Friends, Partition Weenies, Multi-Booters, lend me your drives ...

[SUOrangeman]

I come to ... fix all of these "How should I partition my new mega-multi-jiggala-byte hard drive?" threads.

Many of the "wise owls" (take that very lightly) will quickly post something like "Make 5GB for Windows, 15GB for programs, and the rest for data/mp3s/downloads/etc." While this isn't bad advice necessarily, I still cringe when folks suggest that the Windows (or \WINNT) directory and program files be on separate partitions. Maybe I am wrong, but I firmly believe that is your Windows partition goes south, you'll likely have to do a lot of reinstalling on the programs partition to get everything working again. Yes, there are some well-written tools that will survive a "Windows directory" reinstall, but I don't think that a majority of today's software can make that claim. But, I digress ... for now.

I am here today to ask a simple question. HOW MUCH DISK SPACE ARE YOU ACTUALLY USING?

Most of my installs have the following pattern:

C: is ~1GB FAT32 used for page/swap file and temp files.
D: is ~4 to 8GB for Windows, Program Files, and the "main" Documents & Settings folder
E: through (XYZ: ) will be personal documents, downloads, MP3s, games, backups, etc.

On my 2-month-old WinXP install at work, I'm using 256MB on C:, 3.83GB on D:, 4.13GB for personal documents, and I have 27.2GB worth of software downloads on a separate, dedicated hard drive. So, I could probably get away with a 20GB drive if I were only running WinXP on this box ... and I didn't archive the programs I download.

At home, Win2K is my main OS. After roughly three years of use, C: is less than half full (~500MB or so in use, likely less), D: is approaching 3GB, personal files are less than 1GB, and MP3s/games/downloads/other OSes fill out the rest of my drives.

Aside from installing full games to the programs "area," I'd be willing to bet that most users have the same amount of usage, if not less. Am I way off base?

-SUO

 

[toant103]

1GB for swap? that's all

🙂


I have 1GB of ram.

hehe

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: toant103
1GB for swap? that's all

🙂


I have 1GB of ram.

hehe

Really???!!!?? Well, uhhh. Could you spare a couple a hundred megs for a fellow ATer in need 🙂😀.

Seriously though, there is no way I'll ever have as tight of a setup as Orangeman. To many games and too many users and not enough time to keep track of them all.

 

[Dreadogg]

I will not partition anymore, unless I am dualbooting then I will only for the OS partition along with the programs and I will split one drive to two mostlikly C,D. I feel this way because I am working with 4-5 gig folders that need to be moved from drive to drive and going from drive to drive is much better that going from partition to partition. My setup as of now is one 80 gig drive and one 60 gig drive I will be going with a smaller boot drive either SATA or SCSI, then the second will be a 80 gig loud 8mb cache wd that already own. I would say if you really had to I would only have two partition one for the OS and programs and the other for all backups.

 

[n0cmonkey]

The consequences of Code Red could have possibly been less harmful if people partitioned intelligently.

 

[Pilsnerpete]

what's Code Red, n0c?

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: Pilsnerpete
what's Code Red, n0c?

It was some kind of virus (worm or whatever, I can't really remember at the moment). Its also some type of soda..............

 

[civad]

30-gig Hard drive:
5 Gig /home
10 gig- Debian Woody
10 gig- Mandrake 9.0
rest- mp3s, etc.

1.5 gig Drive- Swap

120 gig drive: consternation in progress regarding the matter.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: wizardLRU

Originally posted by: Pilsnerpete
what's Code Red, n0c?

It was some kind of virus (worm or whatever, I can't really remember at the moment). Its also some type of soda..............

It is a worm attacking IIS. Some of the varients would leave a shell for you to remotely connect to the machine with. If the shell was on a different partition it would have made this a lot tougher.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Thanks for the feedback. I should have mentioned that I am indeed the only user of my systems. That definitely makes a difference as to what files show up where. Some folks just love to make use of the desktop, whereas I am a big-time minimalist in that regard.

-SUO

 

[Bacinator]

Original config:
1 80gb drive, 1 40gb drive.

40 maxed out, 80 nearly full.

bought a 120, put the 40 in another system, partioned the 80 to 60/20.

Used unpartitioned 120 as system drive, and 60/20 for media/downloads.

120 master boot record crashed - unrecoverable AS a boot disk. 60/20 maxxed.

purchased 2 more 120gbs.

new unpartioned 120 running system and new programs, other new unpartitioned 120 running storage (60% full), and old 120gb still running progs as D:.

Dunno what I'm gonna do with the 80.

I'm going to get into video editing, counter-strike map editing, and I collect a butt ton of media. I plan on getting my 300cd (somewhere around 20gigs estimated) collection on my drives soon... I have over 50gb of music videos... couple tens of gigs of cartoons, snl, and other goodies...

So currently 440gb of space, and about 250gb used.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Bac, remind to never install some of those programs you've got. Are you sure that it is only your applications that take up 60% of 120GB? Or do you have alot of your video work mixed in there as well? What's the size of \Windows (or \WINNT)?

-SUO

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: Bacinator
Original config:
1 80gb drive, 1 40gb drive.

40 maxed out, 80 nearly full.

bought a 120, put the 40 in another system, partioned the 80 to 60/20.

Used unpartitioned 120 as system drive, and 60/20 for media/downloads.

120 master boot record crashed - unrecoverable AS a boot disk. 60/20 maxxed.

purchased 2 more 120gbs.

new unpartioned 120 running system and new programs, other new unpartitioned 120 running storage (60% full), and old 120gb still running progs as D:.

Dunno what I'm gonna do with the 80.

I'm going to get into video editing, counter-strike map editing, and I collect a butt ton of media. I plan on getting my 300cd (somewhere around 20gigs estimated) collection on my drives soon... I have over 50gb of music videos... couple tens of gigs of cartoons, snl, and other goodies...

So currently 440gb of space, and about 250gb used.

:Q

Wow, dude, thats a lot of media. I'm feeling kinda jealous right now 😀.

 

[Bacinator]

Originally posted by: SUOrangeman
Bac, remind to never install some of those programs you've got. Are you sure that it is only your applications that take up 60% of 120GB? Or do you have alot of your video work mixed in there as well? What's the size of \Windows (or \WINNT)?

-SUO

The 60% storage mention was material moved from the 60/20 storage drive, so it's probably more like 75% full. I'm at work, and do not have an accurate count. I'll try and remember when I have access to my computer to check, which will not be until 1am saturday morning due to work/travel.

As for programs, there are different photo editors (adobe photoshop 6 and 7, yes both) which can put out super hi-res pics that are up around 100mb a piece. Pain in the butt to print and send, but great for "fine tooth" editing, and saving as a smaller format. Lots of full installs of games that can take up to 1gb a piece... Baldurs gate II, Icewind dale II, Mechwarrior 4, Diablo II, etc... Lots of game demo's from Fileplanet.com, though the archived zips are on the storage drive. Can't forget the Pron too. 😛

Yes, pron. Not like prawn, more like tig ol bittys.

 

[Dreadogg]

full DVD backups with tear up your drive also sometimes being as big as 9.5 gigs.

 

[Bacinator]

Ya... no full DVD backups yet...
Will probably wait for cheaper DVD burners and DVD media before I do stuff like that...