New hard drive question at DVinfo.net

Bruce Phung · November 25th, 2010, 05:12 PM

I just ordered 2 1.5tb internal hard drive for use mainly for master video storage. Both drives will have the same master video in case one is dead. My question is should I partition the drive or just format to one big one NTFS. I appreciated if you can share your thought.

Adam Stanislav · November 25th, 2010, 07:12 PM

Why would you want to partition it? Each partition takes away some available space. Also, suppose you want to save a 10 gigabyte file and you have 9 gigabytes left on each partition. If you did not have it partitioned, you would have at least 18 gigabytes available and could save the file.

The main reason partitions were invented was that older operating systems had a limit on how big a drive they could handle, so when a disk was too big, it was partitioned into two (or more) smaller partitions that the OS could handle.

But nowadays this problem does not exist anymore. I certainly have a 2 TB drive and Windows can access the entire drive. So why partition it?

Now, there still could be reasons to partition a drive even today. Specifically, if you wanted to boot different operating systems at different times, each would require a separate partition (or drive) to boot from. So, unless you wanted to dedicate an entire drive to each, partitioning is the way to go. But other than that, it is generally completely unnecessary.

Bruce Phung · November 25th, 2010, 07:30 PM

Adam,

Thanks for the information. I am glad I ask this question.

Adam Stanislav · November 25th, 2010, 09:01 PM

You're most welcome.

Ed Roo · November 26th, 2010, 07:46 PM

Before you begin using those new drives, consider purchasing a copy of SpinRite by Steve Gibson of grc.com (Gibson Research Corporation). US $89, download and burn a CD or install on a USB flash drive. This is both a maintenance and a recovery application. In maintenance mode, it scans you hard drive for bad sectors and moves your data to known good sectors. In recovery mode, it will repeatedly scan a bad sector until it recovers the data if it is recoverable.

Personally, SpinRite ran for 23 days on a laptop I had whose drive would not boot and was presenting an imminent failure error message. It successfully restored the disk to bootable condition and recovered my data files.

It has been reported that someone wanted to see how long SpinRite would work on a bad hard drive until it reported it was finished recovering the drive data. It ran for three months without stopping.

I just installed a 1 TB 7200 RPM Seagate SATA drive as second drive in my windows XP to be used for video storage and editing. SpinRite is reporting 24h 37m to scan the drive in the maintenance mode. I run SpinRite every three months in maintenance mode on my master drive.

November 25th, 2010, 05:12 PM	#1
Bruce Phung Major Player Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Rochester,NY USA Posts: 285	New hard drive question I just ordered 2 1.5tb internal hard drive for use mainly for master video storage. Both drives will have the same master video in case one is dead. My question is should I partition the drive or just format to one big one NTFS. I appreciated if you can share your thought.

November 25th, 2010, 07:12 PM	#2
Adam Stanislav Trustee Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Rhinelander, WI Posts: 1,258	Why would you want to partition it? Each partition takes away some available space. Also, suppose you want to save a 10 gigabyte file and you have 9 gigabytes left on each partition. If you did not have it partitioned, you would have at least 18 gigabytes available and could save the file. The main reason partitions were invented was that older operating systems had a limit on how big a drive they could handle, so when a disk was too big, it was partitioned into two (or more) smaller partitions that the OS could handle. But nowadays this problem does not exist anymore. I certainly have a 2 TB drive and Windows can access the entire drive. So why partition it? Now, there still could be reasons to partition a drive even today. Specifically, if you wanted to boot different operating systems at different times, each would require a separate partition (or drive) to boot from. So, unless you wanted to dedicate an entire drive to each, partitioning is the way to go. But other than that, it is generally completely unnecessary.

November 25th, 2010, 07:30 PM	#3
Bruce Phung Major Player Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Rochester,NY USA Posts: 285	Adam, Thanks for the information. I am glad I ask this question.

November 25th, 2010, 09:01 PM	#4
Adam Stanislav Trustee Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Rhinelander, WI Posts: 1,258	You're most welcome.

November 26th, 2010, 07:46 PM	#5
Ed Roo Major Player Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Columbus USA Posts: 312	Before you begin using those new drives, consider purchasing a copy of SpinRite by Steve Gibson of grc.com (Gibson Research Corporation). US $89, download and burn a CD or install on a USB flash drive. This is both a maintenance and a recovery application. In maintenance mode, it scans you hard drive for bad sectors and moves your data to known good sectors. In recovery mode, it will repeatedly scan a bad sector until it recovers the data if it is recoverable. Personally, SpinRite ran for 23 days on a laptop I had whose drive would not boot and was presenting an imminent failure error message. It successfully restored the disk to bootable condition and recovered my data files. It has been reported that someone wanted to see how long SpinRite would work on a bad hard drive until it reported it was finished recovering the drive data. It ran for three months without stopping. I just installed a 1 TB 7200 RPM Seagate SATA drive as second drive in my windows XP to be used for video storage and editing. SpinRite is reporting 24h 37m to scan the drive in the maintenance mode. I run SpinRite every three months in maintenance mode on my master drive.