HD642JJ

I didn’t order this one online, but I did get it from NCIX. As stated above, I bought a Samsung Spinpoint F1 Series HD642JJ 640GB hard drive. So far? It’s good, but I’ve only had it for about 13 hours or so.

There are a number of reasons why I bought this particular model…. Okay, that was a lie. The only reason I chose this model was because it was on sale (specifically the in-store only sale that NCIX has every Saturday). Obviously the price was right ($60 for 640GB > 10GB/$).

I have a couple reasons why I wanted a hard drive: (1) I was running out of space on my older drives; and (2) I need to take one of them offline in order to either send it to the manufacturer for fixing, or fix it myself. I was planning to wait for Western Digital’s new “Green” model with three platters (improved from four of the previous “Green Power”/”GP” version) totaling 1000GB, but who knows when it will become available? For now, I am content with what I’ve got.

Speaking of what I’ve got, the HD642JJ that I bought is the two platter model. In other words, it should consume less power and have better sustained transfer rates than the three platter model (higher density platters means more bits read per rotation). I couldn’t find any reviews of it, but I’m guessing it’s competitive performance-wise with other 640GB models. If so, the price is what made it a real value deal.

Speaking of deals, I bought some other items that were on sale at NCIX. I haven’t gamed in a long time, and Prey was on sale for $5. You do the math. Although my video card is old, it should be good enough for decent graphics for this game. I also bought a $10 mouse (back-up in case mine craps out on me – an event which seems very possible these days) and an 8GB MicroSDHC memory stick/card/thingie. I needed the MicroSDHC device for expanding my music collection for the journey I’ll be taking with my dad and brothers for Christmas vacation. We’re going to Las Vegas (among other places)!

For the trip, I need new headphones. My “old” ones lost an ear (which can only be remedied by holding the jack in a specific position). Since we’re going by automobile, I want to get something that’ll isolate well (even better than the IEM that I already have). I’m not exactly rich, so I’m aiming for quality that’s inexpensive. For me, this means I’ll be buying the Etymotic er6i. Apparently they’ve got the best isolation (in fact, that’s what the “i” stands for). I look forward to hearing the sound quality of them. They’ve been called “analytical” (vs. “musical”), but that shouldn’t be a problem; perhaps it will give me a greater appreciation for the original recording as it is intended.

Washing Windows: File Type Icons

Folder Options can be found in the Control Panel (as pointed out by Alvare).

Folder Options can also be found in Windows Explorer by going to Tools in the menu bar. My problem can be described as follows: I didn’t have my icon set properly for html. So I changed it.

I use Firefox, so under Folder Options, I went to File Types, selected html, and deleted the entry. That essentially took away any predefined behaviour for it. Then, I tried opening an html (which at this point certainly didn’t have an icon set). The “open with” dialog showed, and I selected Firefox. That automatically generated an icon, but it was the generic “piece of paper” icon with the Firefox icon on top. To change it, I went back to the html entry in File Types and clicked Advanced. From there, I clicked Change Icon. At that point, I had to find the location of Firefox (the installation path). By selecting Firefox.exe, a few icons were presented to me. I selected the one I wanted, and all was well.

If you know which icon you want to use, and have an idea of which program that icon would be associated with, then it’s fairly easy to change to that icon. The initial problem I had in this post had to with getting the generic icon that Windows makes for new file types after opening one of them for the first time.

Since that post, I had decided it’s easier to deal with Windows by starting fresh. Of course, you’ll lose any information on how to deal with the file type in question by using the method I just described. But in most cases, it doesn’t really matter if you lose your “open with list”.

Thanks Alvare for bringing this topic back up!

P.S. Sometimes the icons you’re looking for are in dll files. Windows XP looks in Shell32.dll for most of its general purpose icons. There are tons of replacement Shell32.dll files out there which can change the look and feel of your Windows XP. Look it up if you’re interested. Just make sure you only replace an important file like Shell32.dll if you know you’re sure there won’t be any problems.

Encoding Video and Argument for Separate OP/ED

That’s what I want to do. Encode.

