Proper HDD partitioning techniques ?

[jim.t]

I've noticed alot of reference to proper positioning of win9x files as opposed to regular app files in certain sized partitions on the hdd, especially streamlining the reload of an OS. I have a 3.2gb and if I set it up for 2 Fat16 partitions, what would the primary size be? Secondary? And would this be more efficient than a FAT32 partition? What would my best setup be for a 20gb hdd(about to get another PC)?

And if I install a new app on my system, doesn't it install to Program Files,etc. where all my windows files are, or can I redirect some of the installation to be located in the non-system partition?

I know these are alot of questions, and I apologize, but if there's a site or several posters that can set me straight, I'll be 100% more educated on how things should be. Right?? I've had to reload win95 a couple of times, and I don't like the long process. Obviously, I'm doing it wrong, and better guidlines would be a benefit. Thanks so much.

[This message has been edited by jim.t (edited 08-23-2000).]

[bobcat]

Fat16 is extremely inefficient. Files are stored in clusters. The cluster size increases as the partition size increases. Don't quote me on the figures, can't remember them.

250-500Meg partition will get you a cluster size of 8K. 500M-1g partition, the cluster is 16K and above 1g+ partition = 32K cluster.

So lets say you break your 3.2 into 2g and 1.2g. This means that you would have 32K clusters.

Now, if you have a file that is 32K in size and you save it to the HD it will use 1 cluster. The full 32K. If you have a file that is 64K = 2 clusters completely used.

What happens if you have a file that is less than the cluster size? It is wasted space. You shortcuts on your desktop each are 1K in size. They are each stored in their own cluster that is 32K in size. Only 1K of each cluster is actually being utilized. The empty space cannot be recovered.

Because of this, any partition that is over 500M loses roughly 30% to these empty portions of clusters and 1g is around 45% lost space.

FAT32 always stores in 4K clusters no matter how large the partition. So, with a 1K shortcut you only lose 3K instead of 31K (FAT16).

I usually have an OS partition and multiple app partitions. The OS partition is 500M in size. All other apps are loaded into the App partitions. You can specify during install where the app is to be installed.

As I go along, I take images (snapshots) of the OS partition. They get stored as a file on one of the App partitions. If the OS gets corrupted or something strange happens, I restore one of the images on top of the OS partition. I only have to reinstall apps that were not in the restored snapshot.

To make sure this is clean, any app that needs a temp dir or has a user profile, like Netscape, I make sure to have installed on the app partition. This way when an image is restored, I do not lose any mail or other data.

The imaging software that I have used, DriveImage and Ghost and I find that Ghost is much more flexible.

I have stayed with 500M OS parition because the images save @ around 50% in size. This allows me to have multiple saves and not eat up too much disk space.

Hope this helps.



[This message has been edited by bobcat (edited 08-23-2000).]

[jim.t]

Bobcat and others,
I understand the inefficiencies of FAT16, but I really don't have a lot of area to work with(3.2gb). What partitioning would you recommend for this 3.2gb HDD that would be efficient for a small system, regardless of the FAT?
How much more room is neccessary for the backup images and do you save to external mdeia also?
Most of what you said I understand. The last three paragraphs was just a little fuzzy about how you capture your images and why Netscape was installed to an app partition.
Thanks. It's starting to become a little clearer, but I suppose there are different ways to do anything.

[spark25]

Ghost and Drive image are DOS based hard drive imaging programs. That make an exact copy,of your hard drive.Boot into dos,insert floppy with ghost.exe and it copies your drive to a *.gho file and asks where to store it. If you ask the ghost program to break up the images of your hard drive to 600MB so you can fit them on CD(the image of your drive,with all the mail when you take the image)and you choose high compression in the program,it will put about 1100MB in 600MB of space through compression,which then you can burn onto CD and it will span any volume.Since Bobcat is not imaging the partition where he stores his mail folder(which you can change in Outlook-Tools-Options-Maint.-_store)his mail is allways *real time*,otherwise after reimaging a partition it would only contain all the mail up till the moment the partition is imaged.(unless he was using the new ghost6.0 explorer,and the image was a ghost5.0c or later ghost image-then he could incrementlally add to the image)
So for a 3.2MB drive you would need about 1.7 for your full drive.
You could partition the drive with an extended partition with 1 logical drive 1.6MB big. On that logical drive keep your ghost image of your 1.6G boot drive,which when fully compressed would take up about a little more than half of your logical drive.
Yes,lots of ways to do what you are trying to do.

