Computer drive partition

[lboogie77]

Hey Keyman,If you only have one drive, you may want to invest in at least 1 other or even 2 more drives. To get the best performance you should have 1 drive dedicated to your software (Windows, and other Applications) another for your VSTi's and another for all your audio stuff. But if you are not doing that many tracks (some guys use anywhere from 8 - 120+ )You may get away with 2 drives at a bare minimum.Although most newer drives can handle decent loads, I think you are begging for a hard drive failure to run your OS, Applications, VSTi's, recording audio, etc... all on one drive.I would not partition the drive to do what I've mentioned above.Its just better to get more drives. (IMHO)Maybe some of the Taxi Vets can give you some more insight.Hope this helps! 77

[mazz]

I would recommend a seperate drive for recording your audio tracks on. I would also recommend another dirve for streaming samples from. Get 7200 RPM drives at a minimum. If you have an internal SATA buss that will take two more drives and your computer will accept that many, then I would recommend internal drives. Otherwise, I would recommend Firewire over USB2 for external.By the way, you can install all of your audio software on the same drive that Windows runs on, including your VSTis. If the VSTis have large sample libraries, usually you can choose where to install them, most of this type of software allows the samples to be on a seperate drive from the actual plug-in software. This is the way to go.Good luck,Mazz

[jh]

I´ve always used XP´s partition software and never had any problems. I would also recommend a separate drive for audio tracks and streaming samples. If you have an external drive, I would use it only for backups.Then the partitioning. For XP and other software I would allocate about 10-15GB. It slows down the fragmentation, and when you´re defragmenting the C drive it´s MUCH faster. AND, if you ever need to re-install your XP you can use another partition (drive) on the same hard disk to save your files you don´t want to delete (like your "Documents and settings". Before you re-install XP, you just simply copy that folder and you´ll have all your settings like they were before the re-install). Though I would recommend saving those files also on your backup disk Plan carefully before you start partitioning. I would do at least 3 partitions, one for XP and software, one for audio files, and one for sample libraries. BUT, I´d really recommend buying another hard disk for your audio files, they don´t cost much. And if you´re going to buy some sample libraries you´re going to need more hard disk space than 250GB. When you´re formatting your audio/streaming drive, use the biggest cluster (allocation unit) size. (just a recommendation)I hope this helps - JH