I just got a 1T hard drive to act as a storage backup in my desktop computer, which already has a 250G hard drive. Is there any reason to divide the new hard drive into partitions?
What OS?
Yes, there are reasons. For instance, on Windows, the time spent defragging a disk. On Linux, one might want to separate your ‘home’ directory from the rest of the system. On any OS, perhaps there’s a desire to store some data in an encrypted form, but to keep the system executables (and other data) in non-encrypted form.
So, yes, there are reasons. But, as always, it depends on what you’re doing.
I don’t think the defrag issue matters much in these days of built-in defragmentation; and in any case it’s not something you do often enough to matter.
There’s no necessity to partition if you’re just using it for data. I usually like to make a small partition or two on any drive I install to allow me to put an alternate Boot OS on it (either a different version or just a backup of my primary) in case the primary fails and I still want to be able to boot the system, but I’m a developer and abusive to my OSes. I sometimes put a small FAT partition on the drive for data transfer to/from Linux or MacOS. But those are specialized uses and probably not applicable in general.
Also note that with live partitioning (Mac OS X 10.6+ and Windows Vista+), it’s pretty easy to make partitions after the fact (leaving the data intact), but much harder to combine them. So I’d be inclined to leave the disk unpartitioned until you discover you have a need for an extra partition.
One thing I did was to create a partition on the new storage drive that can store an image backup of my boot drive. That way, if any disaster strikes I have a quick remedy. Otherwise, the rest of the drive is one big partition for my data.
This drive is being used only for storage/backup of photos, videos, music, etc. The computer runs XP. I do like the idea of putting in an alternate Boot OS.
As the IT guy who just had to defrag one of our scientist’s NTFS filesystems, I can say that you’re wrong in at least one specific case – namely, mine. Not only does MS’s defrag now suck ass (I believe it uses an approximation algorithm now, such that running it 3+ times in a row results in improved defrags each time, probably specifically due to ballooning storage sizes), it takes inordinate amounts of time with a disk constantly churning – more than 1/2 day for a <500GB disk. Seeing as how this guy works with TBs of data, it’s a real problem. You’re correct for the common case…but that wasn’t specified in the OP; rather, the OP asked whether there was any reason to partition.
Yes, you’ve hit a nerve for me. Why in $DEITY’s name defragging is necessary in a (supposedly) modern OS’s standard filesystem is beyond me. :mad:
As to the rest of it, as I said, it depends on what’s desired. As now expressed, if it’s just for storage/backup, the convenience of having a single partition is likely the overriding factor, and that’s probably what should be done (leaving some space for any alternate OSes desired).
Are you doing this more often than maybe once a year? Even if so, I can’t see this as a reason to partition disks (for one thing, that just means you have to run defrag on multiple partitions) rather than, say, a reason to spend $100 or so on a higher-performace defragmenting tool. Statistically, most people can go years without sufferering more than a 5-10% degradation in disk speed from fragmentation, using no defrag tools at all–and can go for more than the life of the computer with just the built-in live defrag. You’re an outlier case: like Pixar saying that Microsoft Movie Maker isn’t meeting their needs.
Yes. If you are hosting many media files you can make many different partitions with different cluster sizes to save the most disk space possible. Things like big highdef Videos you may want to have a bigger cluster size. Hard drives now adays are fast enough that fragmentation does not really matter
Guilty as charged. But, once again, I’d point out that the OP asked about any reason to partition. The time it takes to defrag a huge partition is one reason to do so.
I’d also note that this is in GQ. If the OP is looking for advice/recommendations, the thread should likely be in IMHO.
If you have Windows 7 or Vista (I think) defragging is done automatically so you don’t need to worry about it, the Windows defrag isn’t as good as the ones you pay for but it’s ok.
Also, before you think about creating a partition for an alternate boot OS make sure your PC can actually boot from USB devices.
I’m installing it as an internal drive, not USB.
I just started a new thread asking what size partition to use for a bootable OS, and how to do it. Also, what, if anything, to do about getting rid of the RAID 0 array on the other hard drives.
There are other reasons to create partitions, for example OS’es have limits on how large a space they can address (ISTR either 2TB or 4TB for 32-bit WinXP).
My PC partitions are usually a small (16MB IIRC) partition for a boot-loader, then whatever each OS (Linux, WinXP) requires, and the rest is a VFAT partition so all OS’es can access it. I also just picked up a large external drive for just backups, and not sure how I’ll partition it, but I’ll probably leave a partition for an OS, so I can use is for emergency purposes (though I have flash-drive OS’es ready to go for an emergency).
I’m with TimeWinder on defragging – not much difference defragging one full-sized or two half-sized partitions. Though I do have to defrag every few months (on my Win XP system).
BTW, note that BIOSes also have a limit on the max partition size it can access, so that may be another reason to partition.