How do you partition your Hard Drive?

[Kelemvor]

I have a 160 gig drive that I'm going to be using to replace (or add to) my 2 40s. I'm going to be starting from sctach with Windows XP. Just wondering how everyone partitions their drives.

I know of people going to the extreme and having C = OS only, D = Programs installed, E = everything else (docs, downloads, etc)

More common seems to be C for OS and programs, D for docs, downloads, etc.

Also, what sizes would you normally set aside for Windows XP Pro to use? I figured probably 20 gigs should be enough for going the OS and Programs on one partition but have seen some programs lately that are so gigantic I might want to use 40 for that.

I'll probably also set aside some space for a ghost image for backup and for copyings CDs to the HDD.

Anyway, just looking for ideas and options based on what other people do.

Thanks.

 

[aircooled]

I have 2 hard drives, one 40 gig drive which is C: for OS and APPS, and I have a 250 gig HD that has a 40 gig partition for games, and the rest as space for media, graphics, and everything else etc...

 

[nageov3t]

I don't.

I have three drives. a 36 GB Raptor for my OS/programs, and 2x250 GB SATA drives (RAID1) for all my documents / downloads / media files.

 

[Joemonkey]

i have a 160 and a 120

the 160 has a 15gb partition C: for OS and apps, a 40gb partition D: for random stuff, and the rest E: has My Documents and games, other random stuff

the 120 is not partitioned at all, and still has random stuff on it too...

 

[jpeyton]

30-40GB for the OS/apps, remainder of the drive for file storage.

 

[konakona]

out of 200GB total, 20gb (FAT32) reserved for OS, programs ETC and the remaining 180gb for anime

 

[Goi]

Originally posted by: FrankyJunior
I have a 160 gig drive that I'm going to be using to replace (or add to) my 2 40s. I'm going to be starting from sctach with Windows XP. Just wondering how everyone partitions their drives.

I know of people going to the extreme and having C = OS only, D = Programs installed, E = everything else (docs, downloads, etc)

More common seems to be C for OS and programs, D for docs, downloads, etc.

Also, what sizes would you normally set aside for Windows XP Pro to use? I figured probably 20 gigs should be enough for going the OS and Programs on one partition but have seen some programs lately that are so gigantic I might want to use 40 for that.

I'll probably also set aside some space for a ghost image for backup and for copyings CDs to the HDD.

Anyway, just looking for ideas and options based on what other people do.

Thanks.

I do exactly that, except now my E is a separate 120GB HDD.

 

[jjones]

I have a 200 gig and an 80 gig. The 200 gig HDD I have partitioned 10 gig for OS and 20 gig for Programs; the rest is partitioned for Work, Storage and Games. If you're going to combine OS and Programs (not Games) then 30 gig should be plenty.

I recommend a partition for all Work files if you use your computer for work. It makes backing up your work easier because everything work related is stored on one partition and you just back that up. This of course means that all work related files created in any program are stored appropriately in the Work partition and not the Programs partition.

My 80 gig HDD is strictly used for Backup.

 

[Falloutboy]

8gb partion for os only 15gb partition for apps rest is partioned for games. then I have 3x120gb and 2x80gb for storage of media

 

[Quadophile]

When you partition your harddrive make sure that the cluster size is optimal for your drive, the default is 512 b which can make things very slow, a 4K cluster size is good for speed and reliability for a 120 gig drive. If you are not sure how you do that I suggest you hop over to your dirve manufacturer's website and download thier easy to use partition program. I know that Maxtor has it as well as Seagate. I have the Seagate drive which I partitioned using the software I downloaded from their website. They also have tools which you can use to check your drive integrity and such. These are actually the best tools you can use to format, check integrity and maintain your hard drive, and it is FREE!

I use two Seagates in my main machine which are 60GB P-ATA (disk 0) and 120 GB SATA (disk 1). On the 60 GB I have 2 partitions of 20 and 36 GB each and on the 120 GB drive have also two partitions of 10GB and 101.79. I use a partition on each drive to keep my important data so as not to loose them if one drive fails for any reason. The 101.79 GB partition is use for Video transfer from my camcorder and to use it to store back ups of my DVD software/movies.

Imporperly setup harddrive can really slow the system down. If you buy a fast drive you should be able to use its full potential, Windows by default does not help in formating the hard drive which is what most of the prople do anyway.

Reliability of data and speed are the two top priorities when formating a hard disk, too small a cluster size leads to a slow system and too big a cluser size can lead to more data loss if things go wrong, which actually do go wrong and you cannot do anything about. Setting an equilibrium is the key.

Hope this information helps

Cheers!

