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How big a partition for WinXP?

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I have one 25 gig part... that is the OS and small applications that needs installed...photoshop macromedia etc...i think make a 120 gig partion for all my images music movies..documents and settings drivers and apps installs etc...that why i can just reinstall on the one partition and not lose any of my saved data on the other partition.

However i will be getting a raptor and 250 gigs sata drives... so the raptor is going to be windows and installs...the other driver storage.
 
Originally posted by: wchou
setting one big partition is sloppy and lazy
Not recommended for easy backups and upgrading hd's
I'd set mine at 3gb, winxp uses about 2gb after all the updates
was 1.4gb on fresh install
Click to expand...

Multiple partitions is an old habit that people have hung onto but really plays no significant role anymore. There is nothing sloppy or lazy about it. It's just an unnecessary hassle.

Upgrading hard drives? Usually when upgrading a hard drive the capacity on the newer drive is larger. Doing a drive to drive Ghost image is fast and just about as easy as it gets. How does multiple partitions help in hard drive upgrades.

As far as backing up, if your drive goes out, you better have your WHOLE drive backed up and not just one partition.

Defraging? If you do it ever week, a 300GB drive should defrag reasonably quick. If you know it's going to take awhile, set a task to run it at night. What, do you defrag right before you are going to do something productive on your machine?

Partitioning is just a waste. With NTFS (less fragmentation than FAT32, and other benefits) there really isn't a need to partition. But if it makes you feel better breaking down a 200GB drive into 26 partitions, knock yourself out. I'll use the entire drive and use these little things called "folders" to organize my drive. 😉



Now if you are dual/multi booting, that is a different story. I'd highly recommend partitioning in that case.
 
how many user accounts? if just one, 10 would be fine.

i have and paltry 80gig drive. i just split it up 40 for os and apps, 40 for games, movies, and music. i like having games seperate so if i have to reinstall(usually only after an upgrade involving the mobo), i just go to the d drive and click on the exe and im back playing. no need to reinstall any games.
 
Lovehandles... Um, no.
Max size for a hd in FAT = 2GB, and your cluster size is 32k.
2GB partition in FAT32, cluster size is 4K. (max size = 2TB). LBA needed for over 137GB hds.
NTFS cluster size is 2k for a 2GB, 4k for anything above.

When you write something that is 33k on a FAT partition, you have an overhead of 31k that is unuseable. When you write something that is 5k in NTFS, you have 3k unuseable. NTFS does not have a higher overhead than previous OS's....
Tas.
 
Last build, I used 20G for Windows and some apps. I install games and most other apps on another drive. I do it for easy backing up (Ghost). You can get away with much smaller. Depends what you prefer.
 
20GB here, it leaves enough room to install some big games and apps. Plus with a 200GB drive you still should have ample room (180GB) for your data.

With HDDs as cheap as they are now-a-days, I use a second HDD for my data and a dedicated one for the OS and programs. If you could get a 36GB raptor just for the OS that would be great!
 
Originally posted by: tasburrfoot78362
Lovehandles... Um, no.

When you write something that is 33k on a FAT partition, you have an overhead of 31k that is unuseable. When you write something that is 5k in NTFS, you have 3k unuseable. NTFS does not have a higher overhead than previous OS's....
Tas.
Click to expand...

Tas, you seem to have "slack space" and "overhead" confused. They are two separate things. Yes I know about cluster sizes.

Read up my man.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q314875

"NTFS also has several advanced features, including recoverability, security, and support for very large volumes. Because of these advanced features, the NTFS metadata overhead is somewhat larger than the FAT metadata overhead."
 
Let's say some dumbass creates a 5gb boot partition and, after loading all updates from his MSI Neo2, only has 100mb left 🙁

Is there any way to increase the size of the partition? Or will this nameless person have to reformat/reinstall every friggin thing AGAIN?

TIA!
 
Originally posted by: Jersey Joe
Let's say some dumbass creates a 5gb boot partition and, after loading all updates from his MSI Neo2, only has 100mb left 🙁

Is there any way to increase the size of the partition? Or will this nameless person have to reformat/reinstall every friggin thing AGAIN?

