Partitioning a 1TB drive

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Partitioning a 1TB drive

limegreen

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#28837 13-Dec-2008 14:12

So I'm just in the process of installing, and I'd been sort of thinking about partitioning, but never got very far.
When I installed Vista, I decided on
60Gb System (Windows + Software)
40GB In case I ever wanted to play with Mythbuntu or similar
430 GB Music
400 GB TV

Have I left myself enough space in the system partitions, and is there any advantage to expanding or shrinking the main data partitions?

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#183866 13-Dec-2008 15:13

60GB is plenty, if not to much/a waste of space...

I would say 20/30GB is enough.

Your only consideration, is the programs you instll, where they save thier data...
Eg;
- Windows Media Center saves the TV recordings on the C/Windows drive by default
- Torrent/P2P programs, some of thier download folders tend to be located in the program folder, hence the system/C drive.

As long as you configure your programs to save elsewhere (your media drives and not the system drive) you will be fine.

sbiddle

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#183870 13-Dec-2008 15:40

First off what benefits do you see in partitioning your drive?

I've always been a firm believer in a single partition but there are benefits to multiple partitions and/or drives. If you have multiple partitions on a drive you can reinstall the OS without having to back everything up. Likewise if you have a single phyiscal HDD for the system and another drive for storage you can easily upgrade the storage drives without having to touch the OS.

I don't see any reason why you need individual partitions for music and video. There are no obvious benefits for this. 400GB also isn't a lot if you are planning on using a PC for recording Freeview|HD content and 430GB is a rather large collection of music - probably 75000 MP3's.

Batman

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#183874 13-Dec-2008 16:00

when constantly reading from multiple partitions (eg 1 partition system 1 part movie 1 part music 1 part etcetc) your windows experience is going to be incredibly incredibly slow! i guess vista isnt going to be constantly reading from all 4-5 partitions but if/when it does it will be very slow.

also make sure your pagefile isnt in another partition as that guarantees slowness. another drive is fine.

i guess it's up to you what you wanna do with YOUR drive :)

DS248

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#183876 13-Dec-2008 16:22

Depends on what programs you intend installing. For me, 60GB is far too small.

My PC is primarily used for work (Vista64 Business OS). No games at all, just compilers, GIS software, Office, CS3 & the likes. I partitioned off 100GB for the sytem & programs, with the remaining free 833GB in a single partition (the residual ~67GB being consumed by the hidden system backup partition, etc).

With more than 73GB of c:\ already used, the 100GB is already starting to look too small. About 1.5GB is 'data' that could be shunted elsewhere & another ~3.5GB in Outlook .pst files, but the remaining 68GB is purely from program installs & the OS.

limegreen

103 posts

Master Geek

#183879 13-Dec-2008 16:39

Thanks. Those are some good thoughts. I haven't done anything with anything other than the system one yet, so I might merge the two larger ones. It is a home theatre pc, so the amount of software that is going to be installed is limited. I am also toying, in time, with a solid state drive. Having said that, I haven't heard a peep out of the hdd, and the whole build is extremely quiet, except when the DVD runs up.

hellonearthisman

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#183880 13-Dec-2008 16:40

Why partition? You just end up loosing so much space, one partition is easier to manage.

If you want to put vista on another partition, then I would put it onto a 64GB SSD drive. (32GB as im poor)

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limegreen

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Master Geek

#183916 13-Dec-2008 19:51

My initial instinct was not to partition as well, but it seems to be all the rage, at least in some circles. Most laptops I've seen recently arrive pre-partitioned. I wondered whether maybe it was a space thing. Perhaps I should undo my partioning now while it's easy. If I want to play with linux, I have a 40Gb IDE drive drifting round somewhere. It's a fair bit noisier than the new western digital, so I wouldn't consider it as a system drive for now.
Also, someone was asking about the space for music -- I was thinking of backing up a few hundred CDs in FLAC, so that I can find music more easily. So far everything is going pretty well, except the TV tuner is misbehaving. Bit more probing to do I guess.

