320gb SATA: do a partition or not?

[gumonstro]

I´m finishing to build my new NLE. The HD will be a WD 320gb SATA. My question is: do I make a partition or not? The partition will only help me with organization or can improve my NLE´s performance? Considering I will use Windows XP, if partition is the best option, what kind should I use? And how many partitions should I make?

 

[Alexa]

If you really don't need to partion, don't do it. you definitely lose space when each partition starts to fill to capacity, you will lose performance. why not just stay organized with your files? especially if you have other drives.

 

[mmm]

I would buy a second hard drive, they are soooo cheap.

For example a 120GB for the program files and everyday things and save the 320GB JUST for video storage and render files.

Also, plan and organise before starting ANYTHING. Have an organised system for capturing, editing, DVD production -EVERYTHING. You'll have so many files, so soon that it will take for ever to sort out. Also you can't easily move a lot of files later on because they will be linked and connected to projects.

 

[mcsmooth]

If you aren't going to buy another drive, then I would partition. But I strongly agree with using a second drive for your data. I've seen plenty of OSes go down and its just a lot safer when the important stuff is on a different drive that isn't being accessed constantly. Typically I partition my main drive with 10-20 gig for the OS, then maybe 50 for aplications, then the rest for other things. Then I use my second drive as one big partition for the data. Even though its big, you will eventually fill it up if you are actively shooting. If going IDE, you want to have the 2 drives on seperate channels for the best performance, but not an issue for you since your using SATA.

 

[Sumfun]

Definitely get a second drive and separate your programs from your data. If you do a lot of shooting, you'll find out that you'll need more data drives very quickly.

 

[ullanta]

Get a second hard drive - get a few more - but partition also! I don't know what's optimal for your system partition, but make a few scratch partitions about 3x the size of one of your typical projects.

 

[Noel Evans]

For hdd speed I would get two identical SATA hdd's and set up a strip raid. Strip raid is much faster as it pulls some data from one hdd and some from the other hdd for the same function, it creates higher bandwidth essentially. Its especially useful for HDD hungry functions, video editing on an NLE for one.

 

[mmm]

For hdd speed I would get two identical SATA hdd's and set up a strip raid. Strip raid is much faster as it pulls some data from one hdd and some from the other hdd for the same function, it creates higher bandwidth essentially. Its especially useful for HDD hungry functions, video editing on an NLE for one.

Just bare in mind this doubles your chances of data loss, as if either drive fails you will loose almost everything.

If it is non-critical storage, like gaming or well backed-up data, this is a good solution.

 

[Neil Rowe]

dont partition anything.. just buy another drive if you need one. partitioning is a big performance killer, and also sucks up drive space.

 

[ullanta]

partitioning is a big performance killer

Will you please attempt to justify this?

and also sucks up drive space

And this?...

'cause, it just ain't true.

Partitioning lets you prevent data from flooding your system partition, and allows you to easily reformat selected partitions, which will result in performance gains. It requires you to plan a bit more and be a bit more disciplined, but it gives BETTER performance. It's very hard to keep a system partition un-fragmented. It's hard to be able to clear absolutely EVERYTHING off a scratch drive to reformat it. Partitions give you more flexibility to reformat, and thus more likelihood of actually doing it. A clean partition - whether as whole drive or part of a drive - is far more efficient than one which has a lot of old file detritus.

;-)
-Barry