Disk partition advice wanted

[psycik]

Can I jump in, where do you set the cluster size, and what sort of figure should it be set to??

[gEd]

in the format option within the xp disk admin tool. set it to 64k, which i thin is the highest.

i would go with dfdario's recommendations, 10+70. for a barebones xp, gbpvr and a couple fo extra video related apps, 10gb sould be enough and u can use a drive imaging program to back this up onto a single dvd in case the whole thing goes pear shaped.

[gEd]

I would break it into at least 3 partitions.

1) system partition where all your apps and OS get installed
2) swap partition - yes stolen from linux - make this about 1 gig larger than your page file.
3) the rest - to store recordings.

The swap partition is only used for your paging file and logs. Change the settings in the Advanced properties of My Computer. (IE remove the page file from C and force it into the swap space you created. Force its size so its not dynamically re-sizing. Then change the environmental vars to point TEMP and TMP (for both users and system) to the same partition. This allows you to defrag your page and temp dirs easily and quickly without having to do the rest of the machine).

Just MHO...

good ideas, and very similar to my main rig, except i have seperate swap and temp partitions in a raid array.

i prefer to keep the temp files in their own partition and periodically just delete them all.

With a single 80Gb disk, with 2 partitions, you can :-

defrag d:
create new swap on d: and disable swap on c:
reboot
(check pagefile.sys on c; has been deleted, if not delete it)
defrag c:
create new fixed size swap on c: and disable swap on d:
reboot
(check pagefile.sys on d; has been deleted, if not delete it)
swap file on c: will be defragmented and will remain that way.

tbh: with the OP's 80GB drive, i don;t think it's worth him getting to fancy about the setup - he'll fill that puppy up within 6 weeks!!

[marm]

I always try to partition my HD so when I reinstall my OS it does not mess up the whole thing. I would not bother making a partition for the swap there was some tweaks posted and somebody tried all kinds of thing to see if moving the swap file would make a differance and he could not find any noticeable measured differance.

What you will probably end up doing is buying a bigger HD and making it your recording drive, this is what I did with a 160 and am looking for a 250 or 400 gig drive now.

[pz1]

With a single 80Gb disk, with 2 partitions, you can :-

defrag d:
create new swap on d: and disable swap on c:
reboot
(check pagefile.sys on c; has been deleted, if not delete it)
defrag c:
create new fixed size swap on c: and disable swap on d:
reboot
(check pagefile.sys on d; has been deleted, if not delete it)
swap file on c: will be defragmented and will remain that way.

You can do this simpler. Do check: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PageDefrag.html This utility defrags sysfiles and registry hives before Windows boots! (Lots of other usefull utils there.

[tkgafs]

has anybody used partitonmagic to change from a small cluster size upto 64k,

I'd like to do this but am very nervous of doing it on a production disc with loads of music and recordings on it

Tkgafs

[gEd]

yep - works fine. I used version 7.0 I believe.

[jridley]

I like to partition my first drive about 12GB for boot and the rest for data. I set my systems up so that the boot drive contains OS and programs ONLY, no data. That way I can Ghost the boot drive, and at any time if I think my system is corrupt, I can restore the C: drive, reboot, and be back in business without losing any data.
GBPVR would have to be installed somewhere else since it stores its data in the install directory, but that's not a big deal really. Most other software can go on the C: drive OK.