External hard drive

Carmen

Leopard,
My C drive (internal)is the one showing almost full, the D drive is the one showing almost full, so it is the D/D I have choosen to format.
If I had any idea how to 'half' the h/d what would be the advantages please?
Carmen x

Carmen

Carmen wrote: »

Leopard,
My C drive (internal)is the one showing almost full, the D drive is the one showing almost full, so it is the D/D I have choosen to format.
If I had any idea how to 'half' the h/d what would be the advantages please?
Carmen x

Opps! I mean the D/D is showing 99% free space

Leopard

Carmen wrote: »

Leopard,
My C drive (internal)is the one showing almost full, the D drive is the one showing almost full, so it is the D/D I have choosen to format.
If I had any idea how to 'half' the h/d what would be the advantages please?
Carmen x

If you think about it, 500 GB is a lot of data to have in one volume. And a lot of data to lose if that volume becomes corrupted.

Volumes of, say, 250 GB are more manageable and easier to back-up than a volume of 500 GB. To back up a volume of 500 GB needs a volume of 500 GB on another drive.

The data on smaller volumes can be accessed more quickly, too, because each volume has its own directory, of correspondingly smaller size. So, when you tell your operating system to retrieve a file, it only has half as much searching to do.

But mostly it's a matter of keeping your data in chunks of a size that is convenient to handle.

Think of it as being like your freezer. It's a lot easier to deal with if things are stored in different drawers or compartments, rather than having them all dumped into one huge container with a lid.

Personally, I work with hard drive volumes of 250 GB or less. These I back up to 250 GB volumes on 500 GB mirrored drives. Those I back up, regularly, to 500 GB volumes on 1 TB drives.

It's all just a matter of how you like to work and what suits that best.

Perhaps you should consider it overnight and work out just what would suit you best, rather than simply decanting everything from your computer straight into one huge partition.

But, by whatever standards you apply, 500 GB is a lot of data to keep in one single volume on a drive...