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Hard Drive Partitions and RAID |
DVA7693
First Officer, CRJ-200
OLP
Joined on August 26 2009
50 State Club
Everett 250 Club
US Capital Club
Million Mile Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
""O! for a horse with wings!" ~W.S."
Mason, OH
806 legs, 2,538.7 hours
411 legs,
1,053.2 hours online
797 legs,
2,519.9 hours ACARS
3 legs,
11.4 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
October 07 2010 15:37 ET by Brian Berendts
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My ASUS laptop came with two 300GB hard drives, but they partitioned them into four 150GB drives (using NTFS File System).
C: contains my OS (Vista 64bit Home Premium), FSX and all it's goodies, and a few other programs like iTunes and MS Office. Space used 130GB
D: contains "My documents" and all the stuff that it entails (pics/music/downloads.... etc). Space used 110GB
E: backup of the main FSX Folder. Space used 76GB
F: Norton 360 scheduled backup of C and D. Space used 63GB
I was kinda disappointed that it was partitioned this way, because now I'm running out of space on the main OS drive (C). I saw in another thread the Acronis Partition Manager. I think this would be a great way to remove these crazy partitions, but I feel like I'm just begging for a disaster. I could go from 20 GB of free space to 60GB of free space and I could backup. If I move my downloads to an external hard drive, that would free up another 50GB. So in the end, removing the partitions would make it possible for me to free up over a 100 GB of free space on my main OS drive and enable me to protect my system better.
Does anyone have any suggestions or a thought that is different about how I might proceed?
Thanks!
-Brian
Brian BerendtsFirst Officer, CRJ-200
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DVA8622
First Officer, B777-200
Joined on April 14 2010
Century Club
"We're off, like a heard of turtles."
Commack, NY USA
189 legs, 783.0 hours
182 legs,
751.4 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
October 07 2010 15:52 ET by Ethan Olshever
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How would you proceed? I don't know. Here's how I would organize them, though:
1-Windows, small programs
2-FSX, ALL FS addons, NOTHING ELSE
3-iTunes, other big programs
4-Downloads, and other stuff
That's what I would do, if you can't take the partitions away.
Taking the partitions away would be the best option, though...
Good luck!
Ethan OlsheverFirst Officer, B777-200
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DVA3196
Senior Captain, MD-11
OLP, COMM
Joined on June 03 2006
Online Double Century Club
50 State Club
Six Century Club
"pitchpowertrim.com"
Anderson, MO
619 legs, 1,093.4 hours
292 legs,
503.1 hours online
580 legs,
1,026.5 hours ACARS
89 legs,
191.0 hours event
236 legs dispatched, 110.1
hours
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Posted onPost created on
October 07 2010 16:17 ET by Michael Brown
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You can repartition your HDDs but you will loose all of your data and have to reinstall everything. There is software out there that you could purchase that will do this w/o data loss.
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DVA7693
First Officer, CRJ-200
OLP
Joined on August 26 2009
50 State Club
Everett 250 Club
US Capital Club
Million Mile Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
""O! for a horse with wings!" ~W.S."
Mason, OH
806 legs, 2,538.7 hours
411 legs,
1,053.2 hours online
797 legs,
2,519.9 hours ACARS
3 legs,
11.4 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
October 07 2010 16:25 ET by Brian Berendts
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Michael Brown wrote:
You can repartition your HDDs but you will loose all of your data and have to reinstall everything. There is software out there that you could purchase that will do this w/o data loss.
That's what I thint the Acronis Partition Manager does. Someone on here (DVA Cooler) that installed a SSD then moved everything around (repartitioned) seemed to have good success with it. I just with I had more feedback or options to educate me before I do this.
Brian BerendtsFirst Officer, CRJ-200
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DVA3419
Captain, MD-88
Joined on July 31 2006
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
"Propellers keep you kewl!"
