[gentoo-user] partitioning for multimedia performance and dual-booting linux/windex

[Robert Persson]

I have just acquired a nice big PATA disk and am now faced with the job of 
deciding how to partition it. I actually have two questions and I would be 
grateful for any thoughts. 

The current disk is a 40GB 133MHz one with 1MB cache.
The new one is 250GB, 133MHz with 8MB cache.
The reason for the new disk is to store multimedia samples, to allow dual-boot 
into windows for some multimedia work, and to get better read/write 
performance for sound, and perhaps also video editing.

The questions I have are:
1. What file system should I use for shared storage and scratchspace between 
the two OSs?
2. Would it be feasible and worthwhile to stripe a linux scratchspace volume 
across both disks?

QUESTION 1:
As far as the dual-booting is concerned, I will need to do it sometimes when 
there isn't a reliable *ix tool for the job, but I don't want to find myself 
trapped into using Windows for day-to-day stuff. For instance I may find 
myself forced to use Adobe Premiere for video editing now and then for the 
moment, but I would want to be gravitate back to Cinelerra as soon as some of 
the more serious bugs have been ironed out.

For this reason, and also because I remember from my own past experience that 
NTFS is an unspeakable atrocity (even when accessed under windows) I have 
been thinking of keeping the Windows partition fairly small and of installing 
third-party driver(s) to access linux-native filesystems to share data, 
rather than the other way round.

The three options I have for this are:
1. install the windows ext2/3 driver.
2. install rfsd (http://rfsd.sourceforge.net) to access reiserfs partitions.
3. Install the crossmeta XFS driver if I can get hold of it (I'm not sure 
whether it's part of the free NFS driver download on the website or not).

I imagine that one of these arrangments would be adequate for getting at my 
mp3s and oggs and stuff, but what kind of performance could I expect from 
these drivers, as compared to NTFS if I were to try audio multitracking, or 
even video manipulation? If I could get hold of that crossmeta XFS driver, 
would I get XFS big-file performance like I would under IRIX or Linux?

The bottom line in all this is that, if there is a tradeoff to be made between 
Linux and Windows, it is Windows that must give way. XP once committed 
suicide on me three times in two weeks, forcing me to abandon an important 
project while I reinstalled the monstrosity. There can be no forgiveness for 
that. That's when I married the penguin. You should only marry people an 
operating systems you trust.

QUESTION 2:
I actually have an intel sata controller on my motherboard and so should be 
able to set a raid 0 array that is accessible from both linux and windows.

Unfortunately I don't have the money to be buying a pair of sata disks at the 
moment, which is why I have got the extra pata disk to keep me going.

Am I correct in understanding that I can use LVM2 to stripe a volume across 
more than one disk, just like a raid 0 setup, even if the disks are quite 
dissimilar? Would it be possible (or worthwhile) to allocate my old 40GB disk 
and a portion of my new disk (say another 40GB) to a single logical volume to 
be used as a fast audio and video scratchspace? (For Linux, that is -- I am 
aware that it wouldn't be accessible from Windows). I would keep the rest of 
disk in normal partitions to reduce the risk of losing all my data to disk 
failure.

Would I, in the future be able to set up logical volumes spanning a larger 
mixed group of pata and sata disks? And would that make a serious enough 
difference to read/write performance to be worth doing?

Many thanks
Robert

-- 
Robert Persson

Conspiracy Bears:
Once upon a time there were lots of conspiracy bears...

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