Drive size problem

CF93 · 20 Feb 2007 at 15:09

Just bought a Seagate 7200.10, the 320Gb flavour.

Now, I know that the size will be based on 1000Mb=1Gb, not 1024Mb=1Gb, but when I hook this drive up, XP is showing it as 298Gb - surely it should be about roughly 312Gb as 1000/1024*320 doesn't come to 298!

Any ideas?

rpstewart · 20 Feb 2007 at 15:25

You're nearly there with the maths, you just need to go right down to counting bytes - 320Gb is 320 x 10^9 bytes, if you divide that by 1024^3 you get 298Gib

jbloggs · 20 Feb 2007 at 16:10

A figure of "298" within XP is correct for the volume of this HDD, I have 2 of them, and this is the size given in Windows of both of them.

Maths is not my strong point, and I think Mr Stewart has explained it adequately.

CF93 · 20 Feb 2007 at 16:25

Fair enough then. Guess I should have thought of that. I tell ya every time I upgrade I always feel cheated out of those extra Gb

Never mind, it's a lot more storage than I've got just now!

And here's another question for rpstewart (since you seem to be the expert around here!)

If I'm putting a separate partition for the XP swapfile, should it be right at *** start of the drive and then the Xp partition after? Will XP install ok if I set it up like that (I presume I can choose partition during the install.)
Or the other way round with XP partition then swapfile partition?

Thinking of these partitions
XP (50Gb)
Swapfile (3Gb)
Games (40Gb-ish)
Docs (50Gb-ish)
Music, video & photos (the rest)

Sound ok?

jbloggs · 20 Feb 2007 at 16:46

CF93:

As soon as you install XP on your 320GB 7200.10, before anything else is installed or put on it, simply set up you pagefile to what size you want it, only having 1 HDD there is no point (I believe) making a separate partition. Setting it at the size you want it, immediately after XP is installed will insure it is (or is as) close to the outside of the HDD as possible. After you have set your pagefile, then install programs and store your data on it.

If you have another HDD, ie apart from the 320GB 7200.10, you could always put your (main) pagefile on that, and then a very small one (min 2MB, max 50MB) on your C:\ part/HDD.

rpstewart · 20 Feb 2007 at 17:01

CF93 said:
If I'm putting a separate partition for the XP swapfile, should it be right at *** start of the drive and then the Xp partition after? Will XP install ok if I set it up like that (I presume I can choose partition during the install.)
Or the other way round with XP partition then swapfile partition?

Thinking of these partitions
XP (50Gb)
Swapfile (3Gb)
Games (40Gb-ish)
Docs (50Gb-ish)
Music, video & photos (the rest)

Sound ok?

I'm with jbloggs on the swapfile issue, there's no advantage in using a separate partition in a single drive environment.

I'm not so sure about the partitions noted above, it seems overkill to me. I'd have 50-60Gb for Xp, swap file, applications and games and the rest for everything else.

CF93 · 21 Feb 2007 at 10:05

Thanks guys.

I've not yet decided if I'll carry forward any of my current 3x40Gb drives (one is dying, but can't work out which

- hence the new drive.) If I do I'll put the swapfile on that, otherwise I guess it's a case of install XP, turn off swap file, defrag, turn on swap file again.....?

So does this sound better?
XP, swapfile and apps (50Gb)
Games (40Gb)
Docs etc (the rest)

I quite like the idea of the games on a separate partition purely from the point of view of not having to worry about all the savegames etc getting wiped on a reinstall (don't mind having to reinstall the actual games tho.) Or not worth it?