IT bods - HDD setup and partitioning

[Homer]

After a little advice here please. Two hopefully simple questions:

 

1) Given the following drives which one would be best to install the OS on?

a) 80GB / 7200rpm / 2MB cache / 8.2ms / SATA (using an IDE cable) - 5yrs old

b) 320GB / 7200rpm / 16MB cache / 8.9ms / SATA2 - 3 yrs old

c) 2TB / 7200rpm / 32MB cache / 8.2ms / SATA2 - new

 

2) If the 2TB drive is partitioned to say 3 drives, is there any performance difference between the 3 partitions (i.e. one could be OS, another Program files (constantly re-written), the 3rd for storage (never re-written)

 

Edit - happy to do away with the 80 and 320 drives, more drives = more noise

[JustGav]

Lose the 80....

 

Use the 2TB as main data, and use the 320 as a back up area.

 

Would partition the 2TB as OS and data, and that's about it.

[Scott]

Definitely the 2TB IMO.

 

As Gav said...

 

If it were me I would ditch the 80gb as it is completely useless and using a resource for nothing.

 

I would partition the main HDD to approx 500 for the OS and programs, then 1.5tb for everything else.

[Morpheus]

If you're going to install a new copy of an OS, why not take the opportunity to get an SSHD?

[Purity14]

Yes I agree with BoB, SSHD run so-so quick, keep the 2tb for storage.

[Abz]

I'd go with the same line of thought as Gav & Scott, also a source of backup would be ideal.

[hemmjonny]

as above lose the 80 use the 2TB as main and 320 as a backup

[Homer]

So, the current OS on the 80Gb is best gone, good to hear that, but what a pita to reinstall, always hate that!

 

I would partition the main HDD to approx 500 for the OS and programs, then 1.5tb for everything else.

 

Would the partitioning choice have any performance benefit - i.e. is the 1st partition likely to have faster seek times that the others?

 

If you're going to install a new copy of an OS, why not take the opportunity to get an SSHD?

 

Money Plus judging by real world tests SSD's don't seem to offer any performance benefit over mid range drives at present, despite the claimed seek time improvements. Either way, not an option If I could afford an SSD I'd get a 10k raptor drive instead.

[hemmjonny]

SSHD is kind of pricey i think

---------

was a bit slow

[Scott]

Would the partitioning choice have any performance benefit - i.e. is the 1st partition likely to have faster seek times that the others?

 

Doesn't really make a difference. I would always put the OS on the first partition though. The seek times might be SLIGHTLY slower, but un-noticeable in the real world.

 

Make the 2TB drive your Primary Master (Sata 0 iirc), then just split it as you see fit.

 

An idea might be to set it to around 300gb, that way you can use the 320gb drive as a full on backup drive. Windows 7 etc has a Backup feature, that allows you to backup an entire drive onto another drive or DVDs.

 

You have a few options that will have virtually no performance differences. You just need to go with what you fancy

[Morpheus]

So, the current OS on the 80Gb is best gone, good to hear that, but what a pita to reinstall, always hate that!

 

 

 

Would the partitioning choice have any performance benefit - i.e. is the 1st partition likely to have faster seek times that the others?

 

 

 

Money Plus judging by real world tests SSD's don't seem to offer any performance benefit over mid range drives at present, despite the claimed seek time improvements. Either way, not an option If I could afford an SSD I'd get a 10k raptor drive instead.

 

I hear you,

 

I have two Raptors in RAID 1 and they're noisy 'king 'stards. Might be made quieter now as two years old.

 

Assuming a suitable mainboard, could you not create a RAID 1 mirror with the 2TB and 80GB current OS, then lose the 80GB and rebuild the array with the 2TB and 320GB for real-time backup of the first 300GB or whatever OS partition?

[Homer]

Make the 2TB drive your Primary Master (Sata 0 iirc), then just split it as you see fit.

 

An idea might be to set it to around 300gb, that way you can use the 320gb drive as a full on backup drive. Windows 7 etc has a Backup feature, that allows you to backup an entire drive onto another drive or DVDs.

 

You have a few options that will have virtually no performance differences. You just need to go with what you fancy

 

Good stuff, thanks Scott I'm not too concerned about backup as I manualy copy important stuff to a portable drive, so always have two copies of things that I don't want to lose. It's not risk free but then what is

 

I hear you,

 

I have two Raptors in RAID 1 and they're noisy 'king 'stards. Might be made quieter now as two years old.

 

Assuming a suitable mainboard, could you not create a RAID 1 mirror with the 2TB and 80GB current OS, then lose the 80GB and rebuild the array with the 2TB and 320GB for real-time backup of the first 300GB or whatever OS partition?

 

I didn't realise that was possible but will check further, the board supports all RAID options but not sure I can be bothered with all that to be honest! Thanks though

[neo2810]

The advice you've been given is spot on, however it doesn't matter whether you use the 320Gb or the 2Tb drive for your OS as they are both the same speeds.

The main thing is to allocate a partition in the outer sector (the first partition on the drive) and as small as possible for the OS and programs. This way you reduce the distance the read/write heads have to travel when reading files for OS and programs. The other partitions behind that will take a hit on performance but for storage speed is largely irrelevant.

I'd look at around 100Gb unless you intend to install massive apps. Even so, you can always create a new programs folder on another partition if you find you're running out of primary partition space...

