> Install Win3.11 on a FAT16 first disk.
> Install NT on an NTFS second disk (or partition)
> best of both worlds :)
> (OK, so I'm an NT nut, but still.....)
Any partitions you want to share between the 2 different OS should come
before the 1st NTFS partition as this partition will be invisible to win3.11
and drive letters for partitions after the NTFS partition will be different between
the 2 OS.
P1: Fat16: Win3.11 System
Pn..Pm: Fat16: Shared Data partitions
Pm+1: NTFS: NT System Partition
Pm+2: NTFS: Swapfile partition
Pm+3..Px: NTFS: NT only data partitions
> > Win95 (98?) max partition size is 2GB using 32KB clusters. This cluster size is
> > very inefficient, 16KB is the best compromise between the conflicts of
> > efficient use of space and efficient management of multiple clusters.
Larger cluster sizes improve performance as there's less seeking during data reads.
Also reduces overhead of cluster boundary information and shrinks the FAT for the
same MB returns... It's all a trade-off... With the size of HD these days I would place
performance over the slack-space lost to larger cluster sizes.
> then how does NT format and use a 4gig disk, even tho it starts out as
> FAT? 64K clusters? (ouch, that'd be nasty!)
Don't ever let NT do a partition conversion. This places a break in the begining
section of the
drive that causes NTs allocation schemes to behave very inefficiently. Also always
format an
NTFS partition to 4k clusters as the default size is 512bytes whilst the FileInfo
block is 1k...
this default sizing will cause nt to fragment FileInfo blocks - very messy...
Never fill the partition more than 90% and try to keep it under 80% full - again NTs
allocation
schemes are severely impacted by a shortage of freespace. In practive I've found the
performance
already begins to drop after 80%...
Get a defragmentation tool like DiskKeeper4 to maintain performance since NT does not
come with a supplied defragmenter (DiskKeeper is being shipped with W2K)...
> Win2K doesn't have that problem - you say "I want this new partition to
> be NTFS" and it formats it NTFS on the spot - no conversion needed.
As long as they allow you to specify parameters for that creation ;)
--
Aaron Scott-Boddendijk
Jump Productions
(07) 838-3371 Voice
(07) 838-3372 Fax
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