Partitioning for Performance: Hitachi 7K500 Benchmark Setup Specifics

[tilleroftheearth]

This link lists the major threads/posts I've made with my Hitachi 7K500 upgrade:
So many tests, so little time...


Caution! Long post ahead! Bring coffee, bring food - ack! Bring blankets and sunscreen, but please continue reading, and thanks!

What this thread will concentrate on is my partitioning strategy to keep the performance of my notebook at peak performance as long (and as easily) as possible.

This partitioning strategy takes into account that I use PerfectDisk as my defragging software of choice because of the real and measurable benefits it offers.

Please click the link above to follow the thread of why I know PD is effective at what it claims to do: to not only offer real increased performance benefits to mechanical HD's, but to also significantly stop the re-fragmenting of files as we use our systems over time.

(It does this by placing files on the HD according to how often they are modified, with the most modified placed second last, just before the partition's directory entries).


So, on to my partitioning rationale based on a 500GB drive (465.76GB actual):

First, I had to consider the size of my 'default' install - including all software, tutorials, sample files, hibernation file and also make sure that I have some room to grow into too as newer and always bigger software packages become available and necessary for me.

Looking at my past few installations, I currently need around 65GB for my C: drive of used space. Taking into consideration that I don't want to worry about setting up this system again, to this degree of detail (unless I get an SSD, of course) for up to two years from now, I arrived at a 100GB C: drive partition size. This allows for expansion of any needed new or additional software, plus it gives Windows room to 'breathe'.

Technically, not Windows, per se, but the NTFS file system to be more precise. The more free space available, the faster the NTFS system operates because it doesn't have to search far for a contiguous block of free clusters to save our files to (as it tries very hard to do). Combined with PD as mentioned above, this will give us sustained, good/great performance for a very long time. At least as long as the two years I'm aiming for here.

(BTW, my previous C: drive partitions were 67GB - I outgrew that this past summer).

Thinking of the maximum amount of work I'll do at one time on the notebook, I came to the conclusion that a 64GB Temp partition would be optimum. This partition size will not change, unless the performance of my notebook changes (and only by changing to a better CPU or more RAM, if possible - but I already have max'd the RAM at 8GB already). Since I know I will never change my notebook's CPU, I just had to see on my desktop what a 'lot' of work would be for the notebook and 64GB seems just right.

Note that I don't want to use all of the partition's capacity, I am actually estimating using about 60% at maximum workload (with most of it being temporary and the space will be reclaimed as I shut down each program that uses that partition as it's 'scratch space') and the rest is for the prevention of free space fragmentation, while I'm working.

This Temp partition will host my Downloads directory, the IE cache, PS CS4's Scratch disk, the windows Temporary pointers TMP and TEMP, and also all my other photo editing programs that allow me to use a specific disk as their 'scratch space'. I also move the pagefile here too and disable it for my C: drive partition and all other partitions.

This partition I change drive letters to 'T:' - for temp, of course - but also because I want C: 'first' in file explorer when I'm navigating drives in Windows.

What is accomplished with this Temp partition?

The key thing to remember is that this Temp partition is the first partition of the drive (well, next to the 100MB 'boot' partition Win 7 needs and creates automatically).

This will put and keep all working temp files and the pagefile (which is just a big temp file anyways) at the fastest part of the disk - always. This will also lessen the impact that free space fragmentation has on the Windows system files on our O/S partition (see the paragraph about NTFS, above). It does this by simply not writing all those temp files to the system drive.

What's next? Well, on each system, I keep an ISO of each important software I need - just in case I need to re-install it in the middle of nowhere and I don't want to be carrying my installation media with me wherever I go.

This I'll call my Recovery partition. We don't need speed for this partition, just sufficient space - so 45GB is good enough for now, but I'll make it 64GB to be sure I don't run out needlessly. This partition is the last partition of the drive (the slowest partition).

The remaining space is what will be my Data partition - I don't care how big this partition is (it is what it is), I just need it separate from my temp files, my O/S (so I can re-install Windows 7 if needed without worrying about losing data), and also so I know where to 'go' when I'm doing a search for a particular document or image I need pronto. This also simplifies backups as I only need to select a single directory and all my data gets backed up.

This Data partition would be pretty useless if I had to manually move my data over each time I was done with it. Or, if I had to always choose 'Computer', 'D: drive', 'Data', 'Today's Date', type the filename and then click save!

Thankfully, all we need to do in Win 7 (and Vista) to automatically save to our D: drive is:

Create a folder on D: drive - let's call it 'MYDATA', right click on it, select 'Properties', click on the 'Security' tab, Click 'Edit' then click on our computer's user name - you may need to scroll down the list to see it (lets say our user name is 'ED').