Chocotto Sister, as I have mentioned before, was subbed up until episode 13 by Ryoumi Subs. The quality they provided was less than DVD quality, and was censored (the raws were presumably captured from the original television run). So, I plan to make new files for myself by taking the subs made by Ryoumi and muxing them with DVD raws.

For me, it’s a learning experience. I found DVD-ripped episodes (raw) that I can use. I was a bit surprised to see it say that they were 720×480. Well, sure, that’s the standard NTSC DVD resolution, but the show’s supposed to be 16:9! Yeah, my ignorance is stifling. I know about anamorphic DVDs, but wasn’t sure how it would work for what I intend to do. So I looked it up and learned that it’s fine, so long as I tell the container (I’ll be using mkv) that the display AR should be different than that of the provided resolution.

Then I saw the size of the raw files, and was disappointed to see that the files were big enough to cause burning on a single DVD to be impossible. So, I remembered the neat “trick” that other groups have been using (specifically THORA). I will attempt to cut out the OP and ED from each episode, and link to them in the individual episode files using ordered chapters.

Since I’m using mkv, I can use soft subs. No trouble there, as I didn’t want to have to re-encode a file every time I spot a spelling error. Yeah, even if it’s only for personal archiving, I want to do it right.

Just before I started this entry, I was at another person’s blog. I thought the complaints he made about “cutting” the OP and ED “out” were so terribly ill-informed, I wrote a huge response (despite the fact that the post was a couple months old). I was ready to “shipp it”, but decided I’d rather not. I’ll try to explain what he thought was bad, although his argument was baseless.

First he points out the pros

1) Save time encoding.

2) Less to upload. I’ll just mention that 3 minutes in 24 is 12.5%, not 8% (which is not the same as 1/8).

3) Some people don’t like watching the OP and ED, so not including them is a benefit.

Now his so-called “cons”

1) Not much time is actually saved encoding. And speed only really matters for speed subs, which are generally of lower quality. “A great majority of the leechers always wait for the better quality subs to be out anyway.”

My response: even if it’s a minor benefit, it’s still a benefit. The process becomes faster for any group, and quality will remain unchanged. And I’m certain that the majority of leechers can’t argue that a quality sub being released faster without loss of quality is a con.

2) As quality improves (the usage of HD raws for subs), the importance of file size becomes insignificant. Modern internet connections are fast enough to download 170MB within 30 minutes, so it doesn’t take long to download. The exception would be for batch torrents, where the size issue is more significant. However, the OP and ED are likely to have changed after a certain number of episodes.

My response: it’s certainly true that downloading files these days doesn’t take as long it used to. But the speed is dependent on when you start downloading. If you missed the rush, you’ll quite possibly take significantly longer than 30 minutes. As for batches, the smaller size of OP-less and ED-less files will be significant. In fact, if there’s only one episode, there’s no savings to be had in a separate OP and ED. But if you have two episodes, the savings is approximately 6.25%. Since the theoretical potential for savings is 12.5%, we’re already at half that with only two episodes in a batch. Add more episodes, and we get closer to the theoretical maximum. In any case, if 12.5% can be considered significant, why not 6.25%? Given that there’ll usually be at least 12 episodes to an OP and ED, if the files are 200MB each, we’ll save 275MB for that many episodes. For those who miss the swarm, that 275MB can save a day or two. Not all broadband connections were created equal.

3) Over time, faster speeds and different containers and codecs. Using mkv as a replacement for avi results in smaller files (let’s say 30MB smaller). Also, not everyone has great computer hardware, and won’t necessarily be able to play the mkv along with its linking capabilities. So then, we’d need the avi equivalent with its greater size.

My response: ugh, such a garbage argument. This isn’t even an argument against ordered chapters/segment linking. I’ll concede that some won’t be able to play the mkv that uses H264/x264, but when comparing apples to apples (avi with mpeg, mkv with mpeg), the playback isn’t a problem. Linking can be turned off by either setting off something in Haali Splitter, or by simply not having the OP and ED in the same folder as the playing file. There is literally no problem to be had with ordered chapters here. The biggest benefit goes to those who watch HD encodes. Chop 50MB off for each 300MB episode, and the savings add up. If you can watch HD without trouble, you can certainly make use of ordered chapters without trouble.