Newark, DE
67 legs, 89.6 hours
61 legs,
82.8 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
October 07 2010 16:28 ET by Norm Hare
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If you haven't already, you could move your pagefile from the C: drive to the E: drive. That would free up some space. Vista does allow you to change partition sizes, but not the one your OS resides on. Moving the install files and such to an external device is not a bad way to go. Acronis makes good products. I use one at work to create images of my servers for disaster recovery purposes.
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DVA7693
First Officer, CRJ-200
OLP
Joined on August 26 2009
50 State Club
Everett 250 Club
US Capital Club
Million Mile Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
""O! for a horse with wings!" ~W.S."
Mason, OH
806 legs, 2,538.7 hours
411 legs,
1,053.2 hours online
797 legs,
2,519.9 hours ACARS
3 legs,
11.4 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
October 07 2010 17:29 ET by Brian Berendts
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A couple of things I've read said that you can't resize the boot partition, unless a third party software is used. true?
Brian BerendtsFirst Officer, CRJ-200
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DVA1690
Senior Captain, MD-88
OLP
Joined on May 05 2004
50 State Club
Quatercentenary Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Stage 1 Jet Double Century Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary
"Life begins at Vr"
Longmont, CO USA
477 legs, 700.4 hours
468 legs,
686.6 hours online
254 legs,
389.4 hours ACARS
3 legs,
3.9 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
October 07 2010 17:51 ET by Trevor Bair
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You must be real paranoid of drive failure there, Brian.  That's a lot of space dedicated to backups! hah
Personally, I'd blow away the E drive since a full backup of the FSX directory, IMHO, is not necessary. Just grab any important .cfg's, .ini's and scenery/gauges/Sim Objects and pull them onto an external hard drive. Back up every month or so and you'd be fine. Worst case, a complete reinstall of FSX is not necessarily a bad thing.
If you've not seen it, here is some "related reading" on FSX and partitioning: http://forums.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?78065-Partition-or-not-%28for-best-FSX-performance%29
Trevor BairSenior Captain, MD-88
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DVA3419
Captain, MD-88
Joined on July 31 2006
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
"Propellers keep you kewl!"
Newark, DE
67 legs, 89.6 hours
61 legs,
82.8 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
October 07 2010 18:00 ET by Norm Hare
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Brian Berendts wrote:
A couple of things I've read said that you can't resize the boot partition, unless a third party software is used. true?
That is true
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DVA4965
Senior Captain, B737-800
Joined on September 07 2007
Online Quintuple Century Club
Million Mile Club
Millennium Club
Everett Millennium Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
Saratoga Springs, UT USA
1,195 legs, 3,500.8 hours
566 legs,
825.5 hours online
1,174 legs,
3,437.6 hours ACARS
26 legs,
51.6 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
October 08 2010 17:36 ET by Alan Cluff
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Here is what I would do if I were king for a day. Before you get to far down the road in your customized setup and installs, reformat and start over with two pyhsical drives without any additional partitioning. Run your OS and other programs on the C drive and run FSX/FS9 on the D drive. Suscribe to Mozy and backup all of your valuable install files to the cloud. Don't mess with those partitions that will just cause you problems in the long run. I run three physical drives on my PC dedicated to the OS, FS9 and FSX. Works great (works a treat for my brothers across the pond) and allows me max flexibility with high performance.
Alan CluffSenior Captain, B737-800
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DVA8969
Captain, B737-800
Joined on August 27 2010
Riverside, CA USA
14 legs, 23.5 hours
13 legs,
21.5 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
October 08 2010 18:01 ET by Jim Dorris
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I agree with Alan. I have a similar setup but with two drives. One dedicated to the OS, the other to applications. That goes a long ways towards alleviating disk contention. Also, Mozy is a sweet, affordable backup solution that will eliminate any worry about disk failure on your part. I've been with them for over a year and I'm very happy with the solution. I've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 200G backed up there. I have had to recover a couple of files from them and the recovery is smooth and painless.
