Hello Michael A. Wosnick, at 09:49 AM 6/21/98 -0400 you wrote:

>All of this recent talk about FAT-16 vs FAT-32 and the cluster sizes etc
>has got me wondering about a related issue that I would like to hear
>opinions about.

>Aside form issues of cluster size and reclaimed hard drive space etc, I
>cannot understand why someone would want a huge single C: partition in the
>first place. My own drive is a puny 1.6G, but I have it partitioned into 4
>logical drives of less than 500K each to avoid wasted space. But even if I
>had a larger drive, and FAT-32, my inclination would still be to go to
>multiple smaller partitions.

  In my experience I would go with one large partition. Plus with FAT-32 a
14GB partition would still have a 4kB cluster size. Now if you have
partitions under 512MB you will have an 8kB cluster size, using FAT-16. As
you can see there is less slack space.

>Wouldn't a huge (say 8Gig) single partition slow many system functions
>down? When you went into explorer, or searched for a file, or did any of a
>number of "housekeeping" functions, my assumption would be that the time
>taken to refresh windows, and refresh explorer views etc would be
>noticeably slower for a single huge partition than for smaller multiple ones.

  This is not the issue anymore.  FAT-32, in Windows 98, is totally been
re-written and it works very well.  It does not even slow down at volumes
at 8GB, so no need to manage all of the drive letters.

>Maybe I have just never had a fast enough system :( to allow me the luxury
>of thinking of such a huge partition?

  Try using FAT-32 and see how it would benefit you.  You will want to keep
the larger volume.

>Any thoughts as to the functioning of a single large, vs several smaller
>partitions?

  If you want small volumes. Buy another hd and use the volumes that way.
In fact it is faster if you split the OS and programs from the data volume.
Having a different partition on the same drive would not speed it up, but
having a different hd would.

Regards,



Tim Lider
Advanced Data Solutions              ICQ: 7562541
Web Site: http://www.adv-data.com E-Mail: Mailto:[log in to unmask]