Best partitions for app and library?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
mbenigni
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Best partitions for app and library?

Post by mbenigni » Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:36 pm

OK I just clobbered my laptop trying to do an HDD upgrade, and this is my opportunity to do a few things the right way. I've set up the new drive with two partitions, and I'd like a recommendation:

Should I put Live on the OS partition and the Library on the secondary?
Or should I put both the application AND the Library on the secondary?
Or should the VSTs and audio folders be kept separate?
Or does it matter at all these days?

Thanks for any quick feedback you can provide, I'll probably be spinning this up in about an hour.

longjohns
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Post by longjohns » Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:58 pm

personally I would not partition a drive

if you plan on doing some cloning of the system for backup reasons, then maybe it would be helpful

I've just always gotten burned down the road - "why would I ever need a system partition bigger than 20G?" :(

gomi
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Re: Best partitions for app and library?

Post by gomi » Wed Apr 16, 2008 4:41 pm

mbenigni wrote:OK I just clobbered my laptop trying to do an HDD upgrade, and this is my opportunity to do a few things the right way. I've set up the new drive with two partitions, and I'd like a recommendation:

Should I put Live on the OS partition and the Library on the secondary?
Or should I put both the application AND the Library on the secondary?
Or should the VSTs and audio folders be kept separate?
Or does it matter at all these days?

Thanks for any quick feedback you can provide, I'll probably be spinning this up in about an hour.

uh partitions are still on the same drive. so it wont matter.
your platter heads will still have to jump around like mad.

mbenigni
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Post by mbenigni » Wed Apr 16, 2008 5:05 pm

I understand that the performance gains will be small compared with those seen from two independent drives and controllers, but I have always read that it's still beneficial to keep your streaming audio on a separate partition - if for no other reason, than to help with ongoing fragmentation.

So, any other opinions?

mbenigni
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Post by mbenigni » Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:26 pm

Well, gomi, you talked me out of it. I used Partition Magic and went back to one monster partition. :)

If for no better reason, it will be one less thing to have to think about everytime I install an application, a VST, a VSTi, a sample library, etc.

adventurepants_
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Post by adventurepants_ » Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:44 pm

fragmentation really isnt the issue it was a few years ago.

the only compelling reason i have to partition a drive these days is for easy imaging. cut the drive into a 20gb windows partition, and the rest for everything else.

install everything to the second partition, and take an image of the windows drive. then if windows shits itself, im back up and running with licenced installations of everything in about 10 minutes.

Tone Deft
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Post by Tone Deft » Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:49 pm

IMO 2 drives is a great solution. apps on one, data on the other.

- only backup the data drive, copy data to a new drive and store the old drive away as a backup

- don't need to move data AND OS when changing/fixing the OS

- if one drive fails you don't lose it all

- less activity on each drive


lots of reasons
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
-Moz

Alexis Forge
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Post by Alexis Forge » Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:36 pm

adventurepants_ wrote:fragmentation really isnt the issue it was a few years ago.

the only compelling reason i have to partition a drive these days is for easy imaging. cut the drive into a 20gb windows partition, and the rest for everything else.

install everything to the second partition, and take an image of the windows drive. then if windows shits itself, im back up and running with licenced installations of everything in about 10 minutes.
what do you use to image it?

adventurepants_
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Post by adventurepants_ » Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:39 pm

partition magic.

doc holiday
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Post by doc holiday » Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:41 pm

mbenigni wrote:I understand that the performance gains will be small
You will get no performance gains by partitioning your HD, this is a myth.

Tarekith
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Post by Tarekith » Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:16 am

doc holiday wrote:You will get no performance gains by partitioning your HD, this is a myth.
Not neccesarily. Because the outer portion of a HD (ie, the first partition) passes more sectors under the read head per revolution, it's actually possible to steam more data if it's confined to the first partition. I've heard up to 30% more even. The key is to keep this partition small enough to get that benefit, but large enough to be useable for real audio work. On OSX it's simple to set up the first partition as an audio data drive, less so on XP which likes to have the OS installed in the first partition most of the time.

Personally, I have a 7GB partition as my first on my MBP laptop, and this is where I store projects I'm currently working on, new songs and all that. Though, it's more a safety measure I guess, I also used to use one large OS and data partition on my last laptop. That only had a 4200 RPM drive and I never had any issues there.
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doc holiday
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Post by doc holiday » Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:49 am

just because you partition your drive does not mean you are confining data to a specific area on the drive. the drive is seeking just as much either way

Tarekith
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Post by Tarekith » Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:07 am

Sure it does, drives are always assigned partitions from the outside in, thus the first partition will always be on the outermost portion of the drive. They are not arbitrary data sectors or merely a management function of the OS. Yes the read head still has to seek the data, but on the outermost portion of the HD you have so many more sectors passing under the read head per revolution that it's much more efficient in streaming as much data as possible per revolution.

I'm not saying people will see a huge difference, just that if you're running into disk overload issues, it's one way to minimize those.
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misteron
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Post by misteron » Wed Apr 23, 2008 2:21 am

This is a very helpful article on partitioning
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may05/a ... sician.htm
@doc holiday: I (and this article) backup Tarekith's point re the outermost partition, you may have been mislead on the subject.

doc holiday
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Post by doc holiday » Wed Apr 23, 2008 2:05 pm

i hate arguing stupid stuff on the internet, this is why i haven't been back to make a point.

this is a myth, sure you can read it in books, but it simply isn't true.
if you want to see a performance increase you need to use two harddrives.
dealing with data ends up being my line of work, so i really am speaking from experience

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