[BFlurie]

********************************************
FAT32 always stores in 4K clusters no matter how large the partition.
********************************************

Sure 'bout that?

Bobcat, I agree w/your partitioning schemes -- makes it far simpler saving a C drive image for recovery.

[This message has been edited by BFlurie (edited 08-23-2000).]

[Dave_H]

Nice summary Bobcat. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif
No big deal but the 4kb cluster size is only up to 8gb.

Fat32 default cluster sizes:
Partition size Cluster size
-------------------------------------
512 MB to 8,191 MB 4 KB
8,192 MB to 16,383 MB 8 KB
16,384 MB to 32,767 MB 16 KB
Larger than 32,768 MB 32 KB

Dave

[PerryBoy]

Jim

Here's my setup for my 3 gig drive:

1. OS 750 megs
2. Apps 1 gig
3. Docs 250 megs
4. Backup 1 gig

You can then use tweakui to change your default program files to your apps partition. You can use your backup partition to backup at least 2 images of your OS drive, maybe even 3 or 4, depending on how much space is used. I like to keep my Docs on a separate partition. Also, the reason I like my OS partition bigger than 500 megs is that when a program installs, not only does it put files on your program files folder, it also uses your system folder located in your windows directory. And then there's the matter of the swap file. You'll need to have ideally twice as much as your ram, and this resides on your C drive too, unless specified otherwise ( you can also create a separate partition for your swap if you like ).

Note: After doing a backup of your OS image, you may wanna hide your backup partition so no one ( including you ) can delete the image files by accident http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

Peace

[BFlurie]

There's alot of different schemes for backing up. Personally, I backup my C:\windows folder w/all the subfolders, and give it a name of the date created -- like 082300 (backup to a second HD). I only backup when Windoz is demonstratebly stable & rock-solid. In my case, that only takes 'bout 80 MBs. Course, others will have their own preferred methods.

[PerryBoy]

Jim

Of course you can make the backup partition smaller if you want, maybe down to 500 megs, and give your apps drive a boost. I need to tell you though, if you plan to install a lot of games, 1.5 gigs is not enough. I use Diskeeper for defrag, and Partition Manager for partitioning my drive ( free and easy to use ). I use PowerQuest's Drive Image to backup my OS. I keep a fresh Windows 98 image and current image ( or the last good image ). Good Luck!

[jim.t]

Thanks everyone for your input. All good info. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna rebuild the OS95 in it's own partition, just really didn't know how to break up the rest.

Perryboy!

That kind of setup is more what I was looking for. Do you have much free space? What do you use when you defrag? Win95 system defrag does the physical drive, so I'm not sure how that would work.
Do you find it necessary to have that many backup images? Seems like a alot of space. Thanks guys.

[jim.t]

Perryboy or whoever:
When you use Partition Manager, will it move files around to make room for the partitions in FAT32?? For instance, I have one big 3.2gb FAT32 area. If I set up a OS partition of, say, 500mb and another partition of 2gb, what will happen to the files that are currently residing there at the split, or does the HHD have to be empty to start with?? And is there a trial/free version of PM/DriveImage/Diskeeper?

[This message has been edited by jim.t (edited 08-24-2000).]

[PerryBoy]

Partitioning a drive with something on it is more involved. You'll need to defrag it, make sure all the free space is moved to the end. When you partition it, you'll need to make sure that the space you allocate will accomodate the stuff you already have, or else something strange may happen, I'm not sure. What is it that you're trying to save? Documents? And how much of your C drive is being used right now? Partition Manager can be downloaded from download.com. There's a trial version of DriveImage in powerquest.com.

