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One partition? It has to be primary.Just bought a 2 TB Seagate GoFlex HDD to store data & video Files.
It shows single Primary Partition.
Should I keep it as it is Primary OR do I need to make it Logical ?
It will show as active once you format it. If you want more than one partition on the same drive, the first partition will be primary, the remainder have to be logical.Also should it be made active if it is kept as Primary?
What if I want to make 3 Partitions, again just to separate data files & video Files ?
How then should they be made ? All Primary or one Primary & other 2 Logical OR entirely different ?
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One partition? It has to be primary.Just bought a 2 TB Seagate GoFlex HDD to store data & video Files.
It shows single Primary Partition.
Should I keep it as it is Primary OR do I need to make it Logical ?It will show as active once you format it. If you want more than one partition on the same drive, the first partition will be primary, the remainder have to be logical.Also should it be made active if it is kept as Primary?
What if I want to make 3 Partitions, again just to separate data files & video Files ?
How then should they be made ? All Primary or one Primary & other 2 Logical OR entirely different ?
There are a lot of advantages to partioning a huge 2TB drive, I'd recommend it.
Edited by georgetok, 30 May 2011 - 01:43 AM.
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I want to make 3 Partitions, again just to separate data files & video Files
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Wikipedia > Disk partitioningCan you please tell me the advantages & disadvantages of Partitioning it ?
Benefits of multiple partitions
Creating more than one partition has the following advantages:
- Separation of the operating system (OS) and program files from user files. This allows image backups (or clones) to be made of only the operating system and installed software.
- Having an area for operating system virtual memory swapping/paging.
- Keeping frequently used programs and data near each other.
- Having cache and log files separate from other files. These can change size dynamically and rapidly, potentially making a file system full.
- Use of multi-boot setups, which allow users to have more than one operating system on a single computer. For example, one could install Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows or other operating systems on different partitions of the same hard disk and have a choice of booting into any compatible operating system at power-up.
- Protecting or isolating files, to make it easier to recover a corrupted file system or operating system installation. On older file systems if one partition is corrupted, none of the other file systems are affected, and the drive's data may still be salvageable. This is no a valid consideration for modern file systems like NTFS, as those store file system administration areas for each single partition in mutiple instances on different disk locations, which practically can't get all corrupted at the same time. Also, the chance of a single piece of data (for ex. a single file's contents) getting corrupted is statistically not lowered by having multiple partitions, and if the drive itself fails, all the partitions fail and their contents get lost, regardless of their number. Having a separate partition for read-only data reduces the chances of the file system on this partition becoming corrupted.
- Raising overall computer performance on systems where smaller file systems are more efficient. For instance, large hard drives with only one NTFS file system typically have a very large sequentially accessed Master File Table (MFT) and it generally takes more time to read this MFT than the smaller MFTs of smaller partitions.
- "Short Stroking", which aims to minimize performance-eating head repositioning delays by reducing the number of tracks used per hard drive.[1] The basic idea is that you make one partition approx. 20-25% of the total size of the drive. This partition is expected to: occupy the outer tracks of the hard drive, and offer more than double the throughput — less than half the access time. If you limit capacity with short stroking, the minimum throughput stays much closer to the maximum. This technique, however, is not related to creating multiple partitions, but generally just creating a partition lesser size than available on the disk.
- For example a 1 TB disk might have an access time of 12 ms at 200 IOPS (at a limited queue depth) with an average throughput of 100 MB/s. When it is partitioned to 100 GB (and the rest left unallocated) you might end up with an access time of 6 ms at 300 IOPS (with a bigger queue depth) with an average throughput of 200 MB/s.
Disadvantages of multiple partitions
Creating more than one partition has the following disadvantages, as compared to having a single partition spanning the same disk area:
- Reduces the total space available for user storage on the disk, as it forces the operating system to duplicate certain file system administration areas on the disk for each partition.
- Reduces overall disk performance on systems where data is accessed regularly and in parallel on multiple partitions, because it forces the disk's read/write head to move back and forth on the disk to access data on each parition and to maintain and update file system administration areas on each partition. It also prevents disk optimizers from moving all frequently accessed files closer to each other on the disk, which could reduce the number and distance of required head movements. Files can still be moved closer to each other on each parition, but those areas themselves will still be far apart on the disk. (See "short stroking" considerations above.) This issue does not apply to SSD drives as access times on those isn't affected by and dependant on relative sector positions.
- Increases disk fragmentation because it lowers the average size of continous free blocks on each partition - as compared to a single partition of the same overall size - after the same amount of data has been written to them.
- May prevent using the whole disk capacity, because it may break free capacities apart. For ex. if you have a disk with two partition, having 3 GBs free on each (so 6GBs in total), you can't copy a 4GB DVD image file on that disk, as none of the partitions will actually provide enough space for that - even though you have more than enough free capacity in total on the disk. If same files on those two partitions would have been stored on a single partition spanning the whole disk, the 4GB file could be easily stored in the remaining 6GB free space.
- Slows down moving data between different parts of the same physical disk. When moving data from one partition to other, the operating system actually has to copy the contents of the data file, even though it still remains on the same device in a single copy/instance. When using a single partition, moving data between directories will only require altering the file system administration areas, and the actual contents of the file will not be copied or moved inside the disk/device, thus resulting in an indefinitely faster completion of the operation.
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You're welcome.
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Edited by SpywareDr, 31 May 2011 - 10:06 PM.
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