Now, with our user name selected in the top list, Click on the Full control checkbox in the bottom list. Select 'Apply' and 'OK' and close all remaining Properties windows.

Click into the MYDATA folder and then, open another instance of Computer. In the Computer window, click on C: drive, click on Users and finally click on your user name ('ED' in this example). Now, select all folders except Downloads and AppData (if you have show hidden folders turned on), right click and drag the selected folders into our MYDATA folder on D: drive. Release the mouse button and in the menu that appears, select 'Move here'.

In the MYDATA window, navigate to your T: drive, (Temp partition), right click the Downloads folder, drag it to the root of the T: drive (Temp partition), release the mouse button and select 'Move here'.

To be able to write to this folder, we must change permissions again:

Right click on the Downloads folder we just moved to root of our T: drive (Temp partition), select Properties, select the Security tab, select your user name and in the bottom window, click the Full Control checkbox. Select Apply, OK and close all the windows.

Okay, done!

We now have isolated our O/S and programs so that once PD optimizes them, they will stay that way for as long as possible. Very little temporary data is being written to on this partition, nor is any of our data being saved here. Strictly O/S and Apps.

Keep in mind that in our D: drive we will have not only our documents, videos, photos and music on their own partition, but also our desktop, our favourites, our saved searches and our saved games too. Everywhere where we would normally store our data is now in one location - D: drive, nice.

But, why are the Downloads on the same partition as where we have our environment Temp/TMP variables pointed to?

This is because Windows will always download to those Temp/TMP variables and then move the downloaded files to our Downloads directory. When these different directories are on the same partition as we have done here, then it is simply a matter of Windows changing a directory pointer and small and large files will be 'moved' between the folders instantly. If we were to have our Temp and Download folders on different partitions, small downloads may not bother us, but if we downloaded a large (GB sized) file, we would not only have to wait for the download, but then we would have to wait while Windows moves it from the Temp folder on one partition to the Downloads folder on another - with GB sized files (or even several hundred MB ones too) this process can be excruciatingly slow!

Instead, I put the Downloads folder on my Temp partition along with the other temp folders and this issue becomes moot. I also consider anything in the Downloads folder 'temporary' too - if it's really important - I'll move it to my Data partition ASAP.


So, let's summarize what we have accomplished:

T: 64GB - 2nd Partition of our HD
C: 100GB - 3rd Partition of our HD
D: 237GB - 4th Partition of our HD
E: 64GB - 5th Partition of our HD

(To change the Partition's Drive Letter, use Disk Management - right click on Computer, select Manage, select Disk Management).


Remember that the first partition is the 100MB partition Win 7 creates automatically when a clean install is performed.

When you're actually in Win 7 setup, you cannot create the partitions as shown above. In setup, we are limited to a total of 4 Primary Partitions (one of which is the 100MB boot partition) so how can we create this layout we see above?

Consider to totally wipe all partitions the first time you install Win 7 on a HD. Especially on an SSD, as Win 7 will automatically align the partitions for best performance.

Make sure you've saved your data elsewhere first!

In Windows setup, choose advanced install options and select each partition and click remove. Keep doing so until all partitions are removed and you are left with one single unallocated space the size of the drive.

If you do not remove all partitions (even a partition at the very end) Win 7 will not be able to align the partitions properly and an SSD especially, may suffer performance-wise for it. Just warning, is all.

On a brand new HD like the Hitachi 7K500 I just purchased, there are no partitions on it at all. So we can simply start creating them as we need.

First, we'll create our 64GB partition - this will be our T: or Temp drive when we're finished (after Win 7 is installed). When we create this partition, the 100MB boot partition is created automatically for us.

To create these first two partitions (one will be created automatically for us), click on the unallocated space, select new, now type in the size of the partition we want - for our first partition we want a 64GB size so we'll type in 65640. Why that number? Well, 64x1024=65536, now add 100MB for the 'boot' partition Win 7 makes (65636) and add a couple more MB's for each partition that will be created now (65636+2+2), so that Windows will report it as a full 64GB instead of 63.9GB (I hate 'off' numbers!).

Second, we create our 100GB O/S partition which will become our C: drive.

Use the above method to create this partition, but we only need to account for the single partition that is being created if we want a nice 'round' number like 100GB, so 100x1024=102400 and add 2 equals 102402.

Once we have created this partition, leave the rest of the drive as 'unallocated space' and making sure we've selected the 100GB partition, click Next in Windows 7 setup. This will install Windows and as long as we had the 100GB partition selected, it will become our C: drive.

After Windows is setup and booted to the desktop (and after our drivers are properly installed in the correct order), go to Disk Management.

