How many Hard Drive partitions?

NewGuyNewGuy
edited February 2006 in Hardware
my friend was telling me that i should make at least two hard drive partitions... like one that is 120GB, and the other 80GB for backup and stuff (i have a 200GB HD) I am using only one, and i didn't have any problems with it. ... what are you guys using.... and what would you reccomend?

Comments

  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    for the most part if im going to be doing backups I do it on a new HD and nopt the same one. althought I might partition my drive in 1/2 so I can have the operating system on one and my personal files on the other! images, music etc... it is really your call!
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited February 2006
    There's no point in doing backups if you're going to put the backed-up data on the same drive, since the whole point of backing up is having important data still available if one of your hard drives die.

    If you want to have a backup function, don't bother unless you have a physically seperate drive to back-up to.
  • NewGuyNewGuy
    edited February 2006
    alrite thanks.... i will stick with only one partition (my friend isn't very smart lol)
  • BLuKnightBLuKnight Lehi, UT Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    I hope I'm not too late in voicing my opinion. In reality, the question dealing with a number of partitions can be compared to "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop." My personal opinion is 3 partitions. Here's the reasoning:
    1. Partition 1 should be the partition containing the OS and programs run on the computer.
    2. Partition 2 should contain data. This would house, My Documents, stored MP3s, videos, pictures and bible music. Anything data wise.
    3. Partition 3 is a small partition, 3 times the size of the RAM you have in your computer (or plan to eventually have in your computer.)

    First, let me state, you should always back up your data on media that is stored outside of the location your computer is at. I like to keep my backups in my locker at work.

    That being said, if anything happens to the OS and you need to format, you only have to format partition 1. You reinstall everything on partition 1 and all your save games and important data is saved.

    Since all of your important data is saved on partition 2, it's easier to backup. You know where all the important information is. All you need to do is backup partition 2 spanned over many DVDs.

    Partition 3 is for the SWAP. The swap should be 1.5 to 2 times the size of the RAM in your computer. The less amount of memory you have, the close to 2 you get. The more RAM, head closer to 1.5.

    I've found this system has worked for me quite well over the past 5 years.

    Have fun!
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    I use 4 partitions on 2 HDDs.

    Windows is the first 10GB on the primary master.
    The rest of the space is its own partition on the primary master.

    My swap file is the first 1.5gb on the primary slave.
    The rest of the space is its own partition on the primary slave.

    The swap file is as fast as it's going to get, and I don't have to back anything up but my firefox settings when I reload windows.
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