Hard drive partitions...

[NathanLedet]

What's the best way to partition my hard drive? I've got a 320 gb drive on the way and i'm trying to figure out the best way to partition it for performance..

Should I partition out 10 gigs and put Windows XP on that partition? I think i may also want to do a dual boot...Windows XP x64 or Windows Vista x64 for testing purposes.....

Pics/videos/music on one big partition? I'm a web designer, so maybe another partition with web sites/programs?

Do some of you have 2 or more hard drives and the OS on one HD and everything else on another HD?

Also, suggestions of what kind of software I should use for the partitions would be helpful.

[b1gapl]

What I do, is put aside about a 20-30GBs partition, for Windows and programs, and the rest for games, movies, etc...and then I have another hard drive for backup.

[Capricorn]

I like to make a separate partition for Windows (C: ), one for applications (D: ), one for the everyday user files (E: ) and one large everything else partition (F: ). There's really not a good argument for separating the Windows and app files though. Even if you do have a separate applications folder, some applications like Microsoft Office install large portions of the code in C: (common/shared apps). On the other hand, I have gotten into the situation a couple times where I was forced to reformat and reinstall the OS, so having your user files separate from your C: drive can be very advantageous. I also use Microsoft TweakUI control panel to move My Documents from the C:\Documents and Settings default to the user files area. That's a life saver if you find yourself having to reformat the C drive. As for the size of the C drive, I make mine about 15 GB for the OS alone. Along with the OS, Documents and Settings (the temporary internet files can become pretty large), swap files, and hibernation files (if you enable hibernation) reside there. Also, every Windows Update backup files (those that start with $NtUninstall and are used to restore the files if an update needs to be backed out) can get pretty large as the years roll by and they don't go anywhere. If I were going to have a combined OS and Applications drive, 30 GB is probably a good number.

Since my "real big" area is for games, video and the like, I like keeping it separate from my user files. First, if the "big" partition fills up, it doesn't affect my ability to fetch email, edit documents and the like. Secondly, since the user files are the ones that would really hurt if I lost them, I can quickly set up a backup to a DVD-RW or two since it's in its own smaller partition. I still find it amazing that all my really important stuff created over years usually fits easily on a single DVD. I keep my user area to about 5 GB (per user).

For your specific application, you might want a combined OS and app partition (C: ), a user partition (think of it for correspondence and email [assuming you move your email files to that partition]) (D: ), a work partition that's pretty good sized - I'd guess 50 GB or so - for all your web-related files (E: ), and the remainder for games and videos (around 240 GB) (F: )

For partitioning, I use PartitionMagic, which I've used for years. I'm a bit concerned though that it hasn't been updated in a couple years. Still, it works, so maybe it just hasn't required it. I find it very easy to use, and it's never screwed up a disk yet.

[TheMajor]

Originally Posted by Capricorn

I also use Microsoft TweakUI control panel to move My Documents from the C:\Documents and Settings default to the user files area.

You could also right click My documents --> properties and set the folder.

[saltynay]

I use my 320gb as os/programs and my 1tb for movies (quite a few around 354 to be exact....) music and games.

If I was you though I would make

200gb storage
60gb for each OS