How bad is partitioning?

[mroptimistic]

I have a maxtor 80 gig d740x (ata 133/7200rpm) along with my abit sr7-8x which supports ata 133 and ata 133 cables. I get good scores on pcmark with everything but my hd, my processor is like 5500 and my memory is like 4500 and then my hd is 800. That doesn't seem very good. My drive is partitioned, would that slow it down, would i have a better score if my drive wasn't partitioned? I have seen some scores that are similar to mine, but i have also seen a ton higher. ex/ CPU: 5299 Mem: 4526 HDD: 9865 or CPU: 5553 Mem: 4818 HDD: 7529.

 

[oldfart]

My drive is partitioned, would that slow it down, would i have a better score if my drive wasn't partitioned?

No

 

[mroptimistic]

alrighty then, what would be causing the low score, or am i just expecting to much?

 

[oldfart]

I dont use PCmark. Do you have HDTach?

 

[boyRacer]

Where do you have your paging file? I have 7 partitions on my raid array... ...i don't think it slows me down... even though it should... theres a page somewhere about partitions and performance... sorry can't find it right now.

 

[corkyg]

Partitions will not slow you down - if anything, they can speed up certain functions and tasks. Seek/read/write times are fairly constant on a given drive - and dealing with smaller chunks of real estate is fractionally faster. Analogy - if a farmer has 100 acres, and he tries to plow the whole enchilada, it will take him a given time. If he divides the land into four 25 acre sections, he can do each section faster than doing all of them at once.

I now use only two partitions. One for the O/S and programs, and the other for the Page File and a cache area for burning CDs. The page file can be fixed by setting max and min to the same number - that way it is a constant, and it doesn't dynamically change all the time. Having it on a separate partition prevents it from causing constant fragmentation in the O/S and program partition.

Your scores are influenced by many things - including background tasks and tray icons. A lot is affected by your video display resolution and color depth. The most efficient is usually (for LCDs) native res at 16-bit color.

 

[mroptimistic]

my 80 is split into a 20 and a 55, the 20 is windows and my programs, and that is also where the partition is.

Originally posted by: oldfart
I dont use PCmark. Do you have HDTach?

and no to that, never even heard of it, would it be a better indicator of hd performance?

 

[lssanjose]

you guys have too much 9x in you. the page file doesn't get fragmented when it resizes. if anything, the pagefile stays at that size until the next reboot, and if anything the fragmentation shouldn't hurt. and as far as partitioning. Two max (one for your os, apps, and page file[constant access], another for storage and games)

 

[Ostack]

If you set-up a static pagefile size, doesn't it map out a given physical space on the drive? Pagefile should not get fregmented nor cause fragmentation if you set it up to a static size.

I was once told to:

Format
Install OS
Disable virtual memory -> reboot
Defragment
Enable virtual memory
Setup static size in virtual memory

That was with win9x. Supposed to keep the pagefile at the beginning of the drive and have faster access to it.

Just more info...

 

[mroptimistic]

Originally posted by: corky-g

Your scores are influenced by many things - including background tasks and tray icons. A lot is affected by your video display resolution and color depth. The most efficient is usually (for LCDs) native res at 16-bit color.

So if i set my monitor to 16bit color and low res, and make sure all my background apps and anything running in the tray is shut down, i should get a better hd score? Ill have to try that tonight

 

[Ostack]

Originally posted by: mroptimistic

Originally posted by: corky-g

Your scores are influenced by many things - including background tasks and tray icons. A lot is affected by your video display resolution and color depth. The most efficient is usually (for LCDs) native res at 16-bit color.

So if i set my monitor to 16bit color and low res, and make sure all my background apps and anything running in the tray is shut down, i should get a better hd score? Ill have to try that tonight

Well, If you are benchmarking, you should only have the bare essentials running to get the best scores. Not sure why your score was so low. No, partitioning won't hurt performance. Is your bios using the fastest mode your HD can handle? PIO mode 4? Just a thought.

 

[mroptimistic]

Originally posted by: Ostack
[
Well, If you are benchmarking, you should only have the bare essentials running to get the best scores. Not sure why your score was so low. No, partitioning won't hurt performance. Is your bios using the fastest mode your HD can handle? PIO mode 4? Just a thought.

uh.... ill have to check that, cuz i have absolutely no clue what its running. Add that to my list of thing to do tonight

 

[Duvie]

What OS??? If you have winxp you may likley have the file system set up to be NTFS and I here you take a slight performance hit for that...the benefits ofcourse are no 4gb file limitation which can play havoc with video capturing...

 

[mroptimistic]

it's xp, and its ntfs, and i guess if i have to take a performance hit for ntfs, then ill suffer through it, cuz i like my ntfs

 

[lssanjose]

I like my NtFS too