HD partision size(s) under Win2000

[SnapperOne 0]

Just moved two PCs over to Win2000-Pro (full install vs. upgrade over 98SE) and have a question regarding hard drive partitioning. Each PC is outfitted with a 34GB-7200/rpm hard drive.

 

Each hard drive is partitioned with a 2GB "C" partition for Win2000-Pro and the balance of for drive "D" for data, programs, etc...... Is there a more efficient (better) way to partition each drive relative to better hard drive space utilization without have 7 or 8 partitions to keep track of?

[Mua_Dib 0]

So long as your using NTFS or FAT32 as your file system there is no need to creat extra partitions like you had to do in the old days with FAT16. NTFS and FAT32 feature smaller cluster sizes which dont change no matter how big the partition is (or up to its limitation anyway. 4TB for ntfs5?)

 

So stick with what you have, thats exactly what i do.

 

Incedently, just food for thought, i have been able to convert my primary partition (the one containing Win2K) from FAT16 to FAT32 to NTFS without any woes.

[Brian Frank 0]

FAT32 begins to breakdown after 30GB, so It's probably best to go with NTFS, since that will start to breakdown after over 1 Terabyte.

[Mua_Dib 0]

I thought FAT32 could go upto 8TB? I know you cant format over 32GB with WIN2K but the FastFat driver can mount upto the affore mentioned volume size (subject to other limitations)

[Brian Frank 0]

NTFS might, but not FAT32. I have my two drives on my main rig divided up like this: 20.4GB---C:Win2k,4.65GB; E:Games,8.83GB; F:Acid (a music program)3.61GB; G:Extra,1.94GB; 15GB---D:Swap,954MB; H:Mp3s,4.64GB; I:Video 8.31GB. C: is the only drive I use NTFS, and that seems to make the rest of the system more reliable, even though it is FAT32. I do it this way to keep things in order. It is recommended that you have Windows on it's own partition with the swap file, or give the swap file it's own partition, and then partition the rest of the drive or leave it as is. That way, if Windows gets screwed up, all youre data is safe.

Also, take into consideration how critical the data is on the pc's. If it needs to be safeguarded, make both drives NTFS for security purposes.

[Mua_Dib 0]

Yeah, both my drives are NTFS. Its faster than FAT32.

 

But wouldnt having so many partitions slow down the system a little?(unless of course you have a SCSI160 drive on a high end controller

 

I just try to keep things simple on my drive. (its only 9 gig hahahah)

 

At work though i have a Win2k Advanced Server running and i have 4 SCSI 9 gig drives in it. What i have done is created an OS partition, a file server partiton and mounted the other drives as folders in the file server partition. The disk management snap-in is really great and flexible, but i wonder what limitations doing that imposes on the File System?