allstarnz

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#183932 13-Dec-2008 21:44

i personally would at least partition off an OS drive, that way if you wish to reformat, you can blow the OS drive away, not touching any of your data. For that reason too, my docs etc are on a different partition than the OS too.

limegreen

103 posts

Master Geek

#183935 13-Dec-2008 22:06

Entirely off topic, but after spendig most of the afteroon trying to make my Hauppauge HVR-2200 go, it turns out that there exists a dud batch, which I like have one from. I've seen it reported locally
http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/forum/framehelper.aspx?g=posts&t=241
and in oz
http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/tuners-vista/32178-hauppauge-hvr-2200-code-10-issue.html
I'm mostly making a note of this here so if anyone else receives a Device will not start (Code 10), they'll hopefully find the answer quicker than I did. I know have a pretty but not very functional computer!

HTPCnewbie

57 posts

Master Geek

#183992 14-Dec-2008 11:45

Joker97: also make sure your pagefile isnt in another partition as that guarantees slowness. another drive is fine.

I saw a post on another forum a while back that recommended creating a small, dedicated partition for the pagefile so that it doesn't get fragmented...(?)

falconnz

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#184042 14-Dec-2008 16:00

create a 20-30 gig windows/softare partition and use the rest as
storage. no point in partitioning it more than that esp one for music
and one for tv.

This way your able to use ghost or acronis
to back up your windows install and restore it easy. If your thinking
about trying mythbuntu create a small 5gig partition to test with. you
dont need anything more than that unless your going to use it fill time.

There
are no preformance decreases with using two partitions for a media box
unless your doing lots of windows stuff watching a 720p movie and some
ones leeching off you.

there were days when you should
only leave one hdd for windows one for media but computers and hdds are
fast enough that having them all on the same hdd has no draw backs
unless your a hard core gamer or server.

you would be silly
to keep them on on the same partition. what if your windows install
messes up and you need to reformat/reinstall you then have to try find
400gig-1tb of hdd space to copy it off while you reinstall. and trust
me thats a bit** to find.

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#184126 14-Dec-2008 21:39

I have two partitions. One for OS and one for storing the data. After just rebuilding the media center install over the last few days I can confirm that having the OS on its own partition is a good idea. Also an idea once you do have it setup create a image of the OS partition on the data partition or on another disk all together using ghost etc. Try to keep that image fairly current.

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psychrn

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#184132 14-Dec-2008 22:18

Having just purchased a new box yesterday we found the 500 Sata HDD had been pre partitioned in two drives.

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Batman

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#184135 14-Dec-2008 22:56

HTPCnewbie:
Joker97: also make sure your pagefile isnt in another partition as that guarantees slowness. another drive is fine.

I saw a post on another forum a while back that recommended creating a small, dedicated partition for the pagefile so that it doesn't get fragmented...(?)

that could be a while ago and probably learnt it from a MS XP forum on the net. but the current consensus is as above. i can confirm this as i tested it on my system. those who are more of an expert will say this is a no-brainer but for tryhards like myself windows mystifies me a lot.

hashbrown

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#184178 15-Dec-2008 07:46

One other benefit of partitioning that hasn't been mentioned is that if you accidentally fill your data partition, your OS shouldn't become unstable.

Watch out with the number of partitions you are creating. Linux uses a dedicated swap partition, so you'll end up going beyond the 4 primary partitions. I've been burnt with limitations of resizing extended partitions.

I'd also lean toward the upper end of what people are saying for the OS partition. Each time you apply a service pack or update software, the rollback data and temporary files start filling up that partition. Sure you can go through and clean them up, but it becomes a pain. Leaving an extra 20-30Gig will mean you have to do it less often.

On the pagefile question, you can also prevent fragmentation by fixing it's size, or just buy 4Gigs+ of RAM and turn it off ;)

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