New hdd - shall i partition?

Mp4

Mp4

Mp4

Soldato
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Hi all,

Ive never owned a SATA drive before and am having one of these for xmas

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-144-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=940

my questions are

whats the diffrence between sata / sata 2?

shall i partition this drive or is it safe to run at 750GB or split it at 500 / 250 gig?

and i have a W&D IDE 120GB which im going to use as a backup
i also have a WD external (500GB) is there any easy way to to an automatic backup of the new 750GB?

ta

Mp4
 
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Mp4 said:
Hi all,

Ive never owned a SATA drive before and am having one of these for xmas

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-144-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=940

my questions are

whats the diffrence between sata / sata 2?

shall i partition this drive or is it safe to run at 750GB or split it at 500 / 250 gig?

and i have a W&D IDE 120GB which im going to use as a backup
i also have a WD external (500GB) is there any easy way to to an automatic backup of the new 750GB?

ta

Mp4
Click to expand...

The speed is the difference between Sata and Sata2. Sata2 is faster.

I would partition it for all your files Ide say 50/700 depends what your doing on it.
 
If it's just for data I'd leave in a single partition. But if you're installing Windows as well, then I'd put a small partition, with the remainder for games/data.

ie 20GB/650GB (20GB should be plenty for Windows XP)
 
I had a 500GB and a 160GB. I put windows on the 160, then split the 500gb as follows:
D: Games (117gb)
E: Apps (117gb)
F: Media (117gb)
G: Etc (114gb)
 
okay thanks for that,

does the motherboard need to have sata 2 support?

this is my spec of my motherboard

Southbridge
2 xUltraDMA 133/100/66/33
4 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports Support RAID 0,1,0+1,5,JBOD
Silicon Image® 3132 SATA controller
1 xUltraDMA
1 xInternal SATA 3 Gb/s hard disk
1 xExternal SATA hard disk (SATA On-the-Go)
Support RAID 0,1+0,

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=1042&l1=3&l2=15&l3=268&l4=0


atm my 120 gig isnt partitioned , i have windows , games & media
there an easy way to do a partition?
 
Why Partition the drive when you could just put it into a folder for the same effect? then you dont risk loosing the partition and having to repair it to get your stuff back.

4 xSATA 3 Gb/s, means it has 4 SATA2 ports, the SATA 1 would say 1.5Gb/s

The only benefit I know of Is for Vista using Pagefiles, Where you have a small partition specifically for the Pagefile only.
 
sosrandom said:
Why Partition the drive when you could just put it into a folder for the same effect? then you dont risk loosing the partition and having to repair it to get your stuff back.

4 xSATA 3 Gb/s, means it has 4 SATA2 ports, the SATA 1 would say 1.5Gb/s

The only benefit I know of Is for Vista using Pagefiles, Where you have a small partition specifically for the Pagefile only.
Click to expand...

okay thanks :P got worried when i didnt see Sata2 on the spec , ive just had a read about it a bit more :P

i mean the 750GB ill be partitioning not the 120GB , going to leave that as it is.


Say i just had the 750GIG (didnt partition it) and had my external hdd , is there any easy method of doing a backup?

soz for the gimp questions , uber tired :P
 
Using a separate partition for the pagefile won't really make any difference. It's still on the same physical drive as your OS and you'll still hit the same disadvantages of that.

I partitioned my HD 25/295 the other week. Main advantage as far as I can see is that if I need to reinstall my OS, I can format my OS partition without having to move any of my data off. On my data partition I'm then gonna have a disk image of a fresh Vista install which I can restore straight back to the OS partition when I want to start afresh. Next plan is to stick a copy of XP onto the data partition for the times when I fancy booting into it.
 
hmm fair enough then :) partition sounds more of a pain to get any benefit, and to format and install apps etc i prefuere to fresh install of those also.

when i install the new HDD, is there a different process i have to follow? as Xp is odd setting up Sata?

i don't have a floppy drive either
 
Windows is meant to run better on a small(ish) partition that is kept virtually clean. Most applications also will run better when they are installed on the Windows drive (such as Anti-virus).

What i would do is this:

-Leave your current 160GB IDE drive as a single partition and use it as a backup drive. 160GB should be enough for your important files. This way, if anything messes up on your new hard drive, then you have a physical backup available. In other words, once you get your new drive, simply format it completely and arrange some kind of backup structure.

-Partition your new SATA drive into two. If you are one to have lots of programs (i.e. many gigs worth of applications) then create a partition of about 60GB as this should be plenty enough. Windows will run faster than the other drive too. Then use the remainder for your media (Music, Vids, Games). I'm guessing that 650GB should be enough for all of this :)

Then you should have 3 drives listed in my computer. Windows (60GB), Media (650GB) and Backup (160GB). Remember you also have your external hard drive that you can back stuff onto as well. :)

In my opinion, everyone should partition because it makes life so much easier once it's setup correctly. :)

I've added you on msn matey. I can run you through the setting up via SATA if you want.
 
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I agree, I made a 65GB partition for Vista/apps/games and 400GB for data (500GB drive). Its always handy incase you need to format the OS and install a clean copy :)
 
I used to partition my drives but its not really worth it. Especially if one partition gets filed up and the others have lots of free space.

These days I have a 100Gb partition for Windows, which I install everything onto, and then another partition purely for data which gets the rest of the disk.

Installing applications and games onto a separate partition doesn't really make sense, as nearly all of them register loads of stuff in Windows so if you reinstall windows you need to reinstall them all anyway.
 
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i've not installed my new HDD yet , but my 120GB has 8GB left / Steam alone takes about 65-70GB

The way im looking at it now

don't bother with the partition and just use my 120GB for media / and i still have 500GB external.

atm i cant see any reason to make a partition just for windows
 
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