4) Not wanting to see OP/ED is a lazy leecher’s argument. Skipping them takes a few clicks. It isn’t such a bother that necessitates the removal of the OP and ED completely. And not all media players support the function – that’s dumb. Who wants to install yet another media player for a specific series by a specific subber?

My response: I agree, that’s pretty lazy and not a solid argument. That fact isn’t really a con though. Though it solves a very, very slight inconvenience, the slightness of it doesn’t act negatively against the process. And who here hasn’t heard of CCCP and Media Player Classic? Are you really an anime fan? No, seriously, that’s sick. To be blunt, MPC is the only media player you really need. Disable the internal filters, and the filters installed by CCCP will work automatically. No installation is necessary for MPC, as it is a lightweight, standalone player.

His Conclusion:

“I feel that the cons outweigh the pros”

What cons were those again?

“It’s mainly the inconvenience of having to proceed in a different way to get and watch your anime.”

Two extra files to download. A few clicks. Did you not just say that skipping the OP with a few clicks isn’t a problem? Never mind the fact that you’ll only need one click to skip the OP and ED using ordered chapters (skip the chapter), but those few clicks per episode for 12 or more episodes outweighs the few clicks for the two files.

“The amount of time and effort saved is not significant, unless you want your episodes to download in 10 minutes instead of 15.”

I don’t even know why I’m responding to this here. I’ll repeat myself. If you miss the swarm, you’re in the slow lane. Using your arbitrary scaling (I’m actually just talking to myself since I chose not to actually respond to that garbage post), you could take 10 hours instead of 15. For batches, it is significant. For HD, it is significant. It’s significant, damn it!

The poster even omitted the potential for fitting more episodes onto a single DVD, an important thing to those who using burning to make room on their ever-full hard drives. And for those who keep everything on the hard drive, there’s the benefit of being able to fit more on the hard drive. (This isn’t rocket science.)

Consider an HD encode to be 320MB without OP/ED, and the OP/ED are 50MB combined. Let’s take a 13 episode show for our example. 13 * (300+50) = 4550MB. That’s binary, so our conversion gets us 4.77GB. That’s too much for DVD5. I’m actually undershooting here, but you can see how close it gets. A real world example can be found with THORA’s Utawarerumono HD subs (excellent work, by the way). Each episode is 333MB and the OP/ED combine for 160MB. Using 13 episodes again, the decimal result is 4.45GB, and even with a bigger OP/ED than chosen before, it will all fit onto a single DVD. If the separate OP/ED method hadn’t been used, then those same 13 episodes would have taken 6.7GB. And by no means is that insignificant.

As you can see, the benefit of using ordered chapters in tandem with a separate OP and ED is impressive. The trend is especially noticeable for those moving towards higher quality subs, rather than the speed subbers and impatient leechers the poster was trying to throw stones at. In conclusion, you know what I plan to do when it comes to my little problem with Chocotto Sister. The higher quality episodes won’t fit as-is, so I’ll make them fit by using ordered chapters and having a separate file for each the OP and the ED (via segment linking). See the link below for information.

http://www.uppcon.se/thefluff/hurfdurf/?p=8

It’s been a while….

Not really. But for me, it feels like it’s been a while.

This is the third time in 6 days that I’ve been awake for 32+ hours in one go. Yes, and this run is about 36~ hours, and I don’t feel tired. This is bad. I was tired earlier, but caught a second wind, so to speak.

Okay, so what is it this time – why did I stay up all night again? In one word: ncix. I finally (actually from order to pick-up, it was only a few days) got all my needed parts, i.e. the motherboard, with all the other pieces.

I bought a case built for mATX motherboards, but don’t let that fool you. It’s the Antec Mini P180, and it’s far from being small. I believe it’s actually bigger than my Antec Lanboy. It’s also heavier because it’s not aluminum, but steel. It’s geared towards a very ambiguous market: gamers/enthusiasts who want a quiet PC that can be packed up on the go due to the fact that it’s a “mini” case. Gamers and quiet don’t really mix, and to say that it’s easily usable for, let’s say, lan parties is a bit ridiculous. As I mentioned, my Lanboy (Super Lanboy actually) is slightly smaller than the Mini P180, is a LOT lighter, and fits ATX motherboards, so it’s not restricted in what you can put in it.

