large HDD's and multiple partitions question???

liquidmonkey · 07-03-2009, 01:15 PM

am just wondering with HDD's getting so massive in size these days (1TB and 2TB internal drives) if its smarter to split the drive into smaller partitions?

my thinking is that if i have, let's say a 2TB drive and split it up into 4 partitions of 500gig yeah and then......'IF' the drive should fail i won't loose EVERYTHING but only that one partition that failed leaving the other partitions healthy and usable????

does that make any sense and more importantly, is that possible? or if a drive fails, everything is LOST

Springy182 · 07-03-2009, 09:02 PM

Partitioning into smaller chunks is a grey area

On the one hand if part of the platter gets scratched, it'll only affect the partition that was assigned that region of the drive

On the other hand if something happens to the PCB or if it no longer spins, then partitioning wont matter for much

Personally I've had scorched PCBs, drives that no longer spin up, and times when parts of the drive are no longer functioning, it's up to you

**johnb35** · 07-03-2009, 09:23 PM

The time it would take to format a 2TB drive would be about a day. I would rather partition it into like 3 partitions. A 50 gb for windows and programs, and 2 data partitions.

Twist86 · 07-03-2009, 09:35 PM

Doubt that...took me 1 hour to format and install Vista on a 500GB so around 4 hours or so.

**johnb35** · 07-03-2009, 09:36 PM

I was overexaggerating a little bit. lol Just meaning that I have more important things to do besides waiting that long for a drive to format.

07-03-2009, 01:15 PM	#1 (permalink)
liquidmonkey Silver Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 165	large HDD's and multiple partitions question??? am just wondering with HDD's getting so massive in size these days (1TB and 2TB internal drives) if its smarter to split the drive into smaller partitions? my thinking is that if i have, let's say a 2TB drive and split it up into 4 partitions of 500gig yeah and then......'IF' the drive should fail i won't loose EVERYTHING but only that one partition that failed leaving the other partitions healthy and usable???? does that make any sense and more importantly, is that possible? or if a drive fails, everything is LOST __________________ VISTA Ultimate SP2 64bit 2 x 24" LG Monitors Intel Core i7 920 with Xigmatek HDT-S1283 ASUS P6T WS PRO 12gigs of OCZ Gold XTC Triple Channel 6x2gig DDR3 1333MHz PC12800 XFX Nvidia GTX 260 core 216 Corsair TX750W Cooler Master 690 HDD Total = 4.5 TB

07-03-2009, 09:02 PM	#2 (permalink)
Springy182 Gold Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Canada Posts: 300	Partitioning into smaller chunks is a grey area On the one hand if part of the platter gets scratched, it'll only affect the partition that was assigned that region of the drive On the other hand if something happens to the PCB or if it no longer spins, then partitioning wont matter for much Personally I've had scorched PCBs, drives that no longer spin up, and times when parts of the drive are no longer functioning, it's up to you __________________ CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 3400MHz 1.25V RAM: OCZ Reaper 4GB DDR2 1066MHz 5-5-5-15 2.1V HDDs: SATA 1000GB Samsung, SATA 500GB 750GB Seagate, IDE 500GB PSU: 600W OCZ StealthXStream ODD: LG SATA DVDRW GPU: EVGA 9800GT (Dual slot) 750-1875-2000 Mobo: EVGA 780i SLI "FTW" Case: Coolermaster NV-690 (NVidia Edition)

07-03-2009, 09:23 PM	#3 (permalink)
johnb35 Moderator Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Near Joliet Illinois Age: 39 Posts: 3,612	The time it would take to format a 2TB drive would be about a day. I would rather partition it into like 3 partitions. A 50 gb for windows and programs, and 2 data partitions. __________________ Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R CPU - E8400 Memory - 2GB Corsair XMS2 (2x 1gb) Graphics - ATI HD3870 Hard Drives - 250GB Seagate DVD Drive - Lite-On DVD Burner - Lite-On Power Supply - Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W 22" Acer widescreen AL2216WBD

07-03-2009, 09:35 PM	#4 (permalink)
Twist86 Diamond Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Missouri Age: 23 Posts: 2,321	Doubt that...took me 1 hour to format and install Vista on a 500GB so around 4 hours or so. __________________ Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 400x8- 3.2ghz / XFX GTX 260 868mb 192 Core 2x2GB G-skill PC6400 DDR2 800 / Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 (rev. 1.0) / TX750w Corsair PSU Antec 900 Case / 1680x1050 Acer X223W 22'' Logitech S-220 Speakers / Windows 7 Ultimate x64

07-03-2009, 09:36 PM	#5 (permalink)
johnb35 Moderator Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Near Joliet Illinois Age: 39 Posts: 3,612	I was overexaggerating a little bit. lol Just meaning that I have more important things to do besides waiting that long for a drive to format. __________________ Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R CPU - E8400 Memory - 2GB Corsair XMS2 (2x 1gb) Graphics - ATI HD3870 Hard Drives - 250GB Seagate DVD Drive - Lite-On DVD Burner - Lite-On Power Supply - Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W 22" Acer widescreen AL2216WBD

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