I think that's what it is... when I go to the computer section I see two hard drives, each with ~53 GB each. If I am right in thinking these are two seperate drives, is there any reason I shouldnt have it this way? All my other computers only have one main drive.
2007-05-31 16:00:49 · 4 answers · asked by 1two3 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Other - Computers
With a RAID controller (Redundent Array of Inexpensive Drives) you can do what is called stripping. This is a technique where two seperate drives act as on drive. Odd lines are on one drive while even lines are on the other.
By alternating between the two drives the access time is reduced increasing the overall performance. The disadvantage to this is that if either drive is lost/damaged the data on the other drive is lost as well even if that drive is un damaged.
Another Mode available with RAID is mirroring whereby one drive is duplicaing everthing that happens data wise to the other drive. This provides redundancy and immeadiate recovery should one drive fail.
If a RAID controller is not being used a single physical drive may be split into two or more logical drives.
One reason this is done is so the entire storage capacity of the drive may be accessed. Older computers had size limitations for example 60Gb, If you put a 120 GB drive in you would only be able to access 60GB of storage... The resolution to this problem is to partition the large 120GB drive into smaller logical drives of 60GB or less. Since each logical drive has its own Letter the OS can access upto 60 GB on each
Partitioning was also done to enhance storage efficency through the use of cluster sizes. Clusters are the smallest chunk of storage available to use. The number of clusters times there size equals the starage capacity. The number of clusters is relatively fixed so as drive size increased the cluster size did as well. What this all means is that if you type a single letter in a text file and save it that single byte letter takes an entire cluster that can't be used to store any other data except that text file.
So if your cluster size is 1K you only using a single byte and wasting 999 bytes. For larger files clusters are filled up as needed but the last cluster used in a file is rarely full. Allo those slack clusters really add up if you have lots of small files. The waste increases as the cluster size gets larger as the partition size grows. This isn't as an issue now as it was with win(* and earlier smaller drives.
Finally other reasones people make partitions :
1.) segregating data like video from the main drive.
2.) installing other OS's
2007-05-31 16:33:49 · answer #1 · answered by MarkG 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Generally, the newer PCs and laptops will have 3 partitions. Its usually the ones with windows or mac already installed on it. The First partition will be just necessary files to perform a system format and re installation of files. This will be hidden and unavailable to use. The second (C:) will contain files for Windows, program files and installed files. This is usually in the format of FAT32 or similar. The third (D:) is usually a NTFS format which is a type that allows file transfer and peer to peer links. This is basically a different type of partition that some programs to operate. It will be absolutely fine to store any type of file on the D drive- it will just act as an extra hard-drive. It is possible to get rid of the partition, which i usually do because i find split hard drives annoying! lol. Use "Partition Manager 5.5" if needed be, no higher version is needed. hope this helps!
2016-05-18 01:35:27 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
One reason might be for video editing. Whenever we used to configure systems for video editing it was a general no-no to capture video to the same hard drive you had your operating system on. Because writes to the swapfile could slow things down and cause you to drop frames. To the idea was to put in 2 seperate physical drives, one for windows and all your software, and another one for you captured video files. Sometime after 2003, the hard drives got so much faster, it bacame a non-issue.
If you find out that you really only have 1 drive with 2 partitions, then it wasn't for video editing.
2007-05-31 16:19:59 · answer #3 · answered by Nash 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It can be 2 drives, or 2 partitions on the same drive, which gives you 2 logical drives (C: and D:, but they're both on the same physical device).
Two drives makes it easier to find things, since there's less to look through. Two physical drives speeds things up for some programs.
2007-05-31 16:06:25 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