Partitioning 2 TB HDD

chris

In the zone
What is the recommended way of partitioning a 2 TB HDD ?

Should i make it 2 * 1 TB partition or just one 2 TB partition ? Is there any advantages/disadvantages of doing so ? Like large disk take more time to disk check or chance of FAT/MBR corruption etc ?

I am going for 2 * 2 TB HDD (i currently one have 2 TB HDD) in Windows 7 Software RAID 1 (mirror), this way i don't lose data if one HDD fail.

Current Setup

* 1 TB HDD for data.
* Daily backup important data to 250 GB HDD
* Weekly backup while 1 TB HDD to 2 TB HDD, I use rest of the space in 2 TB HDD for non important files like movies.

New Setup Plan

* Remove 250 HDD, replace it with 2 TB.
* 1 TB partition to 2 * 500 GB, first 500 GB for OS, 2nd 500 GB for Backup
* 2 * 2 TB HDD in RAID 1 (mirror). I will store important files in RAID, will backup VVIP files to 500 GB partition on 1 TB HDD (this will save me from accidental deletion of files from RAID).

What do you think about this setup ? My very important data is below 100 GB, rest are mostly games and movies.

Having 2 TB partition is safe to go ?
 

kkn13

Cyber Genius FTW
What is the recommended way of partitioning a 2 TB HDD ?

Should i make it 2 * 1 TB partition or just one 2 TB partition ? Is there any advantages/disadvantages of doing so ? Like large disk take more time to disk check or chance of FAT/MBR corruption etc ?

I am going for 2 * 2 TB HDD (i currently one have 2 TB HDD) in Windows 7 Software RAID 1 (mirror), this way i don't lose data if one HDD fail.

Current Setup

* 1 TB HDD for data.
* Daily backup important data to 250 GB HDD
* Weekly backup while 1 TB HDD to 2 TB HDD, I use rest of the space in 2 TB HDD for non important files like movies.

New Setup Plan

* Remove 250 HDD, replace it with 2 TB.
* 1 TB partition to 2 * 500 GB, first 500 GB for OS, 2nd 500 GB for Backup
* 2 * 2 TB HDD in RAID 1 (mirror). I will store important files in RAID, will backup VVIP files to 500 GB partition on 1 TB HDD (this will save me from accidental deletion of files from RAID).

What do you think about this setup ? My very important data is below 100 GB, rest are mostly games and movies.

Having 2 TB partition is safe to go ?

I'd say make more partitions coz a large partition of >1tb usually isn't recommended and windows and the bios have issues with such partitions unless u make it a GUID partition table instead of master boot record and use uefi

Btw a great addition to ur system if u have the budget is a ssd for caching which will boost both ur hdds even further

Hope I helped and btw wait for someone else to confirm what I said just in case coz I've only heard such things from a friend and haven't experienced this before :)
 

whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
first of all 2tb manufacturer stated=1.81tb in computer domain.second you need GPT for partitions 2tb or more in size for which you have to buy a 3tb hard disk so no issues regarding partition size for 2tb hard disk.i am using 2tb hard disk with single partition & no issues.my suggestion is simply use copy/paste once a day or some directory/folder synchronisation software which is easier & uncomplicated setup not to mention faster & flexible too.
 
OP
C

chris

In the zone
Thanks kkn13 and whitestar_999 for the reply.

@whitestar_999, Thank you for the info. Single partition make disk space management easy, don't have to move files between multiple partitions. I think i will go that way. I am using robocopy for backup, it do incremental, uncompressed.

Btw a great addition to ur system if u have the budget is a ssd for caching which will boost both ur hdds even further

I have no plan for SSD now. Can you tell how i use SSD for caching ? I see others saying this, i have no idea how to do this. I see some use SSD for installing OS, that make your PC boot faster.. but caching and speed up existing HDD operations.. how it is done ?
 

whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
lots of hassle & not worth it in my opinion.60/64gb ssd cost ~4000 & you can install windows/other os in it to take full advantage of ssd compared to ssd caching which is just a stopgap measure.
Ssd caching? - SSD - Storage
 
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