New Laptop HD

[Desmo]

Going to get a new HD for the laptop after Xmas so wanted to get a few things clear before I order on up and start fiddling

Currently have a 120GB 5400rpm drive so I'm going to jump up to a 500GB 7200rpm drive. I assume I should see a decent difference with the speed? Or is it not worth spending a little extra on?

Once I get the new drive, I'd like to break it down in to a few partitions but I'm not sure how many I can make or if this is the best way to do it.

Here's what I'd like to end up with...

1 x Linux (possibly even with swap & home partitions)
1 x OSX
1 x Windows
1 x Experimental OS
1 x Files (accessible by ALL OS's)

Not sure how large to set each partition at the moment but let's assume each OS has 50GB and then 300GB left for files. Is this possible? Is there a limit to the amount of partitions I can make? Is it dangerous to have too many partitions? Are there any other silly questions I should be asking? Are you even still reading this? ??

[Daz]

You can have up to 4 physical partitions, but one of those can be a logical partition, which can contain many others (I forget the limit). Nothing to really worry about - some older bootloaders (or BIOSes?) wont be able to boot a system partition after a certain point on the disk, so keep your files at the end is all I'd say. Not sure if OSX is ok running on a logical partition mind.

Do keep a separate / and /home partitions, it's great if you're going to have more than one Linux installation, or rebuild regularly You have to keep a separate swap, or just have no swap (though not recommended really).

[edit]Can you put swap on loopback? You would think so.

[divine]

Are there not heat issues to consider when moving from 5400rpm to 7200rpm in a laptop? I was the under the impression this was one of the bigger reasons for 5400rpm being used more, as it has very little benefit otherwise over 7200rpm.

[Daz]

Depends what you're using it for. I assume it's just cost - if there was a technical issue you wouldn't think they'd offer the choice while speccing?

[divine]

Cost is obviously a reason but 5400rpm are cheaper in desktops too, yet don't get used nearly as much.

I just had a quick look around and i've seen heat, noise and power consumption mentioned as the three biggest negatives to a 7200rpm drive but nothing really concrete backing it up. The obvious positive being better performance in return.

[Burble]

I think the extra heat thing is overplayed. I'm yet to have heat issues with a laptop after swapping a 5400rpm (or even 4500rpm) drive for a 7200rpm unit.

[divine]

Maybe so, I just thought it was worth bringing up.

[Desmo]

Aye, cheers for mentioning it

Once an OS is loaded up though, how much does the HD really get used? Not an awful lot really. The only real heavy usage the HD would get is with downloading stuff and watching of films which isn't all that often and certainly not for long periods of time. I think it should be fine.

As for the partitions, how about...
Linux (phys1), Linux Home (phys2), OSX (phys3), Physical 4 can be split in to logical partitions for Windows, Experimental OS, Swap and Files.

[Mark]

Heat issue does exist. The most likely result would be running the fan(s) harder and possibly slightly premature drive failure. All very much subjective and impossible to prove one way or the other.

I can't remember offhand if Windows can boot from a logical partition. Probably. More likely would be OS X getting upset with all those partitions.

Now, the most pertinent question - what filesystem do you plan to use on the data partition? They can all do FAT32, but that's going to royally suck, so don't. Windows can do NTFS and ext2. Linux can do lots of things, including NTFS (the odd corruption still happens but NTFS-3g is just about there). OS X might be the problem child here.

[Desmo]

Good point Mark. NTFS might be the way to go as Linux and OS X can support it. Can OS X support ext2? Will have to look it up.