So, enough of my griping; in truth, I still like the Mini P180. It’s black, it’s cool (in the literal and idiomatic sense), and has some very nice organizational units. Of course, I went through a number of steps to get my “finished” product (which is still rough; later on that).

I had to put all the components for my motherboard (Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H) in their proper places. Not much to say here. I decided to just use the pre-applied thermal pad on the OCZ Vanquisher heatsink I got instead of applying thermal paste. I almost forgot to mention the main actor in this show: AMD Athlon X2 5000+ (AM2 socket, 2.6GHz rated) Black Edition (more to come!).

So, that went fine. Then I had to put it in the case. The case, despite being as big as my ATX case, did not fit the mATX board without giving me trouble first. The I/O shield… I hate the bits that stick out. That’s what got me first when I lowered the board into the case the first time. Took me at least 5 minutes to pry the sucker out of there. Change in plans – I actually measured checked which holes I needed to use in the case. Those standoffs didn’t want to go in without a fight. So, I fixed the I/O shield, put in the standoffs, then got my motherboard sitting pretty in there. Did I mention that this is after I removed both HD cages to give myself some extra room to work with?

So, where exactly did all that width and height come from? The power supply is actually put at the bottom of the case. There’s a hole in the thick partition (big weight and height to add on there) that lets you sneak your cables up to the motherboard. The width comes from the fact that you get about an added inch on the right side of the case to run your cables through to be hidden from sight. Like I said, it’s got some nice organization.

On the top of the case, there’s a 200mm fan that blows air out, like a spout. Obviously, I chose to have my heatsink fan blow in that direction. The huge fan actually got in the way of my main optical drive (my recently purchased Pioneer DVR-212D), and thus I had to place it at the bottom of the case, just in front of the PSU. This just about gave me trouble, with all those cables in the way, but the smaller sata cables were a blessing to be sure.

Along the way of transferring my drives from my old case into my new one, I accidentally stepped on the connected cable that was on one of my hard drives. It was the locking kind of connector, so it went *snap* and I wasn’t a happy camper. I managed to McGuyver my way out of complete frustration, and set the slightly broken hard drive such that it worked (no details, but it was annoying). I plan to RMA it when I’ve transferred all the necessary data (i.e. all of it; I don’t trust I’d necessarily get the data back). Yeah, so all my energy went into that, and I lost track of every thing else I was supposed to do. So, I ended up backtracking a couple times to set up the bloody pins everywhere. Done right?

WRONG! It wouldn’t start. No explanation, it just wouldn’t power up. Too much power being drawn? I doubt it. But in any case, I redid some of my cabling, unjuiced some components…then somehow presto! It turned on and Windows loaded. Oh, wait – I don’t have an optical drive set up right now. So, I plug in my IDE DVD-ROM that I put in the top slot (where I was going to put my DVD+-RW) and give it a shot. It powers on, all’s good then right? Right?!?

WRONG! The single IDE connector on the motherboard doesn’t seem to appreciate my DVD-ROM. Combine that with flakey power, (I should have sufficient power, but it’s been weird to me), and you’ve got a certified annoyance. So, no problem, I had my nice new Pioneer, and that worked. So, I finally get to install the drivers on the provided disc. Because I wasn’t getting a connection to the internet, I presumed I just needed to install the LAN port’s drivers….

WRONG AGAIN! So, here I am using my laptop to write this. And, yeah… I had to re-activate Windows XP on my new rig because it was apparently too much of a change in components (i.e. change of motherboard). It was morning (dark morning) and I didn’t have internet, so I just put up with the annoying note about activation. I eventually called in and got an automated procedure which cleared up the annoyance without (amazingly) too much annoyance. Microsoft got a +1~pt. for that one.

But, to summarize the events, which felt unnecessarily long and excruciating, I put together an unfinished , slightly broken product for myself. For now, I’m content to overclock my rig and burn some DVDs. The problem is that I’m running out of DVDs (no prob, I’ll order some), and overclocking is actually pretty boring.

