What size/number of partitions are best - partitioning 4gb hard drive

mattsell · 12 August 2005, 19:20

Hello I've got a IDE 4gb hard drive and I know I can create just one partition on it. But I'm wondering how best to set up the drive?

I have search on here and there doesn't seem any information, apart from one person saying that each partition is treated like a new drive and each takes 23kb of memory.

Also a thread from Amiga.org with the comment that you can in HDToolBox set the addbuffers to a a lower value someone (AmigaKit) recomends a setting of 1000. Any comments????

What i'm after is some information on how you set up your hard drives, for example, do you have a Workbench partition of 100mb, then create 4 other partitions of equal size.

Any comments welcome, even if its to say you don't have to worry about it! or anything else I need to know about.

keropi · 12 August 2005, 19:33

make 2 partitions: 1 for the OS (something like 512MB) and the rest for everything else...

thomas · 12 August 2005, 22:39

Well, the old standard is two partitions: System and Work.

However, if you work with your Amiga you will probably come to the point where a spare partiton is handy. Be it because you have problems with one partitions or that you want to change the files system or create a backup. There are many reasons to have more partitions. The only reason for having few partitions is that you cannot increase the partition size in case one partition is full and another is empty.

I usually have these partitions: Workbench, Data, Internet, Games, Music, Grapics, Pictures, Programming, Backup. Then I also have cddata for preparing CDs to be burnt and Image for storing images of the CDs being burnt.

Having many partitions also prevents some problems. E.g. if a partition has more than 2GB of free space, some programs might tell you it is full because it has negative (less than 0) space.

Regarding buffers, each partition has a block size (usually 512 or 1024 Bytes) and a number of blocks. Each buffer takes one block, so every partition needs the number of buffers times the block size of memory.

Having 1000 buffers for each partition is a stupid idea. You can temporarily add 1000 buffers while you are playing Doom or Quake or similar (these are the only programs which profit from many buffers). 1000 buffers of 512 byte need 500 kb of memory !

Usually a partion has 80 or 100 buffers which is totally enough. If you need disk speed, you should use a third-party file system like SFS or PFS3 rather than to increase buffers. These file systems (especially PFS3) are much faster with a normal amount of buffers than FFS could be with a million buffers.

keropi · 12 August 2005, 22:58

tell us more about the alternate filesystems Thomas! are they free? how do u setup them?

RetroMan · 12 August 2005, 23:10

SFS is free, PFS is not

Chain · 13 August 2005, 18:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by RetroMan

SFS is free, PFS is not

PFS is good, SFS is not

Jope · 14 August 2005, 13:07

I use PFS3 and partition all my disks as one big partition. 300 buffers.

I hate slicing disks on any operating system I'm on.

mr_a500 · 14 August 2005, 15:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jope

I use PFS3 and partition all my disks as one big partition. 300 buffers.

I hate slicing disks on any operating system I'm on.

I can see the reason why you hate "slicing disks", but having backup partitions can really save your ass.

I have a 75Mb partition for Workbench and another 75Mb partition which is a complete copy of Workbench (bootable). Three times I have had a complete corruption of Workbench (twice due to SFS) and if I didn't have that backup partition, I'd be screwed. Also, thank god I didn't have my 2Gb of Work programs lumped into that or I would have lost that too. To be careful, I never put internet cache on my Work partition.

Here's how I have it:
75Mb Workbench (seems small, but more than enough)
75Mb Workbench backup
3.0Gb Work
350Mb Stuff (for testing/internet cache)
500Mb Backup (essential stuff)

I usually make more backups of everything beyond the 4Gb of my 40Gb drive. The main reason I don't divide my 3Gb Work partition into neatly organized partitions like Thomas is that more partitions take up more memory. So I like to keep as few as possible.

mattsell · 14 August 2005, 17:45

Thanks guys, lots of interesting reading. I have bought fast IDE access card, so will I need PFS3?

I think PFS3 sounds interesting though, does this come with O/S 3.5 or 3.9?

