Would I benefit to partition my drive with different allocation unit size for games, etc?

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t99

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Jul 16, 2014
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I have a 240gb and 500gb Samsung with the 240gb being the one with the C drive. I just reinstalled everything fresh since upgrading the system and wiped my 500gb drive. I know for the most part it doesn't really matter to change this from default, but what if I break the drive up so that I know what kind of files would be on each partition?

If I have 1 partition with only games which include a lot of smaller files would I benefit from a smaller unit size and then a partition with larger files using a larger one? I think part of the issue with changing in general is that you have a mix of both types so just settle somewhere in the middle with default..

If this would help, by how much? If the performance is minimal then it doesn't seem worth it at all.
 
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USAFRet


That will do it.
At the end of the clone process, power OFF.
Disconnect the old drive and allow the system to try to power up from the new drive by itself.
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little_me

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Performance wise the benefit would be pretty much zero.
disk would still need to read same amount of bytes.

where the difference would be, is space taken by files.
If allocation size is 512B any file, even with nothing stored on it, takes that much space.
If it's set at 4kB, any file takes that. This can be seen as "lot of wasted space" if you have a lot of small files but on average, it is literally pointless.

You can just right click the folders, select properties and look at "size" and "size on disk" numbers. Yes, size on disk will be higher but... not by much. you might save 0.5% in disk space and with no performance gain, not worth it.
 
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Karadjgne

Karadjgne

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Depends on how you look at it. When using a hdd, anything written to the drive gets written in the next sector, so you'll generally see (if you picture the drive like a CD) the inner rings get the most wear and tear by far, the outer edge getting next to nothing until the drive gets closer to full. With all that wear on the inside track, that's going to be the first area that starts to get bad sectors at the end of the hdds life. By using multiple partitions, that gets spread out some, the wear being mitigated by multiple areas of use instead of 1. For a boot hdd, that's going to help lengthen its lifespan. For a non boot drive, it won't do much since the heaviest usage area will still be in the games partition, where that is makes no difference. But thats only hdds, an SSD is different consider all data as being exactly the same location as things like Trim are constantly moving stuff around so no one spot of ram sees anything more than it's neighbors.

The only other advantage I can think of to separate partitions is the advent of viruses or malware. Anything malicious is pretty much contained to that partition and the windows drive. Unless you start mixing stuff up. But since AV and malware scans should be regular regimen, even that advantage is mitigated to an almost null effect.

So really, it's not going to affect performance at all, just make things slightly more of a pain when it comes to cloning, make things easier to format a whole partition and not touch other areas, and make things more interesting when those smaller partitions start filling up individually.

A 500Gb hdd will generally use MBR, not GPT, so you'll be limited to 4 primary partitions anyways. There's more than a few games where online content and dlcs can create folders in access of 100Gb, so you might end up in a pickle with multiple partitions and a few larger games folders. Having a single, full drive partition allows for better leeway in that case.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Performance benefit would be nil.

Since you have individual drives for the OS (and applications), and other drive(s) for all that other stuff, partitioning makes no sense.

From your 500GB drive:
Consider 3 partitions
200GB for games, 150GB and 100GB.
In the "games" partition, 1 game of 80GB, 1 game of 70GB...leaving 50GB empty space.
You want to install another large game in that "games" partition. But it is 65GB. Oops...can't do it.

50GB wasted space that is unusable for the named purpose.


Aptly named top level folders would be better.
MyGames
MyVideos
MyMusic

None are size restricted.
 
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4745454b

4745454b

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From the drive sizes I'm assuming these are SSDs? There would be no change. SSDs aren't spinning disks like a normal HDD. There is no outer/inner edge to worry about. There can be some benefit to partitioning a HDD but it's pointless with SSDs. Assuming these are SSDs I'd just use them. No need to mess with it at all.
 
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t99

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Thanks, I wiped the larger drive just now and set it to default with no partitions. Maybe Someone here can help with this...

so about to get an m.2, definitely within 2 weeks, maybe sooner. Would you just do a fresh 10 install on the m.2 drive or clone it with magician? Im worried about potential issues from cloning it. I had some weird things in the past and I think this played a role.. the difference now is that I'm going from a Samsung ssd to Samsung m.2 vs garbage oem 1tb hdd to Samsung ssd..

I'm leaning towards doing a fresh install since my games will all be on the 500gb. Would only need to install drivers and some software. I won't have mich software added in next week.

250gb is my C drive and the 500gb is used to store pretty much only games.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Done correctly, cloning can work.

Assuming the drive sizes fit, and assuming the source OS is fully functional...it should work.

Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up
Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive
Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe as necessary.
Delete the 450MB Recovery Partition, here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4f1b84ac-b193-40e3-943a-f45d52e23685/cant-delete-extra-healthy-recovery-partitions-and-healthy-efi-system-partition?forum=w8itproinstall
-----------------------------
 
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t99

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Maybe my issues in the past were not deleting the old one and having them always hooked up.


 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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That will do it.
At the end of the clone process, power OFF.
Disconnect the old drive and allow the system to try to power up from the new drive by itself.
 
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