First, we'll change the 2nd partitions drive letter to 'T'. Select the partition. Right click on the partition, select Change Drive Letter and Paths, Click Change and change it to 'T'.

Next, we'll select the unallocated space on our drive in Disk Management and right click on it. Select New Simple Partition and take that number you see in MB and subtract 65540 (64x1024=65536+2+2) from it. Enter that number and click next and next. This is now our 4th partition D: drive.

Finally, select the remaining unallocated space again, right click and select New Simple Partition and hit next and next. This is our Recovery partition located at the end of the drive.


Once set up like this and with PerfectDisk set to run once or twice a month, we are guaranteed that the single HD we are using now will continue to give peak performance with minimal intervention on our behalf, not only now - but well into the foreseeable future too.

We have reduced and almost totally eliminated the free space fragmentation that NTFS balks at on our O/S and Apps partition by eliminating the primary way that fragmentation occurs: temporary files (including our own data files that sometimes are, just temporary).

We have consolidated our data to a single directory which makes backups and searches more simple and direct.

We have made sure that the temp, pagefile, scratch locations and IE cache files are on the fastest part of the drive and by ensuring that our free space is much more than our temp file usage, we also further ensure that we are running at optimum speed while we are using our computer fully too.

We have forced ourselves to be diligent on our downloads - and to promptly save the 'good' ones ASAP to our D: data directory (or elsewhere). This is always a good thing!

We have also left room to grow, into.

Once we have done the 'thinking' as outlined above, the 'doing' is fairly straightforward. If I buy a new machine tomorrow, I don't have to rethink any of the above - as long as I use a mechanical HD with the same capacity or more, the 'data' partition size will change and possibly the 'temp' partition too (depending how powerful the notebook will be), but other than that - its a 'simple' install.

When the above is completed once, an O/S reinstall is a simple matter of formatting the 100GB C: partition in Win 7 setup and hitting next.

Your data will be there when you boot into the desktop for the first time - as long as you didn't touch the other partitions at the setup screen.

Some say that a clean install is a waste of time.

I say a clean install is an opportunity to really evaluate how efficiently the computer will be used and gives us a chance to apply it fully.

Some objections I can already foresee is that since the O/S is not at the beginning (fastest) part of the drive, we are actually losing performance - not gaining it.

I would say that with most HD's, the first 20% to 30% (in capacity) of a drive will give us the maximum performance they can offer. Whether we were at the beginning of the drive or at the end of the 30% mark.

With 465GB total capacity, the 164GB we are using for the Temp & O/S partitions is hitting 35% of the drive - but remember that that percentage is at the end of the 100GB partition and only if we had filled it all to capacity.

With the pagefile and almost all other temp files moved off the 100GB partition, we are using closer to only 1/2 of the 100GB partition. And, with data that is not normally changing. This brings us now to around 25% of actual used space (total) for the drive with the most needed (the temp files) exactly where they should be - at the beginning/fastest part of our drive.

In addition to all the other benefits, most important being keeping free space fragmentation to a minimum (which we are doing capably with this strategy above), not only do we have as much performance as a single HD setup can offer, but we can keep this high level of performance indefinitely (well, at least as long as our CPU is up to the tasks we demand of it, for a given amount of time).

Another objection I foresee is the questioning of the pagefile when I have 8GB of RAM. Simple: insurance and peace of mind. Also keep in mind that at the level this CPU is at (a P8400), a 512MB pagefile is all I need with the work I expect from the system at any given time. Another reason is that CS4 will warn you incessantly about this 'problem' every time you start certain programs.

One last issue raised may be that this is too much work. True, but anything worthwhile is worth doing right. Instead of reinstalling Windows every few months (XP anyone?) because the performance went downhill, I have enjoyed my last few systems until I'm ready to upgrade to the latest and greatest hardware. Also, as noted above previously, this 'work' is only done once - and you'll enjoy the benefits for much, much longer than the initial effort involved.

How effective is this strategy in actually giving performance as promised?

Well, lets just say that on the SSD thread, PS CS4 was mentioned that it takes 7 to 9 seconds for it to load - on a variety of 'high end' SSD's, including the venerable Intel G2 SSD. Scratching my head, I go off to check my notes... Yep, my Hitachi loads PS CS4 in 8 to 11 seconds, but also with 3 suites of plugins installed. Even my now 'old' Scorpio Blue loaded PS in comparable times to the stated times the SSD's take.

So, yes, I'm not only confident this is a real performance oriented partitioning strategy, I've also had independent 'confirmation' of it's strengths too. Importantly, this 'confirmation' is not from its peers, its actually from the next generation of storage tech, hmmmm....

