Best Way to Partition 2 Hard Drives

[Cydrid]

I currently am running a single partition 120GB hard drive. I plan on buying a new 320GB drive for christmas, and decided to run them both with partitions. What would be the best way to set them up? My idea would be to run the 320GB with 50GB for programs and the OS, 75GB for games, and the remaining space as a partition for files, music, and videos. On the 120, I would mainly use it as backup, but partiton a separate 5 gig for the pagefile (Even though it'll only be set to 1 gig, just to have some leeway around it.).

Some of my questions are, would it be better to run it as 50GB for programs and OS, or set 10 for the OS, and then 40 on a different partiton for programs? Would I have any trouble running certain programs that way, and would it speed up system performance? Also, would 100+ gigs on the other hard drive be too much for backup? I don't plan on backing everything up, just mainly my documents, pictures, and some videos. Thanks in advance for any help or comments.

 

[LiLithTecH]

If you will be using Windows XP fomatted NTFS, the cluster size
will be 4k.

There is marginal disk improvement when splitting up partitions
under WinXP.

Disk management is another issue entirely.
If the stated partitions work for your stituation, then that would be
the way to go.

As to the backup of 100gb of data, it would depend on what media
you are backing up to (tape, dvd, cd, hd, etc).

 

[birdpup]

[*]Partition Strategies

• Two Partitions - Simplified
  • Make the C: partition 15-25GB and transfer personal data to the D: partition using the strategy described in the next section.
• Useful Multi-Partition Information
  • The Elder Geek on Windows XP
• Extreme Partitioning
  • FlyingPenguin's: Why You Should Partition A Large Hard Drive Into Several Smaller Partitions

[*]Procedure to transfer personal user data from system partition/drive ( C: ) to another partition/drive ( D: )
You can transfer all the users personal files to the D: partition by following this procedure:

1. copy C:\Documents and Settings\* D:\WinXP
   
2. Then login as each user on the system and go to:
   right-click My Computer, select Properties, select Advanced tab, select Environment Variables button at bottom,
   in the "User variable for <username>" section, create a variable named "USERPROFILE" and give it the value "D:\WinXP\<username>".
   
3. In the "System variables" section, create a variable named "ALLUSERSPROFILE" and give it the value "D:\WinXP\All Users".
   
4. If you desire, you may hide the D:\WinXP folder by right-clicking it and selecting Properties, then giving it the "Hidden" attribute, but only for that folder and not for its subfolders.

 

[Cydrid]

Thanks for that link it helps a lot, but I was still wondering if anyone has their OS on a different partiton from the rest of the applications, and whether there's any problems in doing so since some programs seem to need to be installed on the C drive.

 

[Doug117]

Originally posted by: Cydrid
I currently am running a single partition 120GB hard drive. I plan on buying a new 320GB drive for christmas, and decided to run them both with partitions. What would be the best way to set them up? My idea would be to run the 320GB with 50GB for programs and the OS, 75GB for games, and the remaining space as a partition for files, music, and videos. On the 120, I would mainly use it as backup, but partiton a separate 5 gig for the pagefile (Even though it'll only be set to 1 gig, just to have some leeway around it.).

50GB for OS and Apps is PLENTY! Even your games should fit in there... unless you have like 10 games installed at any given time. I'd say do your 50GB (or less) for the OS and everything you'll install, and the rest as your "storage" partition

Some of my questions are, would it be better to run it as 50GB for programs and OS, or set 10 for the OS, and then 40 on a different partiton for programs? Would I have any trouble running certain programs that way, and would it speed up system performance? Also, would 100+ gigs on the other hard drive be too much for backup? I don't plan on backing everything up, just mainly my documents, pictures, and some videos. Thanks in advance for any help or comments.

I dont see any advantage for splitting the 50 up into 10/40. As for backup, you could partition the 120gb into 2... one for your backup (however big u think u need it) and the rest for more storage..

As for that extreme partitioning... thats just stupid in my book... total waste

A little look into my system (if you care):
Maxtor 60GB:
[*]C: 250MB (DOS 6.22/Win3.11)
[*]E: 5.5GB (WinXP x86 SP2)
[*]F: 3GB (WinXP x64 -- or whatever I am playing with)
[*]G: ~48GB (Storage)
Old ass IBM 10GB -- in process of moving to not-quite-as-old Seagage 20GB
[*]D: 10GB (Storage -- mostly my Installers, but also the My Documents folder for portability)
2x Western Digital 80GB (160GB) RAID0
[*]H: 160GB (Storage -- used for a ton of random crap since its faster)

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: Cydrid
Thanks for that link it helps a lot, but I was still wondering if anyone has their OS on a different partiton from the rest of the applications, and whether there's any problems in doing so since some programs seem to need to be installed on the C drive.

These days, the number of programs that won't let you install to anything other than C: is miniscule. I used to run the following:

Seagate 200GB, with 10GB O/S partition and the rest for programs and downloads, and a 120Gb Maxtor as an ISO / DV scratch space / dumping ground. Worked perfectly.