[jim.t]

I've got 1.6gb free and I just defraged last Sunday. But in order to get a smaller space alloted for the OS, it looks like I might have to reformat the harddrive, re-partition, and reload win95 again, and that's a bear for me. The OEM support said they couldn't talk me thru it, regardless whether they were the ones who screwed it up to start with. I reminded them I'm in the market for another NEW system, so we'll see what they say. Thanks.

[This message has been edited by jim.t (edited 08-24-2000).]

[This message has been edited by jim.t (edited 08-24-2000).]

[jim.t]

Perryboy....

One more question and we can close this thread down: you did say your HDD file structure was FAT32, right? Even for the smaller partition for the OS? I'm getting all my ducks lined up to reformat Sat. morning. Trying to decide what to eliminate and keep, as far as apps go. When I did my backup, I B/U the whole HHD. I guess I should be more selective and not include the OS if I'm gonna reload anyway.

[PerryBoy]

Hey,

Yeah, you can use FAT32 for OS. The only time I use FAT16 is when the partition is less than 256megs, that way my cluster is 2k/4k in size. And I think FAT16 is faster. Another case in which you would choose FAT16 over FAT32 is if you're setting up a dual boot with NT or another OS, but that's another story...

I think it's better if you start with a clean install of your OS. Load all the current drivers for your devices, newest version of directx and updates for windows that you think you need, maybe even install tweakui. After that, clean out your temp folder and any other stuff that you don't need, like the online services folder where I think an installation of aol and a couple more ISP's reside. Install your web browser, customize everything to your liking, e.g. network properties, wallpapers, explorer etc. After that do a defrag and then backup! This way you're sure that whenever you reinstall your OS from backup, all the little tweaks are done, the only thing you need to do is install your apps.

Have fun!

[jim.t]

Thanks, bud. It may turn out to be total ****, but hey, it's a short life. My wife is already raising hell 'cause she thinks I've already screwed up her "files" http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif. Wait till she finds out what I've really screwed up. Appreciate all the help, Perryboy and everyone. This is one great place to either get out of trouble or get in to it http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif. Thanks.

[Win_98]

here is something ya did not know. it is possible to set cluster size smaller then 4K using partition magic 5. 2K goes up to 4gig! 1K up to 2gig, 512K up to 1gig. It become inefficient because by doing so you are greatly increasing the allocation unit number of cluster that is. let me tell ya again, fat16 is limited to 64K allocation unit while fat32 is limited to 2meg of allocation. which is about 32 time more efficient making it 32bit as well. therefore the limitation on fat16 is 2gig right? and not 4gig because only NT use 64K cluster while 32K cluster is the highest you can use on windows9x. so for fat32 take 2meg x 32 time more efficent equal 64gig is the most you can have on a single partition using fat32. so it is possible that in the near future that they will be developing FAT64! increasing the 64gig barrier up to 2000gig! when the drive hit 100gig you will see if I am wrong or not! technically FAT16 uses 64K off your harddrive space, while fat 32 uses 2meg and fat64 soon to be will use 64meg... seem alot huh? but hey it will pretty much make up in the long run when you have so many files on such a huge harddrive. when you talking 100gig, 64meg is like only .064 percent! because 1000 megabyte = 1gig

[jim.t]

Seems like you've done your homework. It makes a lot of sense. Probably more in the morning, though, being Friday night. Anyway, thanks for the insight.

[jim.t]

Well, back from a peaceful weekend of rebuilding the software on my home PC(16 hrs total=callsupport+prep+reload+drivers+isp+etc.) . I forgot how crappy a job that was, not to mention having to deal with a not-too-sharp tech support or two.
The highlight of the day came when a tech over at mindspring had problems helping me set up my browser settings with the wizard, and sent me to Microsoft support, unbeknownst to me, at a $35 charge. I'm fighting with Mindspring about that now.
Anyway, thanks to everyone. It really turned out better than expected, and there is no longer a pause in the HDD anymore. Got 2 FAT32 partitions and so far so good. Thanks.