Why Partition?

[Aeronut]

Trying to decide what partitions to make on a new PC with 2 x 320Gb hard disks running Vista 64.

What partitions should I make?

I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing but like the idea of one hard disk for the operating sysytem and data and the second as an onboard backup destination for data.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

On Windows machines I've tried various approaches and come to the conclusion that it's easiest to have a single partition.

If you've got two separate spindles then, assuming you're not actually going to fill up 300Gb (ie, assuming you don't have a large collection of downloaded porno movies) then your suggestion is perfectly sensible. An off-board backup (as well and/or instead) would be better, of course.

Otherwise I'd put the OS and applications on one drive and data on the other, then backup is simply a matter of copying the data drive. Also, when you replace the machine moving a disk full of data from one machine to another is trivial whereas the OS and applications are usually best re-installed from scratch (unless you are a fully qualified BOFH and know what you're doing).

[Aeronut]

Thanks, I think I'll give it a try.

[Saab Dastard]

If the drives are SATA, you should have the option of creating RAID 0 or RAID 1 volumes.

RAID 0 stripes data across both disks for speed, but gives no redundancy (if one disk fails you lose all your data, just like with a single disk setup). The disk array appears to the OS as a single large disk of 640 GB.

RAID 1 mirrors the contents of one disk to the other, giving you disk redundancy (but not controller resilience), so that if one disk fails, your data is preserved on the other disk. However, you effectively lose half of your storage capacity. The disk array appears to the OS as a single large disk of 320 GB.

With operating systems and applications getting larger all the time, they consume more and more of the available disk space, almost as fast as disk size increases!

As you say, separate disks or partitions for OS and Data makes a lot of sense.

I would not create a System disk for Vista less than 100 GB now - even larger if you leave the User Data (My Documents) folders in the default location, rather than pointing them to a second disk or partition.

If you are not using RAID, it's probably a good idea to create a partition on the non-system disk of at least 2 x max physical RAM for the swap file.

Other than that, the disk configuration really depends on what you need to store and how you use your PC.

On-board backup is better than no backup at all, but you might consider external disks - either USB or NAS or another PC. And for very important data, preferably a backup on "permanent" media such as DVD / CD.

HTH

SD

[Keef]

Way way back in the olden days when hard drives over 32MB in size couldn't be addressed, I partitioned my giant 250MB one into eight. I set C as the operating system, D as interesting stuff, E as pictures, F as WP docs, G as spreadsheets, and so on.

That has over the years been so much easier than searching for stuff in one giant "My Documents" folder on Drive C somewhere. The individual partitions are now a tad larger than 32MB, and vary in size from 10GB to 200GB. I've got used to stuff being that way, and I like it. I know where everything is - like "Excel anything is in G:\" rather than "C:\Applications and something or other\My name\My Documents\The budgies name\Excel\..." Thunderbird e-mail is in I:\Mail, not buried about seven layers down in folders with gibberish names.

It means I can back up my stuff selectively - I have a few batch files that do that in one hit - for example:
xcopy G:\Excel\*.* S:\BU%date:~6,4%%date:~3,2%%date:~0,2%\G\Excel\*.* /C /D /S /Y
and job done, with stuff in a dated folder.

It proved a big "plus" when I installed Windows 7 on a spare partition: I can access the same documents folders with Win 7 or XP.

If I were starting from scratch, I think I would do it again. The drawback is that if you size the partition wrong, it's a faff to change it (Partition Magic used to do that for me, but I've not needed it for ten years or more). The advantage is that a hard disk crash some years ago didn't lose any data (it's all backed up anyway, but I didn't need the backup).

[bnt]

If you don't have the option of RAID-1 mirroring, and you don't feel an urge to experiment with e.g. Linux for x64, then what I would do in that situation is to make simple NTFS partitions, one per disk, and occasionally mirror the data between them with something like Microsoft SyncToy. You've got enough space and horsepower there to edit a feature film on: totally spoiled. :D

[The late XV105]

A fair bit of reading over multiple pages, but I learned from this and found it very easy to follow. I used the knowledge gained to good effect and as well as a PC used for intensive video editing that has maintained stonking performance (because of good housekeeping, too) also benefited from exactly what Keef describes.

RADIFIED: Hard Drive Partitioning Strategies (http://partition.radified.com/)

XV105

[BigEndBob]

Why bother to partiton.
My choice at the moment use a small hard drive to hold operating system say 10 to 40gb, then use a larger hard drive to store all my other data/programs.
Or even a seperate usb hard drive say 500-1tb.
Because in my experience i have to dump everything and reformat every six months in order to get rid of all the crap and bugs that seem to accumulate.

[Parapunter]

You would do bettter to learn system management techniques. Reformat every six months?? My best and most critical pc has been up now for six years with xp

[Keef]

Summat adrift there. I've not reformatted or wiped in living memory. There's too much stuff that I use and don't have the install disks for. I prefer good housekeeping - watch what's running, and zap what shouldn't be. Defrag every six months, whether it needs it or not.

MSCONFIG is your friend, as is the Services app in Control Panel.