Jim DorrisCaptain, B737-800
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DVA7693
First Officer, CRJ-200
OLP
Joined on August 26 2009
50 State Club
Everett 250 Club
US Capital Club
Million Mile Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
""O! for a horse with wings!" ~W.S."
Mason, OH
806 legs, 2,538.7 hours
411 legs,
1,053.2 hours online
797 legs,
2,519.9 hours ACARS
3 legs,
11.4 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
October 11 2010 13:51 ET by Brian Berendts
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Loading FSX on it's own drive: I have never put a executable program on another drive. I'm sure that I have to manually point every other addon to the main FSX folder - no big deal. But what about on the initial FSX/Acceleration installtion? Anything querky - or do I just do the same thing: browse to he drive I want it on and say ok?
Brian BerendtsFirst Officer, CRJ-200
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DVA3355
Senior Captain, B777-200
Joined on July 19 2006
Online Century Club
Flying Colonel
Everett 1500 Club
Four Million Mile Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
"guiding you home..."
Denver, CO USA
1,959 legs, 8,711.6 hours
181 legs,
715.0 hours online
1,891 legs,
8,382.8 hours ACARS
18 legs,
67.1 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
October 11 2010 14:13 ET by Daniel Hodnik
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acronis disk director is a great program. i have never run it from windows, but from a bootable disk..
allows you to change/add/resize partitions.
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DVA7693
First Officer, CRJ-200
OLP
Joined on August 26 2009
50 State Club
Everett 250 Club
US Capital Club
Million Mile Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
""O! for a horse with wings!" ~W.S."
Mason, OH
806 legs, 2,538.7 hours
411 legs,
1,053.2 hours online
797 legs,
2,519.9 hours ACARS
3 legs,
11.4 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
October 11 2010 16:33 ET by Brian Berendts
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if i'm going to go to all that trouble - i might as well put 7 on here too.
Brian BerendtsFirst Officer, CRJ-200
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DVA894
Captain, B757-200
Joined on September 27 2002
Round Lake, IL USA
24 legs, 55.6 hours
8 legs,
22.1 hours online
4 legs,
10.5 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
October 12 2010 16:09 ET by Bill Bouxsein
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I would definitely go with Windows 7 if you are going to wipe the drives.
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DVA8088
Chief Pilot, B737-800
OLP, 737-ATP
Joined on December 11 2009
50 State Club
Globetrotter
US Coastal Club
US Mountaineer Club
Everett Quad-Millennium Club
Events Triple Century Club
Online Sixty Century Club
Six Million Mile Club
Seven Millennium Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
"Real Time & Online. The only way to fly!!"
Corona, CA
7,282 legs, 15,068.8 hours
6,869 legs,
13,631.2 hours online
7,221 legs,
14,900.3 hours ACARS
372 legs,
926.8 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
October 17 2010 13:52 ET by Scott Simmons
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Good info from the others about the partitions.
If you're serious about your system performance I would suggest two things. Lose iTunes. It runs services in the background 24/7. At the very least, uninstall the Apple Updates. You can manually check for updates occasionally. Also, send Norton packing. If you have to have AV on the machine, get ESET NOD32. It will have much less impact on performance than other AV 'suites'. IMHO Norton/Symantec & McAfee are resource pigs. It's like filling the bed of your pick-up with rocks just because there's room.
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DVA7693
First Officer, CRJ-200
OLP
Joined on August 26 2009
50 State Club
Everett 250 Club
US Capital Club
Million Mile Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Eight Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
""O! for a horse with wings!" ~W.S."
Mason, OH
806 legs, 2,538.7 hours
411 legs,
1,053.2 hours online
797 legs,
2,519.9 hours ACARS
3 legs,
11.4 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
October 17 2010 18:09 ET by Brian Berendts
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yes - I usually disable all norton background stuff right before I fly. that helps with frame rates pretty dramatically. I'm sure it's still doing crap in the background - but not as much.
Brian BerendtsFirst Officer, CRJ-200
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