Format with 64K blocks?

[Menehune]

My XP-install that I'm running an Apache server on at work is 2GB large (the "windows" directory). My Pagefile is another 1GB, for a system size of approx 3GB. I haven't tried to reduce the size by uninstalling anything. My C partition uses 4.5G out of 10gig.

I have a 10 gig system partition and a 70gig backup partition on an 80gig drive, so no worries about running out of space.

[jominor]

Originally Posted by broderp

Speaking of fragmantation and such......how much space does Windows XP really need to be fully functional in sage? If I run a stripped down install of Windows, no "games" or calculators etc... what would that take? 100MB?? I'm thinking of partitionaing my first hard drive into two, one for the OS and the second for SAGE. (AS well as the second physical drive for sage recordings)

Any suggections of how large it should be for temp files, swap file setc....500MB? 1G?

Any links or suggestions? Or should I just leave it as one large drive?

I actually have only XP, Sage, and a few utilties installed on a older 20 gig drive installed internally. I can give you some numbers later when I'm at home.

All 6 of my other drives(5x200g, 1x250g) are internal drives utilizing USB2 enclosures.

[davephan]

I setup a my second hard drive for video storage with 64K block size. I recently attempted to defragment the drive. The Windows 2000 defragmentation utility and the Diskeeper trial program could not defrag drives with block sizes larger than 4 K. The diskeeper utility indicates my 300 gig video drive with 64K blocks is very fragmented.

Does anyone know if there is utility to defrag 64k block sizes or perhaps it would be better to use 4k block sizes?

Dave

[InTheFlow]

Originally Posted by davephan

Does anyone know if there is utility to defrag 64k block sizes or perhaps it would be better to use 4k block sizes?

Dave

Hiya Dave!

You can use a program called Perfectdisk V 7.0 This is what I use and it is an excellent defragmenter. They also have a trial.

While you are checking out the website, click on the link for the PDF file called: "Perfectdisk vs Diskeeper Performance Test" I found it very enlightening. The link is under the "Perfect Disk Info Zone".

You don't want to reduce the size of your blocks for the video drive as that could degrade video playback performance.

Hope that helps!

[stevech]

will the XP Pro defrag handle 64K blocks?

[davephan]

Originally Posted by stevech

will the XP Pro defrag handle 64K blocks?

Thank you for suggesting the Perfectdisk 7.0 defragmentation program.

I contacted Raxco support and was informed that Windows 2000 Professional Workstation is limited to defragging 4k block sizes. The response time was very quick, only a few minutes by e-mail.

Greg Hayes from Raxco support (Perfectdisk 7.0) had the following response:

"Thanks for contacting Raxco Support!

Microsoft's defrag APIs under Windows 2000 will NOT defragmenters to
defragment drives with an NTFS cluster size greater than 4k. If you
have a 64k cluster size, there is NO defragmenter that will be able to
defragment this drive for you.

If you want to be able to defragment this drive, you will need to backup
the data, reformat with a 4k cluster size and then restore the data.

Microsoft has lifted this restriction with Windows XP and Windows Server
2003 - where they now allow defragmention on drives with a cluster size
up to and including 64k."

I followed up with another question about if defragmentation of 64k block sizes are supported on Window XP Home and Professional versions. Again, the e-mail response time was very quick, only a few minutes.

Both Windows XP Home and Professional support 64k block defragmentation.

I already used the Diskeeper demo to defragment my C drive, which contains the Windows 2000 Professional Workstation operating system and SageTV. The defragmentation made a huge difference in performance! Before the defragmentation, it too over 5 minutes of 100% sustained CPU starting SageTV. After the C drive defragmentation, the 100% sustained CPU load when starting up was significantly reduced.

Before I switched to the 64K block size for video storage, I did notice occasional stuttering. So, the larger block sizes do improve the SageTV performance.

I plan to rebuild the SageTV PC, or a replacement PC with Windows XP Home or Professional, then try the Perfectdisk 7.0 demo.

I reviewed some of the Perfectdisk 7.0 documentation on their web site. The Perfectdisk 7.0 disk defragment program appears to be vastly superior to Diskeeper.

Dave

[elaw]

Originally Posted by jominor

I do wonder if I'm starting to run up against any USB2 bandwidth issues. I now have 6 200 drives (3 Sage, 3 Divx) all connected via USB2 enclosures along with a USB2 Hauppage 250.

I must be getting close...

There actually might be something you can do about that...

Most modern PC's have multiple USB controllers. In XP (I think Win2K does this too), you can go into device manger and choose "view / devices by connection" from the menu to see what devices are connected to what controllers. You could then possibly rearrange things to divide the bandwidth.

Eric

[InTheFlow]

My fault Dave, I didn't read the part where you said you were using Win2K. I'm actually running WinXPPro so never had that problem.

I'm glad Raxco responded to you so quickly.

[roxy99]

Originally Posted by jominor

I actually have only XP, Sage, and a few utilties installed on a older 20 gig drive installed internally. I can give you some numbers later when I'm at home.

All 6 of my other drives(5x200g, 1x250g) are internal drives utilizing USB2 enclosures.

That is one hell of a capacity. What are you storing anyway, the national archives?

[dvd_maniac]

Originally Posted by roxy99

That is one hell of a capacity. What are you storing anyway, the national archives?

You can see from his post date that he posted that a little over a year ago. I'm sure he could easily have that completely full by now.

I have 1.2TB(4x400GB) on a raid-5 internally, 2x400GB internally, 2x160GB raid-0 internally (OS & Programs) and 1x400GB USB2 external. And guess what?
Many people here have a lot more...

By the way guys, who has the top capacity and how full is it???

[aperry]

I'm "limping along" at only about 850 GB on my three drives... One is very full, the other two (my recording drives) stay about 25% full.