[Loose rivets]

I have for many years divided my main drive into three: C for Windows (yep, I can see the logic in hiding this elsewhere from hackers, but there it is) D for programs and E for...well, stuff. Vast areas of space space in C and D can be used for first stage backup of photos etc., (formatting would only mean the temporary loss of one of the backup strategies.)

I've never had much success in re-installing the OS and getting the programs working again without re-installing those as well.

What I can't understand, now that I'm not using good old F-Disk, Drive C & E have the Primary partition colour stripe showing over the allotted drive-spaces in Disk Management, while D shows a logical drive stripe with an extended (green) partition box round it. This seems counterintuitive.

[green granite]

I too use C for operating sys and programs, storage for the thing like docs and pictures are on separate partions and another one I keep purely for back up images.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

C for Windows (yep, I can see the logic in hiding this elsewhere from hackers, but there it is)
Oh yes, Once Upon A Time I was running NT Server from D:, and I had 98 installed on C: in case I wanted to play any games; 99.9% of the time I was actually running NT Server from D:.

Somehow a virus got itself onto my network. It very cleverly installed itself in C:, where I spotted it long before I next intended to boot from that disk. Not the first time that a bug in a virus has rendered it harmless.

[Shunter]

Blimey, what is this? A Windows apologists' thread?

If you're interested in computers and how they work, use Linux. If you don't give a toss and want a hassle-free life, buy a Mac. Windows is a system born of a blinkered vendor in an era where security was never considered. Unix based systems (Mac, Linux) were designed to run in networked environments in true multi-user style. Despite numerous horrific layers of hacks and bodges, Windows still relies too heavily on "trust the user". Unix systems are more "**** that! Make him at least try and prove he knows what he's talking about before he does XYZ". Security need not mean inconvenience; unless you use Windoze, when it's neither secure not convenient. Yet the sheep blunder forth regardless....

Sheesh.

[bnt]

Well, you'll note that I got a Linux plug in my earlier post... but I also have some wider Windows experience (before my MCSE lapsed), and it is possible to run Windows NT (WNT) or later (incl. 2000, XP, Vista, 7) using UNIX-style security principles. In a Domain environment you can enforce restrictions as appropriate, such as installing applications remotely, and stopping Users from getting to system files.

Unfortunately, a home user has to be his or her own system administrator, and is not trained for it. It should be as simple as: log in as Administrator only to do system maintenance tasks, such as installing programs. All other times, log in as an ordinary user: not a "Power User". You can select "Run As Administrator" for quick jobs. I think Microsoft has dropped the ball here: they should be doing more to communicate basic security principles, in addition to enforcing them. Vista made a poor initial impression by enforcing draconian measures without really explaining why - something Windows 7 reportedly improves on.

Geek note: WNT is closer to VMS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS) than UNIX, since several senior VMS designers were hired by Microsoft to help design WNT. Take VMS, add one to each letter... :8

[Keef]

Wow, last two comments are a joke, right?

No need to re-format, just a service clean like an oil change, maybe that you can relate to?

I don't put oil in my PC. That may be where you're going wrong.
I don't even use snake oil.

Why would anyone wipe and reformat, unless they've got a particularly nasty virus? I've had one virus in the last three years (it was its first "day out" on the Internet, and AVG didn't know about it). It was removed in ten minutes.

[Loose rivets]

Hah! I once serviced a PC for a company that had complained their 4000 quid investment made a funny noise while running. Finally, I opened the hard drive in my (fairly) clean room, on a nothing-to-lose basis. About a table spoonfull of oil spilled out. They had been oiling the bottom baring on a regular basis to keep it quiet.:hmm:

[parabellum]

I have used Partition Magic 8.0 with some success, it reduces the time for disk clean up and defrag etc. I use Norton Save and Restore to do regular back-ups to another part of the same physical disk but in a different partition, probably safer if I get a separte remote hard drive and back up to that?Only had to use 'Save and Resore' once but it worked perfectly when the inbuilt MS System Restore didn't woek at all.

[Bushfiva]

'Ere, someone's been through and cleared away what could have been a very entertaining afternoon :-(

Anyway, Aeronut, you've had a few opinions by now so my tuppence is, go for whatever method you feel happy with, as long as you make sure backups are part of the scheme. Since most people give up on backups at some point, I'd consider giving over one 320GB as a backup of the other. As SD says, you could RAID1 the drives. But, if the computer is trashed along with one of the RAIDed drives, you need to know that the data on the other drive is truly recoverable. I wouldn't use RAID 0, because "0" is the amount of data you'll recover if things go pear-shaped. This is down to your skill level and possibly the availability of replacement hardware. What I'd possibly do, in my specific situation, which includes being in an earthquake zone: an external drive as a real-time backup target using something like Comodo Backup, which is free. If push comes to shove, the drive gets ripped from the cable and stuffed in the egress backpack. Of course, my needs are probably different to yours :-) I just need my business paperwork and my photos to survive. If you look carefully at what you really, really need to survive the ultimate disaster, maybe a USB stick would would for you.

The main thing is, choose a system you're comfortable with, and which works without your input.