partitioning & cluster sizes

[lhgpoobaa]

alrighty then.
i have my 40gig 60GXP.
and im really wanting NOT to partition it
i split my 16.8 50/50 last time, and i ended up regretting it as i ran out of room and spent lots of time laboriously transfering stuff from one partition to the other (not fast)

so i want one partition, but i dont want the 32K cluster sizes that are reccomended.
what performance loss will i experience if i go for 16k, 8k or even 4k cluster sizes?
also... what settings are most efficient for VCACHE?
that for both the hard drive and setting for the CD rom drive too
use it mostly as a gaming rig/music, and have 256mb ram.

thanx in advance


"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you have created"~Darth Vader, Star wars

 

[Guest]

I direct response to your question, 16K clusters should be OK, but I wouldn't make them any smaller because the FAT system is not as efficient when it has to deal with the larger number of clusters.

If you want my oppinion, I would make two or three partitions, given that this disk will hold the OS.
3 to 5GB for c:, used _ONLY_ for OS and apps. No games, No data/mp3s, etc.
10 to 15GB for mp3's, videos, etc.
the rest for games, all other data.

This helps in a few ways. First of all, the partitions are smaller, and don't have as big a problem with cluster sizes as if the drive was one partitionion. The OS files are separate from the data, which helps for backups (ghost the drive), as well as in the event of a FAT corruption. This will also help in keeping the drives from becomming fragmented, as the frequently moved data is separate from the critical OS files.

As for VCACHE settings, pick up the latest verson of Cacheman, which has very good support for win98/me. I use the following settings with 128MB ram:
Min cache: 10,240KB
Max cache: 40,960KB
Chunk size: 1024B

My first partition is only 2.5GB and is only 1/2 full with windows and all my apps installed. Granted, I don't have any really large apps like autocad, but you know what you will need.

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I have not yet begun to procrastinate.

 

[silverpig]

I would recommend only two partitions. Put the games on the C: drive with windows and the apps to integrate it all with the registry. I had my drive partitioned and installed halflife on D: and couldn't play counterstrike at all as it would stall when connecting. Reinstalls didn't help at all; only moving halflife to C: worked.

Here's my setup. I have a 30 gig Quantum AS.

Partition 1:
6.8 gigs, fat32, C:, for windows and games/apps.

Partition 2:
2 gigs, ext2, /, for linux

Partiton 3:
250 megs, linux swap

Partition 4:
~20 gigs, fat32, D:, for mp3s, movies, data, etc.

Another computer wanted. Donations accepted. :^)

 

[lhgpoobaa]

exactly... i had that problem more than once on my 50/50 partitioned 16.8gig drive
and when it got full, i spent ALOT of time moving stuff from one partition to the other to find room. that is a slow way to copy. read from one part of the drive, write to another...
a true test of hard drive speed i think.
anyhow, if i partition my 40 gig, im not going to have the space problem for a while... but i can see i AM going to have it eventually.
besides... i keep a tidy drive (if full), and i always keep the swapfile at the start of the drive via norton (fixed swapfile size)

P.S. has anyone actually done a study of what effect the cluster size actually has on real performance?



"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you have created"~Darth Vader, Star wars