How to optimize the partitions of a HD
 

Hello all:
This is the situation of my hard disk where i have installed SuSE 9.1, and where I'm going to install SuSE 9.3. The HD has two partitions:
1 primary, where resides the OS Windows C (40G).
1 extended, that has 3 logic units inside (80G):
- 1 data of Windows D (40G)
- 1 swap Linux (1G)
- 1 Reiser Linux (39G)
The partition utility of SuSE 9.3 cant to modify the proportion of the extended partition (in order to host only the Windows data D), so if i want to make another primary in this disk (for Linux or Win) its not possible because there is not more space , then, i want to rebuild the partitions to be like :
-> 1 primary Windows C (40G)
-> 1 primary Windows D (40G)
-> 1 primary linux Swap(1G)
-> 1 extended within (39G):
- 1 logical /boot
- 1 logical /home
- 1 logical /
- 1 logic FAT (to share the write form Linux and Win)
is it possible to change from extended to logical?
What is your opinion of the above partitions? What is the difference in terms of performance of extended vs logical partitions?
Please suggest me the way to have the best performance with my SuSE because my goal is compile the kernel from the sources and i don't want burn my CPU in the process :D , and preserve the actual C partition.


The Fdisk Linux of my current system, shows in the bottom message:
-------------------_-
linux:/home/benavides # fdisk -l


Disk /dev/hde: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes


Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hde1 * 1 5099 40957686 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hde2 5100 14592 76252522+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hde5 5100 10198 40957686 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hde6 10199 10325 1020096 82 Linux swap
/dev/hde7 10326 14591 34266613+ 83 Linux

"is it possible to change from extended to logical?"

There's virtually only two types of partitions: primary and logical. Extended is a primary partition that enables the use of logical partitions (which acts like partitions logically but are only "sub-partitions" of an extended p.). There's only possible to make 4 primary p. maximum, extended p. are used to "tweak" the hard drive to accept more than 4 p. (again it's only logical, but it's possible to use different formats "inside" an extended p.).

The only way to enhance performance in the hard drive is to use RAID (redundant) partitions. To do this you can:

your hd:

1 primary, where resides the OS Windows C (40G).
1 extended, that has 3 logic units inside (80G):
- 1 data of Windows D (40G)
- 1 swap Linux (1G)
- 1 Reiser Linux (39G)

1) delete the extended partition:

1 primary, where resides the OS Windows C (40G).
//you may prefer to use FAT32 so you don't need a partition to exchange files between OSs
free space (80G)

2) make a new a primary swap partition:

1 primary, where resides the OS Windows C (40G).
1 primary swap (1 GB) //using reiser
free space (79G)

3) make a D: partition (this is not necesary if you reformat C: as FAT32):

1 primary, where resides the OS Windows C (40G).
1 primary swap (1 GB) //using reiser
1 primary FAT32 D: (9G)
free space (70G)

4) make an extended partition:

1 primary, where resides the OS Windows C (40G).
1 primary swap (1 GB) //using reiser
1 primary FAT32 D: (9G)
1 extended
- 1 logical reizer (10G) //for /home/
- 1 logical reizer (10G) //for /home/
- 1 logical reizer (25G) //for /
- 1 logical reizer (25G) //for /

5) I don't know how to do this in SuSE but you have to:
- make a new RAID1 partition using the two (10G) logical partitions and label it /home
- make a new RAID1 partition using the two (25G) logical partitions and label it /

Note that this RAID1 partitions are actually 2 logical partitions for each label and that the virtual size is half. This is reduncancy and is the only way to improve performance in an hd that I'm aware.

If you want to recompile a kernel (haven't done it myself) you may prefer to get more RAM to improve performance.