Setting up a hard drive for gaming.

Morethan2Letters Dec 23, 2017 @ 1:10pm

Why would you partion it at all?

#1

Kaihekoa Dec 23, 2017 @ 1:32pm

You don't need to partition it because it's separate from your OS.

#2

Blackstar001 Dec 23, 2017 @ 1:33pm

Originally posted by Advanced3:
Why would you partion it at all?

This artcile will do a far better job of explaining than I.

http://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/6429/Optimise-your-hard-drive-for-gaming-Part-1-Partitioning.aspx

The problem I am having is that the drive I have are not optimal for the size of todays games(being 50+ gb). I am looking to find out what other users are doing.

Originally posted by Kaihekoa:
You don't need to partition it because it's separate from your OS.

That is nonsense.

Unfortunately once again no one here really seems to know much about computers. Sadly all it does is start an argument .

Not asking whether I need to partition or not. Not trying to find out why a drive needs to be partitioned. I already understand those things.

What I want to know is how other gamers have done this process . If you never done it and have no experience then I am afraid that is no help to me.

No offense.

Last edited by rotNdude; Dec 24, 2017 @ 8:52am

#3

Ralf Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:14pm

The best would be to make the partition 20% bigger then the games, but if you have a big games with a lot of files then i advise to only put one into the partition foe maximum performance. So if you a lot of big games(50GB+) then it would mean ~26 partitions on a 2TB HDD. I hope this helps.

#4

Blackstar001 Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:18pm

Originally posted by Ralf:
The best would be to make the partition 20% bigger then the games, but if you have a big games with a lot of files then i advise to only put one into the partition foe maximum performance. So if you a lot of big games(50GB+) then it would mean ~26 partitions on a 2TB HDD. I hope this helps.

Yes very helpful thanks

#5

tacoshy Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:34pm

Originally posted by Blackstar001:
Originally posted by Kaihekoa:
You don't need to partition it because it's separate from your OS.
That is nonsense.

Unfortunately once again no one here really seems to know much about computers. Sadly all it does is start an argument .

Not asking whether I need to partition or not. Not trying to find out why a drive needs to be partitioned. I already understand those things.

What I want to know is how other gamers have done this process . If you never done it and have no experience then I am afraid that is no help to me.

No offense.

Other games dont do aprtitions. What if a DLC releases or a major patch means that game getting alot larger and you need to uninstall, delete the partition and then reinstall it after creating a new partition... Also you run out of letters for the partitions pretty fast as most gamers tend to have 30+ games.

Also partition gives no advantage for games. loading time thanks to faster acess times dont improve noticably either...
YOu wanted to know how others do it? Well they dont do it all. Just because you doesnt like the awnser doesnt mean nobody knows what he is talking about.

#6

Washell Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:35pm

Originally posted by Blackstar001:
Originally posted by Ralf:
The best would be to make the partition 20% bigger then the games, but if you have a big games with a lot of files then i advise to only put one into the partition foe maximum performance. So if you a lot of big games(50GB+) then it would mean ~26 partitions on a 2TB HDD. I hope this helps.

Yes very helpful thanks

It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ advice, will waste a ton of space and will get you in trouble with the steam client because it doesn't support 26 libraries. Edit: honestly, if I wanted to prank someone, this would be a good one...

If you're going to use the entire drive for games, you only need one partition. If you want to sort it into actively played vs long term storage, divide it into two partitions and install the actively played games in the first. That will give you a very minor speed advantage.

Last edited by Washell; Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:41pm

#7

Omega Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:41pm

When you buy a new driver you will need to initialize it first. Since this drive is going to be used for storage you will only need to create a single partition which covers the entire disk.

Rightclick the Windows start button > Disk management > A windows should popup about you having to initialize the new disk if not rightclick the disk and manually initialize it > next, next, next.. etc..

Don't make partitions for the games only.. that is just stupid..
Excluding the C:/ drive you will only be able to create 23 partitions. And not to mention that this would be SOooo tedious and time consuming to do and there will be no gain from doing so.

Last edited by Omega; Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:45pm

#8

Blackstar001 Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:47pm

Not trying to get faster performance.What happens when a game file is larger than the partition it being written to happens? Nothing - and that is the problem. The game gets fragmented and it does not run. am getting a little sick of it and I assure it is at the root of the problem.

The fact is STEAM and its GlobalCacheFile are what are causing me problems in the first place.

Originally posted by Omega:
When you buy a new driver you will need to initialize it first. Since this drive is going to be used for storage you will only need to create a single partition which covers the entire disk.