TIA!
Click to expand...

Programs like Partition magic will let you increase the size of the partition without losing data.

 
Originally posted by: Ronin13
I usually just make one big partition, but this build is for a friend who wants the OS to be on its own partition.

So if you had to, how big would you make it?
Click to expand...

Why exactly does he want to do this? It is most likely not a good idea. It is best to have as least partitions as possible for performance and conveinience reasons.
 
Originally posted by: KoolDrew
Originally posted by: Ronin13
I usually just make one big partition, but this build is for a friend who wants the OS to be on its own partition.

So if you had to, how big would you make it?
Click to expand...

Why exactly does he want to do this? It is most likely not a good idea. It is best to have as least partitions as possible for performance and conveinience reasons.
Click to expand...
I believe he wants to do this so he can make a fresh install of Windows without messing with the stuff that goes on the other partition.

I'm a 'One Partition' guy myself, but isn't this the reason people normally install the OS to a seperate partition?

Here's a question (to help me to undetstand how this actually works): An OS is installed to partition C and a game (for instance) is installed on partition E. Now the OS is reinstalled. Does the game still work, or does it have to be reinstalled as well?
 
Here's a question (to help me to undetstand how this actually works): An OS is installed to partition C and a game (for instance) is installed on partition E. Now the OS is reinstalled. Does the game still work, or does it have to be reinstalled as well?
Click to expand...

For some it may work and some may need a few registry entries. The majority of games would have to be reinstalled though.
 
Originally posted by: Ronin13Does the game still work, or does it have to be reinstalled as well?
Click to expand...

Yes, you will need to reinstall them. Most programs (including video games makes changes to the registry during the installation). Since the new OS installation won't have any idea what's been installed previously, you will need to reinstall them.
 
I don't have the time or inclination to dispel every myth/ false rumour on the internet. Whether you make partitions on your HDD or not boils down to personal preferences and personal usage of the PC. But when someone makes a comment like:

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
It is best to have as least partitions as possible for performance and conveinience reasons.
Click to expand...

I have to really wonder where they get all this false information. Are they just pulling this out of thin air? or repeating what someone told them? There are so many teenage kids posting on internet boards like this it makes it hard for newbies to understand what is true or not.
 
Originally posted by: KoolDrew
How about saying what you think is so false about my comment rather then calling me a "newbie?"
Click to expand...

I wasn't calling YOU a newbie. Read the post again. I was saying that a computer novice "newbie" would have a tough time knowing which posts are accurate and which ones are false because there are so many contradicting statements on forums like this.
 
OS Partitions ARE extrememly useful. Set ~5-7GB and take the effort of not installing any programs on that drive. When your windows fails, you just reinstall it to that partition and everything else are still on other partitions. No worries.

If you plan to install programs on it as well then 10GB would do fine. Given that you install games on other drives
 
Originally posted by: Lovehandles
Originally posted by: KoolDrew
How about saying what you think is so false about my comment rather then calling me a "newbie?"
Click to expand...

I wasn't calling YOU a newbie. Read the post again. I was saying that a computer novice "newbie" would have a tough time knowing which posts are accurate and which ones are false because there are so many contradicting statements on forums like this.
Click to expand...

Ok. I misread your post wrong and I agree with that statement, but you still didn't explain what is so false about my comment.

OS Partitions ARE extrememly useful. Set ~5-7GB and take the effort of not installing any programs on that drive. When your windows fails, you just reinstall it to that partition and everything else are still on other partitions. No worries.

If you plan to install programs on it as well then 10GB would do fine. Given that you install games on other drives
Click to expand...

You would still ahve to reinstall many of the applications and games anyway. I actually do use 2 partitions for a similair purpose though. I use one partition for OS and any other software. Then I set up another partition of MP3's and anything else. This way if I reformat I still have my MP3's and documents.
 
i use to have 4 partitions on my 120gb. i got tired of forgetting to install this and that in the right parition. i bought a 160gb HD for all my songs, downloads, backup stuff and use the 120gb as one partition.
 
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