[Computer Geeks] HDD Partitioning & Backing up files

[anat0l]

To all computer geeks....


I've just acquired a 1 TB external HDD (that's 1 thousand billion bytes, it's not 1 (binary) tebibyte (TiB)), which comes to just about 931 GiB (real computer, binary gigabytes). I'm planning to use it as a general purpose storage HDD, but more importantly section off about 300 GiB or so as a backup section for my 250 GB laptop HDD, and a 32 GiB FAT32 partition I'd use for last-ditch compatibility and for cleaning files of extended attributes. With the exception of the FAT32 partition, all other disk space will be formatted in NTFS.

Apart from the 32 GiB FAT32 partition and the ~300 GiB backup partition, is there any value in partitioning the rest of the space in terms of performance or space efficiency? I know that as part of NTFS, Windows creates a catalog and journal on each drive which scales proportionately to the size of the drive (due to increased cluster count). But having too many small partitions is tedious and annoying, plus I think there is a limit of 4 logical drives per physical disk drive. Or, I could be talking out of my behind here. Someone care to comment?


Second question... now that I've decided to start backing up my laptop's HDD (capacity 250 GB), does any one have any tips on what to do first (full backup, I guess) and then how to proceed from there on? Regular backing up and so on is a new thing for me. Also, any tips on software for backing up? My first "port of call" is probably Windows 7's Backup and Restore Utility, but does anyone have a better suggestion for software (preferably open source and / or freeware)?

 

[harvyk]

IMHO there is little need to partition a drive these days, personally I wouldn't bother as it's likely to come back and bite you later. A better way of doing it is leave the drive with its standard 1 large partition and then put in a good folder structure. That way data can take the amount of room it needs. I would suggest reformatting as NTFS as most external HDD's use a derivative of FAT32 (which supports a larger drive that FAT32 would normally support) not normally a problem unless your planning on copying larger files (eg greater than a few GB in size) then it become a massive problem (involving a reformat).

As for backup the typical way to do it is do a complete copy of everything (called a full backup) you need backed up, then only copy data which has been changed since the last full backup (called either an incremental or differential backup depending on which method you use)

Unless you need anything more fancy, the build in Windows 7 backup utility will probably be fine... It's come a long way since the bad old days of NT Backup...

 

[medhead]

Thanks for asking the question.

I've just acquired a 1 TB external HDD (that's 1 million billion bytes, it's not

One pedantic point. You seem to have a few too many zeros there. A Tera is 10^12, 1,000,000,000,000. That's either a thousand billion (in short scale) or a million million. But not a million billion (again in short scale).

In long scale a Tera is a billion.

Still I am amazed that you got such an HDD not measured in binary sizes. Can I ask how you did this details, brand and such.

 

[serfty]

...
Still I am amazed that you got such an HDD not measured in binary sizes. Can I ask how you did this details, brand and such.

It's quite common these days for drives to be advertised with their storage capacity noted in decimal.

e.g. a 250Gbyte drive only needs to have at least 250,000,000,000 bytes of actual storage. In IT terms that's 244,140,625Mbytes.

 

[Will]

It's quite common these days for drives to be advertised with their storage capacity noted in decimal.

e.g. a 250Gbyte drive only needs to have at least 250,000,000,000 bytes of actual storage. In IT terms that's 244,140,625Mbytes.

Do you think there is a genuine reason to do so? Or just to inflate the size of their product?

 

[medhead]

It's quite common these days for drives to be advertised with their storage capacity noted in decimal.

e.g. a 250Gbyte drive only needs to have at least 250,000,000,000 bytes of actual storage. In IT terms that's 244,140,625Mbytes.

Oops, I was confusing myself and thinking the wrong way around.

 

[oz_mark]

Do you think there is a genuine reason to do so? Or just to inflate the size of their product?

Using standard SI units is how pretty much everything is advertised, and is typical for disk drive capacities

(IIRC Snow Leopard reports sizes in decimal units as well?)