[Morpheus]

I didn't realise that was possible but will check further, the board supports all RAID options but not sure I can be bothered with all that to be honest! Thanks though

 

Sounds complicated I agree but if I remember rightly, if you're running the 80GB as the OS you could perhaps just temporarily enable RAID in BIOS (or check that it's enabled), save settings and exit, reboot and go into the RAID wizard at bootup before windows loads, (F12 or whatever) and 'create a new RAID Volume' and select the 2TB drive to mirror to. It might want to re-format the 80GB OS drive though, can't remember......must be a way! Like a previous suggestion, full backup then copy over manually as single drives?

 

RAID1 would just make a bootable copy in the OS partition you've prepared, which you're going to do anyway for the fresh install if it worked. Something like that!

 

Someone will correct me, I'm sure.

 

Just suggested it to save an entire OS install. You could always delete the array once done and boot the 2TB, if it works this way? Anyone? Could save a 'Ho buncha' hassle!

[Yakky]

Justgav is spot on. The 2TB would benefit from first partition being OS and sized under 500GB due to harddrive zoning. Seek time is a small benefit, but sustained throughput best here. To improve seek time on big 2TB disk.. use the 320GB as a virtual memory physical disk, and use a flashstick for "boost" also.

[Alex]

I don't see the need to partition, modern HDD algorithms keep the data in the fastest area's of the disks (nearest the spindle).

 

I'd just have the 2TB drive and ditch the other 2. I'd stick the 320 in an external caddy and use it to shunt about/store data on.

[MaveriK]

I would run the OS on the 320 and use the 2TB as storage partioning it as one big mother but its down to choice and how you are going to be using the PC.

 

In my experience back up drives rarely go down as where main OS drives fail for fun in relation and thats mostly down to use.

 

I await to be shot down in flames

[Willson]

Is the bigger cache size not relevant? I'd have thought it would be advantageous for running the OS?

[Scott]

Is the bigger cache size not relevant? I'd have thought it would be advantageous for running the OS?

 

Yeah, multi tier makes a difference too. The 1tb spinpoints I have are the fastest drives I have had by miles. 110MB transfers etc. I don't have my OS on one yet but its my next pc spend.

[JustGav]

I don't see the need to partition, modern HDD algorithms keep the data in the fastest area's of the disks (nearest the spindle).

 

I'd just have the 2TB drive and ditch the other 2. I'd stick the 320 in an external caddy and use it to shunt about/store data on.

 

The only reason I would split OS/DATA, is so when you have to reload windows (and with windows it is a when not an IF ), you do a clean re-install without pasting over the top, you don't have to shuffle data around.

[neo2810]

I don't see the need to partition, modern HDD algorithms keep the data in the fastest area's of the disks (nearest the spindle).

 

I'd just have the 2TB drive and ditch the other 2. I'd stick the 320 in an external caddy and use it to shunt about/store data on.

 

Partitioning the first sector off for the OS WILL make a difference to seek times. Newer drives write data in the same way older drives did. They write sequentially to the next free block, where deleted data on a block is not treat as free. Only once all free blocks are used do they then write over blocks with deleted data. Therefore the smaller the initial partition, the less seeking required to read.

 

Regular defrag's will help remove dead space and neaten up the blocks in use but how often do you defrag realistically?

[Alex]

I don't think any speed difference will be noticable to the user, though a agree with Gav's reload comment.

 

Personally I'd never have my data on anything less than a RAID 1 or 5... so a single drive would always be one that can be blown away.

[JustGav]

I don't think any speed difference will be noticable to the user, though a agree with Gav's reload comment.

 

Personally I'd never have my data on anything less than a RAID 1 or 5... so a single drive would always be one that can be blown away.

 

Agreed with the speed stuff, raw HDD speed isn't exposed to the user any more these days, memory cache, SATA request queuing and such other goodness get round the raw speed. Most home users will be 90% random seek and not sequential reads/writes. One thing to be careful of is whether it is true RAID or soft-raid(aka mickey mouse raid), true raid has a PROPER dedicated controller and not just a sata chip with some software. The performance on a soft-raid can actually be worse than a single drive.

 

I'm interested in eval-ing a hybrid drive in the near future (the combined FLASH/SATA units), as they could be very interesting, but yet again on sequential / similar reads they will show HUGE improvements, however on true use random seeks I'm not so sure it will help much.

[JustGav]

They write sequentially to the next free block, where deleted data on a block is not treat as free. Only once all free blocks are used do they then write over blocks with deleted data. Therefore the smaller the initial partition, the less seeking required to read.

 

Not necessarily true, it is VERY dependant on the drive format over the top, yes FAT/FAT32 used to work that way, but some of the newer ext4/jfs/gfs layouts use a intelligence in the layout of the files. I'm not so sure on NTFS or it's intelligence(read lack of).

 

Actually on that thought, Homer, if you do use the 320GB, it is a good thought to possibly put swap on it rather than on the 2TB, so at least it distributes the request across multiple discs. A decent USB flash used as speedboost does actually make a nice difference in Win7 I found.

[tbourner]

judging by real world tests SSD's don't seem to offer any performance benefit over mid range drives at present,

 

Really? We see 60% performance improvement over Enterprise drives! Regardless of whether we use write back caching, large queue depth, seq reads etc. SSD FTW.