Speaking of over-clocking, the Black Edition that I mentioned earlier…that’s my CPU. It comes with multiplier unlocked!! Yes, stock voltage, no hassle, I was able to turn the sucker into a 3.1GHz machine by simply setting the multiplier from 13x to 15.5x. I didn’t do any stress testing at that point, I just wanted to see the awesomeness that is the unlocked multiplier. At this point, I’m doing the boring stuff. I’m not very patient, so I don’t wait hour upon hour for each new setting to be tested.

I actually chose to do some undervolting first, staying at the stock speed of 2.6GHz. The voltage went down. I actually just decided to stop at a point where I felt comfortable. So, at this point, I’m trying to slowly work up to where I was before, except with lower voltages (that is, under stock).

I don’t admit to be an extreme overclocker, but with this awesome (and cheap <$100) CPU, it feels like it’s really worth it to put it to the test. That much almost makes me forget that I’m hunched over a laptop and having haven’t gotten sleep for 36 hours or so.

Washing Windows: the Registry

This’ll be short I hope. Seriously, that last entry was supposed to be about the little trouble I had with making one of my icons change back into what it was not too long ago.

The problem began when I noticed that my mp4 files’ icon had changed. I had recently decided to include MPC when installing the newest version of CCCP over the old version. I already had and used a standalone MPC, but I was having trouble with something (which I managed to figure out later on), so I gave it a shot. So, I let all files be associated to the CCCP version of MPC, and deleted the standalone one. Lo and behold, the icons had changed!

Now, why such a thing should happen, I don’t know. I tried using the Folder Options to change it back, but I couldn’t find the icon I was using. In truth, I didn’t set the icon in the first place, but I liked the look of it. It was unique. So, I tried changing the icon for MP4 Files to the one I had used before, but I couldn’t find it. I looked at the icon of a file that hadn’t been affected by randomness, and I saw that the icon, when blown up, was actually just the “sheet of paper with a folded corner” and the MPC logo (reduced in size) icon on top. I didn’t recognize that that’s what it was because the detail and colour is missing in the reduced MPC logo. Well, problem solved right? Wrong. While, I’m sure there’s some way to actually produce an icon that looks like that, perhaps by superimposing a reduced MPC icon on that sheet of paper, I couldn’t google it within ten minutes and gave up.

So, I decided, “Well, if I know that this type of file has this kind of icon, I should be able to find that information in the registry.” And it wasn’t. In the registry, there are a bunch of keys for all the file extensions. Many, but not all, of these extensions have two values (aside from the default) that denote content type and a perceived type, as well as some sub-keys. For example, file extension “.mpg” has content type “video/mpeg” and perceived type “video”. There are four sub-keys: OpenWithList, OpenWithProgIds, PersistentHandler, ShellEx. OpenWithList has one sub-key, “wmplayer.exe” which doesn’t have a value set; ShellEx has two sub-keys which appear to be GUIDs.

I omitted is that these extensions are all keys within HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, and that the default value of the extension key is actually another key within the same root. That value apparently specifies the file type. But this slightly confuses me because within the extension’s key, there’s already two values that denote the type. Ignoring that quirk, I find the key in the same “folder” (HKCR, as noted above). So, “mpcfile” is the key I was looking for (because it had the right icon). It doesn’t say anything much. A useless EditFlags key, a series of sub-keys which just say what program should open the file (which is interesting, considering the extension itself had a OpenWithList key). There were also a couple extra values “mplayerc.exe.bak” in there which noted the now-deleted version of MPC that I had used before. I deleted those values because they were useless.

So, I compared mpcfile to mpegfile. In mpegfile, there’s a key DefaultIcon. That tells me something, but it wasn’t useful. I didn’t have a particular icon to point to. So I looked at mp4file. No default icon, just some useless stuff. Long story short, I deleted the .mp4 and mp4file keys, then re-added them in the mould (I only use “mold” for the type of fungi) of .mpc and mpcfile. Lo and behold, it works. The memory of what happened is a bit old now, despite it only happening a couple hours ago… thanks to my last post.

My point is that the registry doesn’t make a lot of sense sometimes. You can change some things, but there’s no guarantee it will change (until you restart or ever). There are other reasons.

