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partitioning first time - checklist (cleaning, backup, tools, etc)

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MilesAhead:
Steven I don't get what you mean to "dual disk placement" but afa the data on a separate partition of the same physical drive, esp. for db access, that's pretty much a formula for thrashing.  A separate physical disk avoids that since you have 2 disk head mechanisms seeking independently.  Even if you have enough ram to run with no swap, executables also get paged in, so that provokes jumping back and forth to fetch some code, fetch some data etc..

Separate partitions look neater but actually the more you fence stuff off the more work you make for the drive.  Better to clump all you can near the outer edge of whatever partition holds the code.

tomos:
summary of a thread in Radified forum (a thread which mysteriously disappeared so I'll post it here)

Here's how I partitioned a new pc, late 2007.
I include all the details mainly because I got very detailed instructions on using GParted (on a Parted Magic CD) which I post below in the spoiler - they got me - who hadnt a clue about this type of thing through it, so ...
:)

2 x 320 GB drives (new, empty drives)
HDD 1
C: OS/programmes (Primary active: 29GB)
[D: Hidden Primary - 5GB original idea was for possible second stripped down XP install. I haven't used it..]
E: Some app related Data, Portable installs, Downloads, etc. (50 GB)
F: Data (the rest = 215 GB)HDD 2 (no primary partitions)
G: TEMP Folders & Paging file (FAT32: 19 GB)
H: Photos etc (181 GB)
I: For Backup & OS.images (the rest = 97 GB)
Sizes are a bit odd in GB's cause originally set in MB's - but also a certain amount gets "lost" somewhere - of course it may even be lost already when you get the disk in the first place, I cant rmemeber any more)

Here's the specific instructions I got (from Brian at the Radified forum: copy of same in spoiler)
These were for GParted 0.3.4 on a Parted Magic 1.8. CD
gparted instructionsAfter you boot to the CD and GParted loads you will see a dropdown menu at the top right. This is for selecting your HDs.....
/dev/hda and /dev/hdb (first and second HD). Make sure you know which one you are altering.

If you make a mistake, the Undo button will get you out of trouble. If you create an incorrect partition, delete it and redo the step.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your first HD should be all unallocated space.


Let's start on the first primary partition.
Right click in the unallocated space and click New
Make the New Size 30,000 MB, create as Primary partition, File system NTFS
Click Add, click Apply, confirm Apply, click Close
Right click in the new partition rectangle and click Manage Flags. Put a tick in "boot". Click Close


Now for the second Primary partition.
Right click in the unallocated space and click New
Make the New Size 5,000 MB, create as Primary partition, File system NTFS
Click Add, click Apply, confirm Apply, click Close
Right click in the new partition rectangle and click Manage Flags. Put a tick in "hidden". Click Close


Now for the Extended partition.
Right click in the unallocated space and click New
Create as Extended partition. Leave everything else alone
Click Add, click Apply, confirm Apply, click Close
Right click in the new extended partition rectangle and click Manage Flags. Put a tick in "lba". Click Close


Now for the first Logical volume.
Right click in the unallocated space in the extended partition and click New
Make the New Size 50,000 MB, create as Logical partition, File system NTFS
Click Add, click Apply, confirm Apply, click Close


Now for the final Logical volume.
Right click in the unallocated space in the extended partition and click New
Leave the New Size alone, create as Logical partition, File system NTFS
Click Add, click Apply, confirm Apply, click Close


That completes the first HD.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Select the second HD. It should be all unallocated space.


Let's start on the Extended partition.
Right click in the unallocated space and click New
Create as Extended partition. Leave everything else alone
Click Add, click Apply, confirm Apply, click Close
Right click in the new extended partition rectangle and click Manage Flags. Put a tick in "lba". Click Close


Now for the first logical volume. The Page File partition.
Right click in the unallocated space in the extended partition and click New
Make the New Size 20,000 MB, create as Logical partition, File system FAT32
Click Add, click Apply, confirm Apply, click Close


Now for the next Logical volume.
Right click in the unallocated space in the extended partition and click New
Make the New Size 200,000 MB, create as Logical partition, File system NTFS
Click Add, click Apply, confirm Apply, click Close


Now for the final Logical volume.
Right click in the unallocated space in the extended partition and click New
Leave the New Size alone, create as Logical partition, File system NTFS
Click Add, click Apply, confirm Apply, click Close

Exit Parted Magic.

We have created an active primary partition on the first HD. WinXP will be installed to this partition. All you need to do now is boot to the WinXP CD and choose this partition. The second partition will remain hidden until you are ready for a dual boot at some stage in the future.
After WinXP has been installed go to Disk Management and give each partition an appropriate label for easy recognition in the future.

tomos:
Aside from OS considerations, registry etc.. if you have a gulf between executables and data on the same physical drive you can get thrashing.
-MilesAhead (April 06, 2009, 11:46 AM)
--- End quote ---
you're making me rethink my organisation :) to this:-

Disk 1
# OS Partition
# Backup of Disk 2

Disk 2
# Page/Temp partition
# Data
# Images of OS partition

seeing as (good) backup involves seperate disks or seperate partitions at least - why shouldn't backup go on the OS drive if the space is there.
I know in an ideal world it should be on a third disk - which would really mean getting a smaller disk for OS - have to check see how many drives I can add to this machine ...
although I guess the really ideally could be

Drive: OS
Drive: Data
Drive: Page/Temp
Drive: Backup)                           

but that's going to wait a while ;)

40hz:
40hz, I was planning to try Parted Magic (two places above you call it "Partition Magic" .. another product)  as the super-GParted, so thanks for the thread reference, I am leaning in that direction rather than an XP-begun method.
-Steven Avery (April 06, 2009, 01:21 PM)
--- End quote ---

Thanks for pointing out my error. I edited the original post to correct the mistake.

Additional note: If you're going to be formatting a lot of partitions on a raw drive, Parted Magic will do it a lot more quickly than Windows will.

I do agree that two OS sharing a data partition is not something to do lightly. However as a test for some small SQL-database-type app it could be rather fascinating.
-Steven Avery (April 06, 2009, 01:21 PM)
--- End quote ---

Been there, done that. For Ubuntu, I'd suggest sticking to a FAT formatted partition - which isn't very efficient. I still wouldn't completely trust the NTFS RW support in Linux for anything super important.

Just my 2¢

---

Also, always put your pagefile/swapfile on your fastest drive whenever possible (for obvious reasons). Or better yet, add more RAM if you can. :Thmbsup:

MilesAhead:
Also, always put your pagefile/swapfile on your fastest drive whenever possible (for obvious reasons). Or better yet, add more RAM if you can
-40hz (April 06, 2009, 02:22 PM)
--- End quote ---

One of the fun things about Linux is you can turn swap on and off without rebooting.  The only machine I had with 2 physical drives, unfortunately one was a lot faster than the other.  Still with Linux I could experiment with the swapping strategy.  I found that even though the slow drive was a lot slower, having a swap partition on the fast drive and the slow drive and using round robin swap, smoothed out the primary drive quite a bit.  I didn't really get any speed increase, but it cut way down on seeks on the primary drive.  One "advantage" about having a really slow machine(at that time a 486 with 12.5 MHz bus and 16 MB ram) was I didn't really need to run benchmarks.  The thing was so slow that any effective optimization was both audible and visible!! :)

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