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Bubba

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Dec 31, 2007
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I have never partitioned a hard drive before. I like my hard drive as one big drive. I don't plan to dual boot any OS.
Can someone explain to me the advantages of partitioning a drive?
Also, if I partition a drive using the fdisk command and then use the format command, does the partition get erased?
Do you have to format each partition individually?
If formatting doesn't remove the partition, will the fdisk command remove it?

Thanks guys!
 
I can't really think of any real advantages to partitioning a drive, if you don't plan to dual boot any OS. You might do it just to be a little more organized, for example having one partition with just games, and the other with your business apps and your OS, but that's about it. Some might argue that one large partition will have many more allocation untis than for example having 2 or more smaller partitions, which in turn hinders performance a bit. This would be true, but the performance hit would not really be noticeable. It is definitely faster to defragment 2 or more smaller partitions than one large one, but it's up to you if this is enough reason to create more than one partition.
Fdisk is used to create the partitions, while format is used to prepare each partition to be used by the OS, you really need both to be able to do anything. First you partition however you like, then you format individualy the partitions that you've created. Format cannot remove a partition, only fdisk, or other similar partitioning utilities.
I hope this answers all your questions.
 
There are different reasons one might partition a drive besides the back up as well, which I don't think are so bad. Creating a small swap partition on the front of the drive is one if you can get past the fact that your OS partition won't be C: and could be anything depending on how many drives and partitions you have under Win9X anyways. Creating one soley for the OS and Apps isn't so bad. I think creating one for temporary internet files is good as that can really defrag a drive. Maybe somebody wants a partition on the front of the drive for Apps they use more and/or would like to run better, while the other partition on the rest of the drive for less frequently used or don't really need to worry about performance on. That's about as far as I would personally go in partitioning. Making partitions for several forms of Apps to me is overboard and at one time was really more detrimental, not so much now with larger drives.



***Hey I run Intel... but let's get real***
 
I seem to find that having several smaller partitions is easier to manage, less clutter. Also you need to defrag less. I also find that when I do defrag it takes less time. More than just that, I can tell a performance increase. Not a huge amount but I can tell apps load quicker etc.

-=-Sean-=-
 
i think there's no advantage.

but in nt u can't recognize up to several g's. thus, it's necessary to partition it to use the whole drive
 
There definitely is. Less data fragmentation is one of them.

Rob
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Partitioning will increase your total amount of storage space and provide slightly faster drive access, because the drive head doesnt have to traverse as far to find a file within a smaller volume and can skip straight to that volume. It also enhances organization for those of us who wish to keep some files separate from the main partition and this too can provide data protection in that if the main partition fails the other partition may still be readable and the data recoverable.

"If I partition a drive using the fdisk command and then use the format command, does the partition get erased?" NOPE

"Do you have to format each partition individually." YEP

"If formatting doesn't remove the partition, will the fdisk command remove it." NOPE the cammand itself wont but of course the program can be used to do so. You can use fdisk to review what you have already done to your current hard drive without destroying it. Select number 4 "view your current hard drive configuration." However if you change something with the program then you will destroy your current settings.


"A masochist walked up to a sadist, and said 'Hurt me'. The sadist said 'No' and walked away."
 
>>Partitioning will increase your total amount of storage space<<

True.. partitions <32G will keep cluster size down to 8kb and save slack space. But making a bunch of 5 to 10 GB partitions on a drive will decrease space in that the more partitions you have the higher percentage of the disk must go unused so you don't run out of space on a partition which can lead to data loss. (too much of a good thing)

>>and provide slightly faster drive access, because the drive head doesnt have to traverse as far to find a file within a smaller volume and can skip straight to that volume.<<

Good defragmentation will solve this.. But also when you call and executable file up it doesn't just read sequentially off the disk in a Windows OS. It links to DLLs in the System folder. But you also have multiple platters and heads. So if you have an application on the same platter as the OS it's going to jump around anyways.
(this is just wrong and I don't know why I said it this way). What I mean is if you have partitions on the back of the disk.. the head(s) are still going to jump around to grab the dlls the executable calls and suffer performance where it would not if installed on tracks closer to the OS.

Windows 2k is a little different with private dlls and something like BeOS doesn't even use dlls. So it depends on the disk and the OS. For example, SCSI discs are generally designed with more platters and more heads and they are not as influenced by this (also a contributor to their higher access times).



***Hey I run Intel... but let's get real***<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Chord on 01/12/01 10:24 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Yes

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/partTradeoff-c.html

Unfortunately, there are some people who don't understand the concept called "too much of a good thing". They tend to go overboard and chop their hard disks into ridiculous numbers of tiny partitions, thinking that they are maximizing their use of disk space this way. The ironic thing is that, in addition to making life confusing for themselves (was that file on H:? Or was it K:?) they end up not saving nearly as much space as they thought they would. The reason is that the smaller a disk volume is, the larger a percentage of it has to be left empty in order to avoid the possibility of running out of disk space. Running out of disk space can lead to data loss, and letting a hard disk get close to the point where it is running out of space can result in increased fragmentation and performance degradation if you are doing a lot of work on the disk. I call space that is reserved to ensure that volumes don't run out of space end of volume space.



"A masochist walked up to a sadist, and said 'Hurt me'. The sadist said 'No' and walked away."
 
Thanks for the link. Its going in the bookmarks.

I ain't seen a beating like that since somebody stuck a banana in my pants and turned a monkey loose
 
lol - two programs you should really own are Norton Ghost and PartitionMagic by PowerQuest. A little program called "pqboot.exe" within the Partition Magic software is also very handy because it allows you to change between bootable partitions without BootMagic another program included with PartitionMagic. Just keep this information in mind if your not ready for it. I may be helpful some day.

"A masochist walked up to a sadist, and said 'Hurt me'. The sadist said 'No' and walked away."
 
If you have your drive partitioned then your seek time is quicker, and you can store Windows on one partition and things like icq and other net stuff on the other, that way when you have to reinstall or delete windows the other data on the D drive is unaffected
 
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