Disk Partitioning

Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance And Organization, Even For Today's Casual PC User By Max Lyadvinsky Director of Engineering Acronis, Inc Imagine a pie with each slice a different flavor and you could create a new slice or change an existing slice at will. That, essentially, is how disk partitioning works - adding, resizing and copying slices of the pie. When disk drives were low capacity and software tended to be stable, few everyday PC users thought about disk partitions; a single disk drive served its purpose. Today, it is not uncommon to see 80GB or 120GB disk drives on retail PCs. Software tends to consume considerable disk space and daily patches and upgrades are relatively common. The rules have changed, and as a result, more users are partitioning their drives for convenience, better organization and speed. From a performance perspective, multiple disk partitions let you manage disk operations more efficiently, resulting in faster backups of data, imaging of disk drive partitions, defragmenting drives, and quicker access to user data. Partitioning a disk drive allows you to place program data - information that changes infrequently - on one partition and the user data - data that constantly is in flux - on a separate partition. Multiple drive partitions also are useful to those who run more than one operating systems on a single computer. Rather than buying additional disk drives and increasing hardware expenses and system overhead, separate partitions on the same drive allows the user to test a new operating system without putting their existing data at risk. From gamers and programmers and average PC users to experts, everyone is finding new ways to add efficiencies to their computers by partitioning their giant hard disk drives. In the past, repartitioning a hard disk was neither easy nor fast. In fact, it was confusing, complex and put your data at risk. You had to be a computer whiz to complete the multitask process without loosing any data and getting all of your programs to run correctly. Essentially, you had two choices. One was to use the software included in the operating system - a program that dates back to the early days of DOS called FDISK. If you chose this option, it meant deleting all of the data from your hard disk and basically starting over from scratch! It's hard. It's time-consuming. It takes a great deal of patience and time to do the task, and there's a lot that can go wrong. Before you reinstall your software, make sure to collect all of your original program disks, patches, upgrades and the like. Each program needs to be reconfigured with your preferences and settings and, then you need to restore all of your backed-up data to the drive. You did remember to back up everything, didn't you? If you didn't, it's lost forever. The other choice was buying a third-party program that was hard to use, had a confusing and intimidating user interface, and was also based on aging technology. It was the worst of both worlds. Today, even the most inexperienced user can successfully resize a partition, change the amount of free space on a disk and create a new partition. Acronis PartitionExpert 2003 uses task-based wizards that make these possible, stepping users through the process in such a way that they cannot loose data or damage their drives. Experienced users understand that a misstep in defining a partition as the Primary, Logical or Extended partition, or accidentally changing a file system or sector size, can result in lost data or creating a non-bootable drive. Inexperienced users or those without technical training can use Acronis PartitionExpert's automated mode that insulates them from technology; it simply asks them what they want to do and helps them do that task. Of course, if you have the expertise, you can opt for Acronis PartitionExpert's manual mode that puts the full power of the program at your fingertips. Organize Your Thoughts It's one thing to explain how partitioning works; let's look at how it might be used in a real-world situation. Imagine that you just treated yourself to a brand new computer that has one of the mega hard drives - 120 GB. Normally the disk drive would be partitioned and formatted as a single C drive. You could leave it that way, but over time, files on that disk will become fragmented and slow down your system's performance. If you decide to run the disk defragment utility, the task likely will run for hours, even with a fast CPU. Remember, 120GB is an awful lot of real estate and these programs look at every part of the disk. However, if the you created a separate partition - also called a logical drive or disk volume - just for your data - let's say a 30GB partition - you will reduce the time that the system will be out of service significantly. Remember that even though part of that 120GB drive will be empty, defragmenting software still will look at every sector to make sure there's no data there that's out of place. Also, since you put the data on a separate disk partition that looks like an additional disk drive to the computer, only the data on that one partition will be defragmented. If the user made four 30GB drives, they could put their video files or MP3 on the third partition and maybe even their kid's games on the fourth. These file tend to be read-only, so once that partition is optimized, it stays that way. From a purely organizational standpoint, organizing a drive for different uses, such as system files, data files, video files and MP3 files, makes it easier to find the file you need. You also might consider partitioning a disk if more than one person uses that system, such as a computer used by mom and dad for the family accounting programs and by the kids for their games - or vice versa. Creating several partitions also is a useful for those who create a back-up of their system partition. Security is another reason why you might want to keep your data and system files separate. Let's say you partitioned your disk drive so that your system and application files are drive C and your data on logical drive D. Should your C drive fail due to a corrupted file, for example, your data would still be safe. To recap, today's giant hard drives are putting the onus of information and disk management into your hands, regardless of whether you are an average PC user or a highly skilled user. Being able to repartition a hard disk is becoming almost a required skill - even if your home IT manager doubles as homemaker, teacher or fourth-grade student. Flexibility, organizational capability and speed are the names of the game and the product that ties it all together will be the one that wins the hearts and minds of systems managers everywhere. So whether you use your computer for finding the latest recipes from Emeril Lagasse for a Savory Leek and Apple Wood Bacon Tart or trying to close out your company's latest quarterly statement, you'll find that knowing how to organize your data with disk partitioning could indeed make your life much more organized.