Memory is a bit of an exception though! It really is a bit of a mess.

 

[serfty]

Do you think there is a genuine reason to do so? Or just to inflate the size of their product?

Is "Marketing" genuine?

They do it because they can ...

Using standard SI units is how pretty much everything is advertised. ...

I'm pretty sure that if an "IT Megabyte" was actually 976,000 bytes then "Marketing" would find a way to advertise 1,000,000,000,000 as 1024 GByte.

 

[Will]

Using standard SI units is how pretty much everything is advertised.

(IIRC Snow Leopard reports sizes in decimal units as well?)

The SI does not have a unit for storage AFAIK

I am sure an argument can be made for simplicity, but I doubt it isn't more than a happy coincidence that it also results in their products appearing to have 9.95% more storage space!

 

[oz_mark]

The SI does not have a unit for storage AFAIK

I am sure an argument can be made for simplicity, but I doubt it isn't more than a happy coincidence that it also results in their products appearing to have 9.95% more storage space!

But Giga and Tera are standard SI prefixes. WHere there is no inhernet base (memory is inherently base 2), quantities normally use the standard 10 multiplier.

 

[Will]

But Giga and Tera are standard SI prefixes. WHere there is no inhernet base (memory is inherently base 2), quantities normally use the standard 10 multiplier.

It is so refreshing to have a discussion with someone who even knows what SI is

You are of course right.

 

[anat0l]

As usual, a thread created with one post which answers the main question and then deviates off. Such is life on AFF....

Thanks for your answer harvyk. Looks like it'll be just 3 partitions then: 32GB FAT32 (cleaner partition), 280GB NTFS (backup partition) and the balance NTFS (standard partition).

One pedantic point. You seem to have a few too many zeros there. A Tera is 10^12, 1,000,000,000,000. That's either a thousand billion (in short scale) or a million million. But not a million billion (again in short scale).

In long scale a Tera is a billion.

The timestamp on my OP probably gives some reason as to why I got that wrong (in normal times, that's an embarrassing error from someone who graduated with engineering and IT degrees).

Still I am amazed that you got such an HDD not measured in binary sizes. Can I ask how you did this details, brand and such.

For the record, albeit not relevant, I bought a Seagate external HDD.

As most have alluded to, it is the modus operandi at current to market capacities in decimal rather than binary. The only cases I'm aware of where there have been disputes about the real capacity vs. marketed capacity due to the decimal vs. binary misunderstanding have been - not too surprisingly - in LOTFAP. Most companies now get around this by advertising in fine print what they really mean by "MB", "GB" or "TB", which usually includes:

• The prefix is decimal, i.e. 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. Starting Windows and asking for the capacity of the drive will not return 1 GB according to Windows.
• Even with the aforementioned capacity caveat, not all the space on the drive may be available. This is true, necessarily because every file system requires a certain amount of space to store file information (e.g. journaling, cluster table, etc.), which can either be fixed or dynamic in size. Computer systems, additionally, add a caveat that the pre-installed operating system also occupies some space. So you can market a Windows 7 laptop that has a capacity of 500 GB, but in reality the space which is available to the user will be something in the realm of:
  • 500 GB = 465.66 GiB.
  • A Windows 7 installation probably takes about 15 GiB, add auxiliary files, programs and overhead of about 5 GiB, so 20 GiB.
  • Free space remaining = 445.66 GiB (in Windows, space is always reported in binary, i.e. the 'i' is dropped).
  Needless to say, the necessity of such a warning was - surprise surprise - created by a combination of customer discontent and somewhat spineless consumer lobby groups.

 

[drron]

Do you think there is a genuine reason to do so? Or just to inflate the size of their product?

Doesn't everyone!

 

[medhead]

The timestamp on my OP probably gives some reason as to why I got that wrong (in normal times, that's an embarrassing error from someone who graduated with engineering and IT degrees)

Ah, don't beat yourself up. You're only an engineer.