There is a lot of information presented and I may have made an error or two in presenting it, but I hope that this gets everyone thinking about how truly optimizing a system will not only make it a much more enjoyable experience each time it is used, but also allow us to have the luxury of waiting for a real performance upgrade, because our systems will be just as capable tomorrow as they are today (assuming, of course, our computing needs don't change drastically overnight ).

Hope this will help in your quest for a fully optimized system. Cheers!

Thanks for reading.

[ellalan]

Thanks, it was very well written and useful.

[Destiny]

Somebody should make it a sticky

[tilleroftheearth]

Hey guys/gals, thanks for the comments. Much appreciated.

[davepermen]

so much work. and then dave comes in here and says "don't".

1 partition over the whole disk = the way the os is designed for (okay, win7 creates 2 partitions by default, one hidden). all system internal tools are designed around this setup, and work well in it.

the amount of work put into finding out if you gain a little in a different set up is bigger than the gain, most likely.

this is for single disk systems, anyways. multidisks are great for performance-load-balancing.

still, nice work. obviously.

[tilleroftheearth]

davepermen,

this is not a lot of work to do, even though it may have taken me almost 30 yrs to write about it - but implementing it is very worthwhile.

No O/S is 'designed' to be set up on the large capacity disks we have today, optimally, on a single partition. Even MS states this, for many years actually.

The 'work' that I did is that I kept partitioning C: drive smaller and smaller and while it was faster (had more 'snap'), that initial performance was much too quickly (sometimes in weeks) replaced by a substandard user experience that only a reformat/reinstall would 'cure' - for a while.

I then went the other way and quickly noticed that much over 20 - 30% of the size of the HD and performance would drop too - depending on what HD was used, sometimes this drop was drastic (relatively speaking). This is in direct contradiction to what you state and I'm still only using a portion of the HD - and not the entire capacity available, for the O/S to be able to see this performance drop.

When I read and realized why OS/X users (yes, I'm on Windows!) would be recommended a new HD just to make their computers acceptable (but not quicker; the free space fragmentation is very bad on OS/X) as they approached the maximum capacity of their HD's, I wondered if NTFS suffered from that too? It did! That is why my small partitions were starting off so fast, yet would act as if they were possessed after a few lengthy PS sessions (and the inevitable Crash/Blue Screen Of Death that Windows 2000 Professional/XP is so famous for).

Putting the 'ideals' of PerfectDisk together with the things I now knew above, it became clear that the method I propose in the 1st post here was the 'optimal' solution I had been looking for since I did my first install of Windows 1.0 in the summer of 1986(?).

Since PD 2000, defragging my HD's along with the methods outlined in post #1 has netted me many benefits, including the ability to skip a generation or two of so-called 'upgrades' because my systems were still providing the output I needed at the speed (more properly; throughput), I required. When I do make the jump to current technology, the changes are real, immediate and cost effective.

Not to repeat the other benefits in the first post again, but if anyone values a high level experience with their computers over time, then this method may be a wise time investment for them too.

BTW, Thank you for the 'still, nice work.'!

Cheers!

[davepermen]

in essense that's true. partition too small => system can't stay "ordered" well, resulting in quickly degrading performance. disk too big, and it get spread too much, resulting in not so quickly degrading performance.

still, in 2009, you fix that by buying an ssd, but you knew that ^^

there, the you only have to care about one thing: big enough (my current laptop would still fit nicely onto a 40gb intel btw, it would fill it at around 70% i still love to have a 160gb version instead.. )

[tilleroftheearth]

davepermen,

I can make anything 'fit', but how productive will I be?

Still dreaming about a Christmas G2, but I think Santa knows I've been naughty.

[davepermen]

i fit this while being productive. i'm just sort of shocked that it still fits i don't actively care if it does anyways.. that's what i bought the 160gb for: to never care about space. so far, i could life with a 40gb ssd exactly the same way. this is nice. but i don't care for the day i can't even life with an 80gb ssd.. as i don't have one

well, yeah, you where naughty. still, i hope he's a nice guy and gets you a g2

[Xcelerate]

I like your idea tilleroftheearth. By placing the most used partition on the inside of the drive, that's sort of like short-stroking it which can offer a big speed advantage.

I have a question for you. I'm thinking of getting the 7k500 for video editing since I've run out of space on my 7200.2 (160 GB). I think my current drive's read/write speed is around 45 MB/s, which is decent, but too slow for uncompressed video editing (I have to edit the video uncompressed because the T7700 is too slow to handle H.264 [well, unless I use CoreAVC-- but my video editing program can't utilize that]). Would you recommend placing the OS on a partition on the 7k500 and also using it for video storage? Or would you recommend leaving the OS on my 7200.2 and using the 7k500 for only video storage? Or something different? Thanks!