Partition management software on Music computer?

WaveLab
#1

Hi - I’m very inexperienced with operations like this, more of a turn it on and run Cubase sort of guy.

I do have Paragon Backup and Recovery 2011 software, and by reading the manual have figured out how to image my hard drives without smoke coming out of my computer.

I’m looking to increase the size of my C: drive at the expense of my D: drive. They are both partitions of a single HDD. The most foolproof software is what I’m looking for (“Everybody plays the fool … sometimes!”).

Any recommendations much appreciated. Since I have some Paragon software (the backup software) already installed, is that a nudge towards buying Paragon Partition Manager? Or is other software, like Acronis Partition Manager just loads better?

XP SP2 here.

Thanks in advance!

#2

I gave up with partitions when NTFS became standard.

#3

Wow, how fitting that “Split” is the one who helps with my “Partition” question! :smiley:

Not exactly sure what that means Split, but as I am on XP I’m guessing I might have to take a different approach?

Thanks -

#4

http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

#5

It just means I don’t bother with partitions any more :stuck_out_tongue:

I suppose they can be handy for multi booting or something?

#6

Thanks, guys.

Thinkingcap, that is the 2nd recommendation from someone well-respected for that software - thanks!

As it turns out, I will be able to hold off for a while on partitioning - my C drive was full because several gigs of audio data had been stored in “Templates” instead of the actual project files. When I got rid of those, all is better. Next task is to figure out what I’m doing wrong that they wound up there in the 1st place, https://www.steinberg.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17515 .

Thanks again -

#7

Partitioning a drive can be useful. You can use it so that you only use the fastest part of the drive. This can give a real speed advantage over a non-partitioned drive.

DG

#8

Still don’t see the point really!

What with modern large fast drives and loads of sata connectors etc.

#9

I’ve used BootIt Bare Metal and it’s predecessor BootIt NG and I can strongly recommend it for multi-boot set-ups and partitioning, including resizing and image backups.

Bear in mind that messing with partitions is a good way to permanently destroy all your data if you’re not sure what you’re doing!

There are however many advantages, but none of them as critical as they used to be these days, with such massive and fast hard disks. Without getting too nerdy, the main reason I do it is that if planned and managed properly, it helps to minimise the need for defragmentation, keeps my stuff organised and easier to backup and restore and lets me use more optimal cluster sizes and a few other esoteric performance tweaks. I have a “work” partition which is “only” 20GB in size … if that one starts to fill up, it reminds me to archive stuff off and to back it up. It’s also the first partition on the disk and therefore confined to the outer portion with the best performance, and if it ever becomes too small I can just resize it with BootIt.

One other huge advantage is at upgrade time; how many times have we heard the whining of the masses when a minor upgrade “breaks” everything and “now all my work is ruined” etc. etc. ad nauseam? When you want to apply an update, clone the current working partition, apply the update to that and if everything goes pear-shaped, simply boot back into the original partition!

Having a good partition/boot/image manager also makes migration to new hardware a piece of cake.

#10

The point is that it makes the drive faster…!

Not all motherboards have “loads” of Sata connections, so whereas splitting sessions over multiple drives may be preferable, it’s not always possible.

Another usage would be for creating a RAM cache to run the session from. I haven’t tried this yet, but am going to give it a whirl over the next week or so.

DG

#11

I thought that the whole point of these programs was that you could do these things even when you don’t know what you’re doing. :laughing:

DG

#12

Hmm… Not convinced, well it may be a bit faster but whats the point. Fiddling for fiddling sake, not that there anything wrong with that.

#13

That is the point.

DG

#14

Haha… not that most HDs are fast enough but I suppose faster is better if you can be bothered.

#15

Considering hard drives being relatively cheap, you can just add a second hard drive to your system, dedicated to Cubase projects. (This is of course contingent on the ability to do this.)

Fiddling with partitioning can be dangerous if you do not have sufficient experience and knowledge to recover from mistakes. Since you use backup and recovery software, I assume that you are concerned with your system being available and stable, which is why I am saying this.