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Partioning Speeds Up Computer?


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If I partition my hard drive into mainly 4 drives for xp on one partition, programs on another, games on another, and downloading on another would that increase the speed of my system at all? I have a seagate 120 gig. If so what program should i partition with and how big to make each partition for? Recommendation welcomed. Thanks!

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I can't give you specific numbers, throughput, or percentages, but I think you would notice a little difference in speed over time - but not immediately. If nothing else, it may help some with organization and backups,

 

The main reason it wouldn't really be faster is that all the data is still on the same physical drive, and the game/program/etc read/write operations would still be competing for time with the OS. One of the bigger reasons for noticing system slowdown is when the hard drive gets severely fragmented; if you keep all of your regularly changing data in one virtual drive, it would significantly reduce the fragmentation of the rest of the drives. So accessing it would (in theory) would be more efficient. So I think that over time, it's not really a case of being faster, just that it wouldn't have slowed down as much as it could have.

 

Overall, now that I've babbled a bit, I think it's probably more trouble than it's worth if all you want is a small performance increase.

 

Also, making sure your hdd and dvd/cd are on different channels. Try to make sure Windows isn't running services you don't need. Etc. Naturally, this is assuming that you are running hardware that you aren't expecting too much from...

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All that makes sense. I do defragment and am aware of most good xp tweaks, so I see partitioning the drive would do nothing to help performance. Now if I got another hard drive it seems that if I split the OS and programs it would help? Do you think that if had the money to do that it would be worth it?

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i have heard that putting the OS on a completely different drive can significantly increase performance. I suppose you would only need a smallish drive to put the OS on, so might be worth a go.

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or put the files that u dl like music and just random files that u use alot or move around alot on one drive and your games, os and programs on another. I have seen a small but noticable speed differnce after i did that.

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Doesn't really speed things up per say, but I know that for me it keeps things a hell of alot more organised. This probably means that indirectly it does help with performance, you just have to keep a clean and tidy computer.

As for programs, I'm with crash on the PM recommendation.

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Guest FxXP

Everytime I have used Partition Magic, it has corrupted my files time and time again. It is not something that I would personally use with XP.

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I have my installs/os on my first drive, images on the second, and misc. storage on the third. It works much better than a single large drive would.

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