible, that you could partition your games, OS, and apps just right to span them in the "perfect" place on each disc. Plus, it's entirely irrelevant, since (ideally) you use fast hard drives, defragment frequently, and upgrade your RAM (to avoid touching the hard disc unless absolutely necessary).

This "partitioning" idea is a receipe for inexperienced PC users to trash their computer, much in the same way as RAID setups and software-based backup (without a back-up hard drive or disc). subrosian

http://partition.radified.com/partitioning_2.htm

I did the testing myself with HD Tach. Starting out at 0, read speed was the highest, and then as you went along to 20, 50 (for example) gig, the read speed would begin to drop, untill it got to only 30/40 meg a second at the end (320 gig) of the HDD

If what you were saying were correct, I'd be seeing spikes back up as the new platter was read at the edge, but obviously each platter is read sequenitally, so that the read head doesn't have to move.

The very first partition (which is on the outside of all of the platters) will obviously be the fastest to read. That being said, file sizes and placement will affect read spead.

It isn't necessary to partition a disk (I don;t), but it can help.

[QUOTE="subrosian"]

Your drive isn't composed of just one disc - it's composed of stacks of magnetic plates, with their own data management scheme. It's unlikely, bordering on impossible, that you could partition your games, OS, and apps just right to span them in the "perfect" place on each disc. Plus, it's entirely irrelevant, since (ideally) you use fast hard drives, defragment frequently, and upgrade your RAM (to avoid touching the hard disc unless absolutely necessary).

This "partitioning" idea is a receipe for inexperienced PC users to trash their computer, much in the same way as RAID setups and software-based backup (without a back-up hard drive or disc). G013M

http://partition.radified.com/partitioning_2.htm

I did the testing myself with HD Tach. Starting out at 0, read speed was the highest, and then as you went along to 20, 50 (for example) gig, the read speed would begin to drop, untill it got to only 30/40 meg a second at the end (320 gig) of the HDD

If what you were saying were correct, I'd be seeing spikes back up as the new platter was read at the edge, but obviously each platter is read sequenitally, so that the read head doesn't have to move.

The very first partition (which is on the outside of all of the platters) will obviously be the fastest to read. That being said, file sizes and placement will affect read spead.

It isn't necessary to partition a disk (I don;t), but it can help.

Right, now relate that to *gaming performance*.

If you're seriously concerned about hard drive performance (say for server applications) you shouldn't be using 7200rpm SATA-II drives, there are more high-performance options on the market. How does this translate into say, load times for a game, verus simply defragmenting? What are the performance gains in-game, in-loading, et cetera that you see?

I'm pointing this out simlpy because I severely doubt there's any reason for mucking about with partitioning for your game install - the average person would be far better off learning proper defrag & backup procedures than slapping in Partion magic.

I'd like to see a major site (as requested the first time) such as BeHardware, HardOCP, Beyond3D, et cetera come out with such a claim, because for the most part when performance was an issue, the solution was to go multi-drive, and get improved drives.

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You are aware a hard drive has multiple platters and multiple heads, right? And that "partition one" is not necessarily on the outer edge of the first platter? In fact, multiple partitions could in theory lower performance by forcing awkward seeking across spaces- I'm extremely skeptical (obviously) of any such claims.