Partition sizes

[polemicz]

ffrr, to share with windows you want a fat32 partition.

[ffrr]

ffrr, to share with windows you want a fat32 partition.

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So I thought, but this thread is saying NOT to use FAT32 for large partitions, but, what choice do you have?

[Ixthusdan]

Actually, there is wisdom in creating smaller partitions for organizing data. Really, if you have 30G of data, it is best organized, isn't it? I am not concerned about 2 or 3 20G partitions in a machine.

[ffrr]

Actually, there is wisdom in creating smaller partitions for organizing data. Really, if you have 30G of data, it is best organized, isn't it? I am not concerned about 2 or 3 20G partitions in a machine.

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Yes, I agree it needs to be organised. That's what directories are for.

 

If you partition it, and ever need one very large file, or set of files created automatically during some processing, you will discover why smaller partitions are useless. When you work on large data (like video processing) you need LARGE partitions.

[AussieJohn]

When you have real memory above 1Gb you only need a token 500mb of swap space. Many of us don't even have swap space anymore and things still run like clock work.

 

Data stored on partitions larger than 30gbs is courting disaster. If you have all your data stored on one massive partition, lose that partition for some reason and you lose everything.

That applies to Windows or Linux. Actually Windows does you a favour by discouraging larger partitions even though I do not think they intended to do you the favour in the first place.

 

Spanning your data over numerous partitions means that if you lose a partition you lose only the data in that partition. It is the old "putting all your eggs in one basket" instead of the many baskets.

I have all my music on one partition, all my pictures, photos and graphics on another, all incidental but important data on another partition and that is also copied to a small partition on the other hard drive.

I might add that ALL my data is copied to DVD-rw and cd-rw discs.

 

If you want to exchange data with windows just create one fat32 partition of about 10gb.

I call mine Exchange. In Windows that small partition is titled Exchange as well as in Mandriva and is used to duplicate certain data that is on other partitions. I happen to use Win2000Pro and it is all fat32. It works just fine. Never did use the mongrel ntfs and would not touch WinXP with a 40ft sterilized glass pole.

 

Why would you ever need more than 20-30gb partition to exchange data.

 

Go ahead and divide it up. There are only pros and no cons that I can think of.

 

Cheers. John.

[polemicz]

When you are thinking about sharing data with Windows you should first of all decide what you are going to share. Other than movies it is very hard to use up 30GB of data (maybe 5-10000 pieces of music? or a large photo collection). Think about why you will use Windows, usually it is because there is only a Windows program you can use. I think with careful analysis you will realize that you may not need a very large shared partition.

 

I second what John says about separate partitions. This for me is very important because some of my partitions rarely are changed, so I don't need to back them up regularly, but others change frequently and these get backed up more often (I back up on another machine).

 

So I wuld say that it is important in setting up partitions to look at what data is being used in what os and how you will be backing up your data.

 

Regarding the questions about processor and ram, I run 2005 on my 533Mz system and it runs quite well, but I have 512 ram. Ram is the key to performance, not so much processor.

[scarecrow]

Actually an NTFS read/write driver for Linux does exist, as does an ext3 read/write driver for windows (both made by Paragon GMBH). But they are commercial, and don't make any use of the FS recovery journal, so the only advantage over multiple FAT32 partitions is the number of partitions used and nothing more than that. IMHO this not a serious advantage for mainstream storage tasks, although they could prove being very useful for recovery tasks (which is clearly not the case in this thread).

[AussieJohn]

All the more reason to avoid NTSF. Why pay out extra for software on something that you are aiming to dump ultimately anyhow, namely Windows.

And I certainly would NEVER use any software that enabled Windows to access LINUX.

 

Cheers. John.

[iphitus]

NTFS read write is free from the Captive NTFS project.

 

http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/

 

and as for using multiple partitions, that wouldnt really do a lot to help. A hard drive failure or damage doesnt respect partitions.

 

A reliable backup method would be much better.

 

And again, I've stated this many times before, I believe that unless you are doin audio or video editing, or something as equally taxing on the system, like an absolutely massive work in the Gimp, swap will be practically useless to you if you have more than 512mb ram.

[ffrr]

and as for using multiple partitions, that wouldnt really do a lot to help. A hard drive failure or damage doesnt respect partitions.

 

A reliable backup method would be much better.

 

Absolutely, and so you might as well have a conveniently large space to work in. I hate having lots of separate partitions and having to find one that has enough free space. So annoying to know the hard disk has room, but not in any given partition.

 

btw: the problem of wasted space in large FAT32 partitions is not so much of an issue if you are dealing with large data files anyway.

[AussieJohn]

The loss of a partition or partitions is far more likely than a HDD failure nowadays.

I have had numerous losses of partitions but only one failure of 12 different HDDs and that one was 5 to 6 yrs old. Can't and won't argue against doing careful backing up of data, constantly.

 

Cheers. John.

[Cannonfodder]

So what it broils down to is what are you going to use it for? If you are going to do a lot of media (movies, music, whatever tickles your fancy), then don't worry about the potential for disk space loss with a large single media partition. If you just need a 10 gig partition and don't expect to do more, then just go with that. If you put the media partition on the end of the partition table, then you can always increase it later..

 

However, a note on media. If you are actually using that much space for media, then you might as well burn it to DVD's because media itself doesn't tend to change that much.. (just grows)

[ffrr]

However, a note on media. If you are actually using that much space for media, then you might as well burn it to DVD's because media itself doesn't tend to change that much.. (just grows)

It does if you are editing it, and converting it to other formats for example. Try working on a few hours of good quality digital video, with multiple copies while it's a work-in-progress and producing DVD images for burning from it. As more people buy digital cameras and want to read in their movies over firewire, then make a decent job of producing something worth watching from them, you will see this need more often.

Just think about how much data is on an average DVD (dual layer) - and that's the cut down edited version.

[adamw]

I just plain don't trust DVD burns, anyway. They fail way too often for me to have any faith whatever in the reliability of the process.

[Cannonfodder]

Sure, all data is subject to security evaluations.. how important is it too. are you burning porn? May be very important to you *just kidding, really!* Is it media projects that you create, get paid for, back it up 2 different ways, my real point is he needs to consider what his deal is..