Extensions have a content type value, a perceived type value, and a default value which refers to an actual type…. The actual type defines what opens the file (that’s all that seems to be needed), and sometimes DefaultIcon and a default value that says what to put under “Type” in Explorer. Well, if we’re going to be anal about having our common information on a type in one neat little container, why not include the content type and perceived type in there?

I can understand having the OpenWithList in the extension key. For example, .nfo is apparently an MSInfo.Document (which is actually annoying), but is normally used as a sort of text file. Now, what’s strange is that .nfo doesn’t even specify OpenWithList as a sub-key! I found that strange, so I went and found a file with .nfo as the extension. I check and find that I the list shown under “Open With” in Explorer is exactly what I expected: System Information (the default program), and Notepad (which I normally use). Okay, so what the hell is OpenWithList for anyways?

Digging a little deeper tells me that there are multiple ways to get add to the open with list. To test out what would happen if I were to set the default program to notepad for files with .nfo as an extension, I went ahead and did it. A value was added to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.nfo …Yeah. The value was “Application” with data of “NOTEPAD.EXE”. That’s fascinating isn’t it (is anyone following me?).

But seriously, the registry is ridiculously complex. Although it was never meant for any average user to see, for those of us who want to fix things that Windows breaks, it’s a necessary thing to do. There are registry cleaners which can be used to do some routine procedures (removed useless and unused keys, like unused file extensions), but they can’t solve problems like the one I had. You could very well say that I should’ve just chosen another icon or that it’s not reasonable to believe that Microsoft would tailor their system to allow such a trivial task, but why not? Perhaps I can send that as a suggestion: “Please allow me to revert my icons back to normal if they get changed by some freak accident.” or “Please let there be an option to use that sheet of paper template manually instead of only when Windows feels like using it.”

I admit, this is a lame example of the registry’s amazing complexity and retardedness, but it’s effective enough to show the frustration involved in even the most mundane of situations. Imagine how much worse it would be if you ever encountered a real problem that could only be fixed in the registry. Scary….

So, um…yeah. That wasn’t short.

Windows Lineage

You’ve got to give Microsoft credit for their success over the years. They’ve maintained dominance over the mainstream market for a long time, and Bill Gates is a multi-billionaire.

Like all major players, when you’ve established dominance in a given market, you seek to maintain it. This is possible by providing newer and “better” products. Because of competition, you’re always in a rush to get your product out there as quickly as possible without losing any perceived quality.

Windows XP was built taking what they learned from Windows 2000, just as Windows 2000 was built taking what they learned from previous versions of the Windows NT line. Windows NT was a break from the previous incarnations of Windows (which were built on top of 16-bit DOS). It took the then new Win32 API and threw in a compatibility mode for Win16.

Windows 95 was created to use the Win32 API while maintaining maximum compatibility with all 16-bit code from previous versions of Windows/DOS. Maintaining compatibility meant keeping some undesirable elements from those previous versions.

Windows NT 4.0 was produced, and used the Windows 95 GUI on top of the NT kernel. Windows 98 was a “minor” revision to Windows 95 which increased stability and performance. Windows 2000 was major upgrade in the NT line (originally known as NT 5.0), and Windows Me was the short-lived (rightfully so) version of Windows before Windows XP would take the performance and reliability aspects of the NT line and combine them with the user-friendliness of the DOS line.

Finally, the two lines merged (or rather, the NT line took over control) when Windows XP came out. The trouble of maintaining compatibility in both lines worked out. The DOS line was abandoned for it’s relative unreliability, and the NT line got a face lift.

The lesson learned is that maintaining compatibility is a necessary evil. Even if what we have now is junk in comparison to the new stuff, we can’t just throw it away. Microsoft maintained dominance by developing two lines of their operating system, one with minimal compatibility with older software, one with greater compatibility. The line that was more compatible, but less reliable, was eventually retired, and the less compatible line took over.

For as much as you love to hate it, Microsoft did the right thing. However, now that we’re stuck with this NT line, we’re stuck with its own little annoyances and big headaches. Perfection might not be around the corner, but as long as progress is in the making, it’s not entirely bad.

