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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J.P.Campbell who wrote (5916)	9/25/1999 12:00:00 PM
From: PMS Witch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110652

Partition sizes ... I'm assuming a FAT32 Win98 system. Everyone's needs vary, but here's what I did. I put Win98 and Office stuff on C:, development and daily work stuff on D: and I use E: to hold Drive Image copies of C: and D: as well as daily backups. I have 6g divided 3gig, 200meg, 3gig. I don't know if you want to devote a partition for backups or not at this time, but after your first major crash, I'm sure you'll give it some serious thought. Size considerations ... I've set my E: and C: sizes the same. Since backups are compressed to half the original, E: will hold two images of C:, but more if C: is less than full. Since I had a good idea of my needs for D:, I decided on its size first and divided the remaining space between C: and E:. My system has a large number of small files. I wanted to take full advantage of FAT32, so I picked the smallest cluster size available for the disk size. With large files this is less efficient as the FAT must be consulted more, but with small files I have less wasted space. I have 4K clusters, even though 8K clusters are recommended in most cases. For my partition size, (3g) cluster sizes can range from 4K to 64K, but the smallest and largest sizes aren't recommended for most users. Partition Magic lets me set these values. If you use FDISK, you'll get the default sizes. CD files, photo, and video files are often quite large. You may wish to select a larger cluster size, say 16-32K, or you may choose an 8K cluster for C: and a larger cluster for your data partition. The number and size depends on how you work. Without taking a close look at what you do, I'd guess the partitions at 3G for Win98 and stuff; 2G for photo, video and CD stuff, and 3G for system recovery (backup) stuff. Programs like Partition Magic allow you to change your mind painlessly once you have a better idea about how you work. Hope this helps, PW.