 

[BurnItDwn]

hmmm on my main windows box.... I have
C: OS & Program Files (40GB partition on a 120GB Drive))
E: Backups of various things (200GB partition on a 200GB Drive)
H: (160GB partition on a 160GB Drive)
I: Games (80GB partition on a 120GB Drive)
L Older newsbin downloads go here (200GB Partition on a 200GB Drive)
Q Newsbin Pro partition (100GB partition on a 200GB Drive)
R Misc Storage (100GB partition on a 200GB drive)
120G2 (this is a 120GB partition on a 120GB drive I mounted as a subdirectory of my R drive)

I also have network drive V:
This connects to my main samba share on my linux box ... The samba share has 5 x 120GB drives ... This is where I keep all of my multimedia files

Other network drives are just horme directory on the linux box, webpage root path on the linux box, and hard drives for my other windows boxes.


on my "normal" windows pcs (ones not used for mass storage) ... I have a C partition for OS & Program Files and then a D: Partition for Games and Data

on my dual boot box (laptop, 20GB) I use 16GB for C (windows) and 512MB for linux swap, 2GB for /home, and the rest for /

my main server and dedicated BF1942 server have a bunch of partitions on them as well ... but I feel I have already gone on for enough ...

 

[ROJAS]

I Keep it one big partition. But I run two hard drives, c:\ operating sterm and starup files/programs, d:\personal stuff/photos/downlaods.

 

[Siddhartha]

I do not partition.
I have seven hard drives:
C: OS and programs
D: Videos
E: Books
F: Books
G: internet\storage
I: music files
J: Storage

 

[Kelemvor]

Maybe I'll keep one of my 40s and make that the C drive for OS and Apps and then just use the 120 as extra space. Maybe throw in the other 40 as a ghost partition for making periodic backups.

That will probably work I guess. Only need the other IDE slot for my DVD burner so that would be plenty.

 

[n0cmonkey]

$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/wd0a 1006M 40.1M 916M 4% /
/dev/wd0l 22.8G 13.7G 8.0G 63% /home
/dev/wd0f 501M 10.0K 476M 0% /tmp
/dev/wd0d 2.0G 305M 1.6G 16% /usr
/dev/wd0e 3.0G 1000M 1.8G 35% /usr/local
/dev/wd0i 1006M 286M 670M 30% /usr/obj
/dev/wd0j 1006M 501M 454M 52% /usr/ports
/dev/wd0k 2.0G 603M 1.3G 32% /usr/src
/dev/wd0h 3.0G 14.8M 2.8G 1% /var
/dev/wd0g 501M 4.0K 476M 0% /var/tmp

 

[Chaotic42]

Hmm...

18GB:

/dev/sda1-10.75GB Windows XP System (NTFS)
/dev/sda2-3.72GB Debian / (EXT2)
/dev/sda3-243MB Debian Swap

80GB:

/dev/hda1-5GB FAT32
/dev/hda2-30GB Windows XP Programs/Games (FAT32)
/dev/hda3-13.65GB Windows XP Crap (NTFS)
/dev/hda5-11.72GB Music (FAT32)
/dev/hda6-14.16GB Backups (EXT2)

160GB:

Completely untouched

 

[dullard]

One hard drive. No partitions. To me it isn't worth the effort and problems for a possible very slight (probably unnoticible) gain. Problems include many of my programs won't install on anything but C so if I had a small Windows only partiton, it doesn't work.

Yes I realize I'm in the minority here.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: dullard
One hard drive. No partitions. To me it isn't worth the effort and problems for a possible very slight (probably unnoticible) gain.

Yes I realize I'm in the minority here.

I did the same thing on the Windows machine I just put together. But I plan on getting more hard drives when I have the cash.

 

[dukdukgoos]

1 120gb drive, two partitions:

4 gb for OS only (i regularly back this up with Drive Image)
The rest of the space is for everything else, including swap file. This makes it very easy to backup, restore, reinstall windows whenever neccessary.

 

[high]

C:/ - XP Pro
D:/ - Movies
E:/ - Game Installlers
F:/ - Game Installers
G:/ - Games
H:/ - Programs
I:/Downloads

This is a 120GB Maxtor & 80GB WD

 

[oldfart]

74Gig Raptor
10 Gig WinXP C:
64 Gig Apps D:

120 Gig WD 1200JB
data/video files E:

 

[MDE]

2x36GB Raptors
72GB for Windows, programs, etc

1 80GB Maxtor DM +9
80GB for downloads, music, other random stuff

 

[imported_Bunter]

I like have the OS, anti-virus software and system utilities (including device drivers, device-specific software) on C with programs and data on D. In the Windows 2000 environment, 6GB seems to be big enough for C. I would consider a larger C partition on a larger hard drive (mine include 36.7 GB Raptors and an older 40GB IBM).

That scheme has saved me some angst on more than one occasion.

 

[imported_Rusty]

One 120GB SATA:
~60GB: WinXP, Program Files
~30GB: Media Storage (Games?)
~30GB: PDA, My Files

 

[CraigRT]

No partitions anymore
I used to have partitions, but not anymore as of about a month ago... 2 8meg 120GB Seagates