hidden 'System Reserved' partition

[TitusTroy]

do most people keep the 500 MB 'System Reserved' partition on their drives?...the one that stores your Boot Manager and BitLocker files...when doing a clean install I always prevent it from being created in the first place by using diskpart (to create a new partition)...is it better to just let Windows create that partition?

 

[Batmeat]

If it’s a desktop, no. If it’s a laptop I create my own recovery partition to clean install from.

I never keep the system reserved partition.

 

[TitusTroy]

with a clean install if you don't let Windows create the 'reserved partition' with the Boot Manager files then it just gets put on your main system drive...so I was just wondering if there's any difference (in performance or otherwise) by having it on your main drive versus having it on a separate partition

 

[john3850]

Windows needs a small boot or system reserved partition on the same drive if possible.

 

[Batmeat]

with a clean install if you don't let Windows create the 'reserved partition' with the Boot Manager files then it just gets put on your main system drive...so I was just wondering if there's any difference (in performance or otherwise) by having it on your main drive versus having it on a separate partition

Performance wise the hit is negligible as you waste a few cycles telling the CPU to switch and look for data in the reserved partition. I don't like having it because if something does get screwed up often times (at least in what I've experienced) The recovery feature in Windows 10/8/7 gets messed up anyway, fdisk doesn't work right, and I end up doing a format re-install just to fix a few reserved system files. My desktop machines I create full self bootable slipstreamed install media just for that reason.