GPL: HDD Partitions and On-line preformance.. please advice.

Hi, I'm just about to install a new 8,4 gb HD in my system and would like to know if there's and benifits in using multiple partitions over a single partition (Fat32) FWIK, smaller partitions would speed up the R/W access time, but i'm not sure if this is correct. "Pros & Cons" are welcomed... Please advice. All the best, Edwin Solheim REMOVE SPAM-GUARD IN ADDRESS TO REPLY! Check out "The Paddock - a legendary site..." for some cool GPL-stuff!! [http://home.c2i.net/thepaddock

Once you start racing, no HD access is done (at least with 64mb RAM). My HD even powers-down in energy-saving mode during long races. I wouldn't worry about partitioning for GPL. Jason.

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> Hi, > I'm just about to install a new 8,4 gb HD in my system and would like to > know if there's and benifits in using multiple partitions over a single > partition (Fat32) > FWIK, smaller partitions would speed up the R/W access time, but i'm not > sure if this is correct. > "Pros & Cons" are welcomed... > Please advice. > All the best, > Edwin Solheim > REMOVE SPAM-GUARD IN ADDRESS TO REPLY! > Check out "The Paddock - a legendary site..." for > some cool GPL-stuff!! > [http://home.c2i.net/thepaddock)

-- -------- Jason Monds "My other car is a Ferrari" (Please remove 'no extra spork' when replying)

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> Once you start racing, no HD access is done (at least with 64mb RAM). > My HD even powers-down in energy-saving mode during long races. > I wouldn't worry about partitioning for GPL. > Jason. > > Hi, > > I'm just about to install a new 8,4 gb HD in my system and would like to > > know if there's and benifits in using multiple partitions over a single > > partition (Fat32) > > FWIK, smaller partitions would speed up the R/W access time, but i'm not > > sure if this is correct. > > "Pros & Cons" are welcomed... > > Please advice. > > All the best, > > Edwin Solheim > > REMOVE SPAM-GUARD IN ADDRESS TO REPLY! > > Check out "The Paddock - a legendary site..." for > > some cool GPL-stuff!! > > [http://home.c2i.net/thepaddock) > -- > -------- > Jason Monds > "My other car is a Ferrari" > (Please remove 'no extra spork' when replying)

It wouldn't hurt to break the drive into smaller partitions from an organizational standpoint, or to make backups easier, but it shouldn't make any real difference in GPL. A thought might be however to make say a 1gig partition for permanent swap space. We've done that for quake and seen better overall performance.

8.4 gig is close to the limit where FAT32 begins using larger cluster sizes. How close depends on whether the 8.4 are "real" or HDD manufacturer gigabytes (the mfrs. usually count 1000 bytes for the kilobyte instead of 1024, which leads to a huge difference once you reach the gigabyte ballpark.) Possibly, one large partition could cross that limit, and you would waste space. But storage space is not really a problem with that drive anymore, is it? :) OTOH, the File Allocation Table itself for a 8.x GB HDD is about 80 MB large. (Think about that - just as large as the complete harddisk of my old 386! :) This means finding a file in this table will take some time. If you use larger clusters or more partitions, the FAT will be smaller and it will take less time to locate a file. I'd split the drive into four partitions of roughly 2 GB each - this should minimize search time and still keep the number of logical drives manageable. -- Wolfgang Preiss \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.