Partitioning

[Malganis]

I have 1 Hitachi Deskstar 7K250, as C: drive. That's it, no other partitions. Just 1 drive. Now about a week ago, I saw a post that said something about if you partition the drive to big, the smaller files will still take up allot of space, so I'm actually wasting space by just using 1 partition on such a big drive. Is that true?

If I want to add more drives later, like.. another 250GB. Is it smart to merge the two together to form a 500GB drive, if it is, how? And if it's not, how do I partition it then?

The reason I only made 1 disk, is because when I download something to my desktop, I don't want to copy the file to another disk again, wasting time.

I also heard that with allot of copying, you can actually make the drive slower if you do it allot. Not noticable, but over a longer period of time. What of this is true?

 

[mscott00]

I've never heard that about using partitions / not using partitions will affect the amount of actual disk space you use. If anything I would imagine it only using a few bits of space.. Anyways, to partition drives you can Right click on my computer and select Manage. In there you have the tools to rename, partition, merge, etc. etc. all of your drives.

 

[Malganis]

Ok. Thanks. BTW, has anybody ever used Partition Magic? I hear it's a very good piece of software that (almost) never fails.

I ask this because I simply don't trust M$'s partition tools.

 

[Tedster]

yes. I have it and used it several times. Works great. Worth the $, I got mine off of ebay for a lot less than retail.

 

[Rick]

I'd recommend Acronis Partition Expert or Disk Director instead of PM. I've had many good experiences (and no bad ones) with PE and DD, where I have pretty mixed results with PM.

The Acronis programs are also more intuitive, support more useful features and have been very reliable for me for a variety of platforms.