Hard Drive Partitions?

JPD252

I'm in the process of building my first PC. Now keep in mind I have no formal schooling in computer, just self tought by reading on the net. I read an article on hard drive partitioning. The writer suggested making numerous partions. For example
c: just for the OS,
D: for page or virtual memory (I don't know what that means?)
E: for programs
F: just for games
g: just for music
I: for archiving installs and setups
J: Backup
K: temporary internet files
L: for misc. downloads.

Note: They weren't in that exact order and size wasn't specified except for c: which if I remember was 4x RAM. Does this sound logical or practical. Will it cause problems or be a hassle always jumping from drive to drive. The writer basically explained that this will minimize in fragmentation and should speed up the hard drive. They also said the speed isn't noticeable but the reader in the HD doesn't have to travel the whole way across a disk to access info.

Anybody have 2 cents or advice they could add?

primesuspect

Having that many partitions serves no purpose. Most people use just one single partition, or maybe two if they want to organize by drive letter (for example, C: for program files and operating system, and D: for "stuff"). Having a paging file on a seperate partition makes no sense - there is no performance benefit whatsoever because the pagefile is still on the same physical drive. If you have more than one physical drive, that can help, but since you have one drive, just make a single partition or maybe two if you prefer.

drasnor

I think it's a terrible idea. The advantages of using multiple partitions are to keep your most-accessed data physically closest to the rim of the hard drive where the seek times are supposedly faster and to reduce the scope of data loss in the event of a physical drive failure. The disadvantages are that you're likely to not get your partition scheme exactly right and then you'll have partitions with lots of free space and others with none. I've had problems where I ran out of room for software on my Program Files partition and had to start installing into my user profiles partition. Not good. That being said, the most recommended partition scheme these days if you actually decide you want multiple partitions is:
C: just for the OS
D: everything else
Getting Windows to put everything on the appropriate partition during installation is nearly impossible and doing it after the fact is an exercise in frustration.

I have one of my drives partitioned like this because I can get Windows to install properly and put things in the correct places:
C: Windows XP IA32 and Program Files
D: Windows XP x86-64 and Program Files
E: User Profiles (Documents and Settings) and IIS server roots
This is a partition scheme for a dual-boot system since having two Windows installs on the same partition can be problematic.

Realistically though, a normal user should just use one partition. Hard drive failures are much, much less common these days and seek times are generally fast all around.

EDIT: On a server it's nice to have multiple partitions because then you can be creative with your system security like putting your core system on a read-only partition and having your server files somewhere else so if a hacker compromises the machine they can't turn it into a zombie spambot.

-drasnor

JPD252

Thanks, I have never seen or heard of anyone doing this until I read that article. And like I mentioned I thought it would be a problem when installing/downloading making sure it went to the correct drive. I just wanted to know if this was something worth the effort and if anybody else does that many partitions. Thank you again. By the way I relocated that article and its on this site! Of course when I found it again I noticed it was written four years ago in 2002.

http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=209

Tex

That article is nonsense. Listen to prime!

Two partitons is all you need. One for the OS.... I make mine 8 to 12gb but thats me and your needs may differ... Make the rest for your user data. I move my outlook files to "my documents" and then move it to the second partition and your done.

Tex

Kwitko

I use the same method. I've got my 10GB OS partition and the rest is My Documents and Programs Files.

I'm moving to 2 x 320GB drives in RAID0 this weekend, so I'll be doing 20GB for the OS (who cares, I'll have the space) and 600GB for everything else.

Tex

Kwitko wrote:

I use the same method. I've got my 10GB OS partition and the rest is My Documents and Programs Files.

I'm moving to 2 x 320GB drives in RAID0 this weekend, so I'll be doing 20GB for the OS (who cares, I'll have the space) and 600GB for everything else.

I use Outlook and it trys to hide the email files inside other directorys so I make a "outlook" folder for Robin and the kids inside their "my documents" folder and move the outlook files to there for everyone. I tell everyone clearly to put EVERYTHING they want backed up into only their own "my documents" folder. If they store it anywhere else its not getting backed up. I also move my intenet and temp direcetorys for everyone to the second partition into something in the root partition only because its easy to clean out maintenance wise and reduces fragmentation of the OS directory. I keep all my programs on the C: OS drive. So many programs need to make entries to the registry now you need to reinstall them with XP anyway I see no reason to keep them seperate. If your worried ghost or use another imaging program and save a image of the OS after you have it all tweaked out is my motto.

You do not need seperate partitons for this stuff and it actually hurts performance.

Tex

JPD252

Thanx for all the responses. They have lead me to one more question. How big does the OS drive really need to be. I'm installing a 250GB HD. Is 10gb enough or too much?

Tex

For most people thats fine. Crap with 250gb make it 15 and just forget about it.

Tex