Why partition large HDD?

[VectraMan]

Run for more than 24 hours without crashing. Yes, I know that your instance has run since forever with no problems - great. Mine did not, both on XP 64bit and Windows 7 64bit.

And you clearly had a hardware/driver problem. It's not that one instance for me; I have a Windows dekstop and laptop that run forever without crashing, as has every Windows machine I've used professionally every working day for the last 17 years as supplied by various clients and employers (mostly Dells it has to be said - unreliable cheap crap according to some).

The only time I've ever had Windows crashing regularly in that time was whilst remote debugging C++ in Borland C++ 3.5 (that's the DOS based version) on Windows 3.1. That takes me back.

[TheFaQQer]

And you clearly had a hardware/driver problem.

There was obviously a software problem, as the same hardware works fine on a different OS. Having been through a large number of crash logs, and got nowhere with it, I decided that I would try a different operating system, which I am very happy with. If I could have solved the problem under Windows, then no doubt I would be running Windows with a Linux virtual machine since I need to use both.

Windows kept telling me that everything was fine, though - I disabled hardware, I disabled services, I checked every driver, and throughout the whole process the only indicator that something wasn't quite right was that it kept crashing. There was nothing sophisticated plugged in (Epson scanner, 2x ATI video cards, 3x HDD in a RAID array, 3 monitors) - sometimes the PC would crash when it was doing something, sometimes when it was doing nothing but was switched on.

I need to run something in a virtual machine - either I had Windows running as the main OS and I run Linux in a VM, or the other way round. I have Oracle eBusiness Suite Release 12.1.1 running on Linux - to connect the Windows based development tools, I need to be running Windows and Linux concurrently.

So, I went with the OS that didn't crash on my hardware, with the one that did in a VM.

[Spacecadet]

There was obviously a software problem, as the same hardware works fine on a different OS.

The different OS might not be utilising the bit of hardware which has the problem

[stek]

Maybe, but you're talking about a very different type of system that isn't relevant to 99% of users, or even 99% of businesses. GUI bloat on a hosted webserver sitting idle 99% of the time makes no practical difference whatsoever, whereas having to employ a team of geeks to configure a command line Linux system does make a difference.

Point taken. I was assuming we where talking about this from a professional POV, not home use, my bad...

[SuperZ]

Depending on the disk format used, multiple partitions may have smaller block(or is it cluster?) sizes so will be able to store more on the disk.

I believe the outer part of the disk is faster/has faster access times which gets worse towards the centre of the disk. It can be good practice to have the first partition as the OS partition but keep it as small as possible (<32gb for XP for example). The next partition to be used for the pagefile and also temporary file access area. A third parition can be used for Programs (Program Files). I think there is a max of 3 paritions allowed but if 4 are allowed the last one should be used for data storage. If not, the best option is to have a seperate disk for data storage. I think the main reason large drives tend to be faster than small drives of the same model/type is because they use multiple disk platters, so there are more fast areas of the disk (more outer areas) so the average speed is faster than when using a single platter disk (as is the case with a small drive).

So, with the above format the OS is on the fastest part of the disk. THe pagefile will be one continous file on the next partition along with temporary files/temporary internet files. Program files are on another parition, so if you do have to rebuild the OS some programs will already exist (assuming they don't need installing) and you will also know which programs to reinstall. And data is kept entirely seperate on either the last partition or another disk so the average .

With a SSD drive there is no need to partition as the speed is the same for all stored data.