Rightclick the Windows start button > Disk management > A windows should popup about you having to initialize the new disk if not rightclick the disk and manually initialize it > next, next, next.. etc..

Don't make partitions for the games only.. that is just stupid..
Excluding the C:/ drive you will only be able to create 23 partitions. And not to mention that this would be SOooo tedious and time consuming to do and there will be no gain from doing so.

Another helpful answer. Thank you.

Probably not going to create tons of partitions just trying to keep the partitions larger than the files themselves so the entire file fits into one block.

Last edited by rotNdude; Dec 24, 2017 @ 8:53am

#9

tacoshy Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:49pm

Originally posted by Blackstar001:
Not trying to get faster performance.What happens when a game file is larger than the partition it being written to happens? Nothing - and that is the problem. The game gets fragmented and it does not run. am getting a little sick of it and I assure it is at the root of the problem.

The fact is STEAM and its GlobalCacheFile are what are causing me problems in the first place.

you complain that the game file is larger then the partition while you are the person that wants to create multiple partitions in the first place instead of using the whole HDD space?

#10

Omega Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:49pm

Originally posted by Blackstar001:
Not trying to get faster performance.What happens when a game file is larger than the partition it being written to happens? Nothing - and that is the problem. The game gets fragmented and it does not run. am getting a little sick of it and I assure it is at the root of the problem.

The fact is STEAM and its GlobalCacheFile are what are causing me problems in the first place.

What are you talking about?

I think you don't actually know what a partition is.

Watch this video: https://youtu.be/AeUM4kR67XQ
And then we will talk again.

#11

Washell Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:52pm

Originally posted by Blackstar001:
Not trying to get faster performance.What happens when a game file is larger than the partition it being written to happens? Nothing

When a game file is larger than the partition you get an insufficient space available error.

So you're clearly not talking about partitions. Are you maybe asking about cluster sizes? Because that would make some sense considering your concerns of fragmentation.

#12

Omega Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:55pm

Yeah I am also thinking OP is talking about cluster size.

Defragmentation is no big deal, HDDs nowadays are so fast you will barely notice it. Also Windows is defragging in the background automatically so you don't need to worry about that.

Last edited by Omega; Dec 23, 2017 @ 2:56pm

#13

Washell Dec 23, 2017 @ 3:00pm

You know what, long story short, there's the physical layout on the platters and the file system on top of it. Since you wanted to know about most gamers, I can tell you that most gamers use a single partition formatted as NTFS with default settings for the cluster sizes and such. or the preformatted os/data arrangement common on laptops and pre-builts. You don't need to mess with these, whatever you think is causing this:

Originally posted by Blackstar001:
The game gets fragmented and it does not run. am getting a little sick of it and I assure it is at the root of the problem.

The fact is STEAM and its GlobalCacheFile are what are causing me problems in the first place.

It has nothing to do with partitions, clusters and other stuff.

If you have errors to the tune of games not running, something is broken inside your computer that's corrupting the data over time, prime culprits are an unstable overclock, (overclocked) memory, or a failing harddrive.

Last edited by Washell; Dec 23, 2017 @ 3:01pm

#14

Blackstar001 Dec 26, 2017 @ 2:09pm

So this was my problem :Missing Exe. message when trying to start game.

Attempted to use STEAM support. Used EVERY available suggetion that they gave me to no avail. ( Verify integrity, reload Steam reload software, etc etc. )

Searched Google and came up with the only other option being that the game did not download properly . Not that the file did not get through to me but that it did not load to my hard drive and that partioning my drive was a possible solution.

Installed spare blank drive; formated , allocated , partioned etc. Reloaded game file onto new separate, partioned drive. It now runs fine. Starts up immediately. FYI I created 4 partitions of about 110 GB apiece on a 500 GB drive.

Call me crazy . tell me I do not know what partitions are. That my computer is broken. what ever you like but like I said the game now runs fine. No problem. This is a brand new computer and runs games from other platforms no problem.

This is the 3rd time in the last 4 years that I have had this error message. The first time I was able to get it fixed through STEAM support. The second time I did not care to go throught the hassle that I have just gone through but this time I was not going to walk away.

This error has appeared on 2 different computers and 3 different hard drives using 2 different GPUs so I am sorry to inform you my equipment is not broken nor is it due to overclocking since both systems were running at maufaturers specs. So it is a bit of a fluke when it happens but I am not the culprit.

#15

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