DVR-212DBK (1), RC-SATA-24IN-L (4), 95484 (1)

I just ordered the following stuff from NCIX, my favourite computer store. The first is a DVD burner (something I’ve been seriously lacking; I was using my laptop’s burner). The second is a SATA connector (4 of them). The third is a cakebox of 15 dual layer DVDs (I have recently found a need for DLs). The SATA cables and DVDs were price matched.

Pioneer DVR-212D Black DVD-RW 18X6X18 DVD+RW 18X8X18 DL 10X SATA 2MB OEM DVD Burner No Software

Verbatim 8X DVD+RDL 15PC Cakebox

nGear SATA Serial ATA Hard Drive Data Cable 24 Inch 7 Pin W/ Locking Connectors

Partitions

Every once in a while, I like to “clean house”. What I mean is that I like to re-organize things so that they won’t ever pile up and make a mess as they always eventually do. For my apartment, this means adding new designated areas for things that pile up on me (garbage goes in the garbage can, the garbage can goes here for optimization, bottles go there, etc.). For my computer, it’s similar.

Partitions help “physically” set boundaries within your computer’s hard drives. The advantages to doing this might not be immediately obvious, but if we know a little about how computers work, they should be understandable. I’ll use a random PC with Windows XP on it as an example.

In Windows, there is always a “C” drive which contains the files needed for the operating system (OS). Some of those system files can be placed on another drive with some work, but I’ll assume this computer has one drive for now.

Imagine you’re downloading a lot of things onto your computer, or you’re installing a bunch of new programs. Nothing special right? Well, actually, the files being copied onto your computer are not “solid”. Each file is broken up into little fixed-size pieces called clusters. If there wasn’t a cluster mechanism, each file would fill up a contiguous amount of space on the hard drive, thus creating a landscape that your computer must work around. If one of your files should be deleted, it will free up that space, and your files which may have been contiguous before (file after file after file) now have holes in them. Depending on the size of the hole, you may or may not be able to put an entire new file in that hole. Clusters alleviate the situation by allowing a file that is too big to be split up and put into a number of empty spaces.

The problem with clusters is that your file will be broken up and put into different places. It was good because it allowed the computer to use up all the hard drive space, but it’s bad because now it has to gather each piece when it needs the file. This gathering process (it’s easier to think about it this way) causes your computer to slow down. Instead of being able to simply read the file’s contents in one fell swoop, it has to piece the clusters together first. In computer terms, your file is fragmented.

While the situation is fixable in a way (defragmentation), it’s a hassle to deal with. For Windows systems, defragmentation is an unavoidable hassle (especially on systems that have a large number of large files). However, the problem can be lessened if the pieces of a single file are constrained to a certain portion of the physical hard drive. Instead of having to piece together clusters that are on the opposite ends of the disk, they’ll be placed within a certain range of each other.

This process of placing boundaries within a physical hard drive is called partitioning. Before I even place any files on the computer, I decide how I’ll be organizing those files. These partitions are both helpful in the way described above, but can also be helpful for logical organization. For example, all my music goes here. All my programs go there. And so forth.

By having meaningful partitions, I can place all related files together, and find them all in one place. This is useful for various reasons. The biggest problem is that you must decide how you want to organize your files before you even have them. Eventually the landscape of your hard drive changes so much that you don’t even recognize it anymore. You may have run into cases where you’re not sure where a certain file should go (it could be related to two entirely different categories). Eventually, your system will be logically fragmented (my own term for this situation). While you can defragment a computer to remove physical fragmentation, there’s no easy way to defragment a logical fragmentation (any solution would be a kludge).

Eventually, you may end up thinking that there may be a better organization of files possible. Some other hierarchy must be possible. This logical problem is more easily solvable on a computer with only one physical drive/partition, but that has its own physical problems. So, in between having one partition, and have a great number of partitions, there’s a good number that works best. But, it all depends on your own needs.

Organization of files is tricky. However, unlike your apartment, you can (almost) always just add another hard drive. You can’t just add another room. They’re similar situations, so just remember that in addition to having to clean your room every once in a while, it’s important to defragment your computer every once in a while. Likewise, when you find that your needs have increased, and you’ll need to either move on or add on, do so by buying either a new computer or a new hard drive.

I was going to talk about my own computer’s partitions, but wound up writing something more general. I’ll probably write about my own situation some other time, because that’s just the way I roll.