Thanks

Jope · 14 August 2005, 18:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr_a500

I can see the reason why you hate "slicing disks", but having backup partitions can really save your ass.

My backups are on tape or cd-rw. I lha my disk up over samba to my media pc's drive and then that goes on tape some time.

AMIGAZ · 14 August 2005, 19:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattsell

Thanks guys, lots of interesting reading. I have bought fast IDE access card, so will I need PFS3?

I think PFS3 sounds interesting though, does this come with O/S 3.5 or 3.9?

Thanks

PFS3 is a commercial product so you need to buy it, dunno who sells it nowdays but I've seen it on Ebay recently.

mattsell · 15 August 2005, 20:16

Thanks for the replies!

I'm still suprised how much you can do with an Amiga. It's great!

12 August 2005, 19:20	#1
mattsell Registered User Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Wales Age: 47 Posts: 12	What size/number of partitions are best - partitioning 4gb hard drive Hello I've got a IDE 4gb hard drive and I know I can create just one partition on it. But I'm wondering how best to set up the drive? I have search on here and there doesn't seem any information, apart from one person saying that each partition is treated like a new drive and each takes 23kb of memory. Also a thread from Amiga.org with the comment that you can in HDToolBox set the addbuffers to a a lower value someone (AmigaKit) recomends a setting of 1000. Any comments???? What i'm after is some information on how you set up your hard drives, for example, do you have a Workbench partition of 100mb, then create 4 other partitions of equal size. Any comments welcome, even if its to say you don't have to worry about it! or anything else I need to know about. Last edited by mattsell; 12 August 2005 at 19:29.

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12 August 2005, 19:33	#2
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	make 2 partitions: 1 for the OS (something like 512MB) and the rest for everything else...

12 August 2005, 22:39	#3
thomas Registered User Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Germany Posts: 7,009	Well, the old standard is two partitions: System and Work. However, if you work with your Amiga you will probably come to the point where a spare partiton is handy. Be it because you have problems with one partitions or that you want to change the files system or create a backup. There are many reasons to have more partitions. The only reason for having few partitions is that you cannot increase the partition size in case one partition is full and another is empty. I usually have these partitions: Workbench, Data, Internet, Games, Music, Grapics, Pictures, Programming, Backup. Then I also have cddata for preparing CDs to be burnt and Image for storing images of the CDs being burnt. Having many partitions also prevents some problems. E.g. if a partition has more than 2GB of free space, some programs might tell you it is full because it has negative (less than 0) space. Regarding buffers, each partition has a block size (usually 512 or 1024 Bytes) and a number of blocks. Each buffer takes one block, so every partition needs the number of buffers times the block size of memory. Having 1000 buffers for each partition is a stupid idea. You can temporarily add 1000 buffers while you are playing Doom or Quake or similar (these are the only programs which profit from many buffers). 1000 buffers of 512 byte need 500 kb of memory ! Usually a partion has 80 or 100 buffers which is totally enough. If you need disk speed, you should use a third-party file system like SFS or PFS3 rather than to increase buffers. These file systems (especially PFS3) are much faster with a normal amount of buffers than FFS could be with a million buffers.

12 August 2005, 22:58	#4
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	tell us more about the alternate filesystems Thomas! are they free? how do u setup them?

12 August 2005, 23:10	#5
RetroMan Registered User Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Germany Age: 51 Posts: 3,704	SFS is free, PFS is not

14 August 2005, 13:07	#7
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,879	I use PFS3 and partition all my disks as one big partition. 300 buffers. I hate slicing disks on any operating system I'm on.

14 August 2005, 17:45	#9
mattsell Registered User Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Wales Age: 47 Posts: 12	Thanks guys, lots of interesting reading. I have bought fast IDE access card, so will I need PFS3? I think PFS3 sounds interesting though, does this come with O/S 3.5 or 3.9? Thanks

15 August 2005, 20:16	#12
mattsell Registered User Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Wales Age: 47 Posts: 12	Thanks for the replies! I'm still suprised how much you can do with an Amiga. It's great!

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