I know it's been asked a thousand times probably, but...

[bovinda]

I am using Vista home premium 64 and I have two 500 GB hard drives. What's the best way to partition them, or what are your suggestions? Appreciate all feedback! :beer:

 

[Roguestar]

Whichever way you want. Search the forums for "partition" and you should get quite a few threads like this, which all elicit different responses from different people. I personally set up a small-ish partition for OS and core programs, then have other partitions for videos, music, installers etc. Means I only have to format C:/ when it all goes tits-up.

Google it and you'll probably get a thousand more opinions on it.

 

[montag451]

As Roguestar says,
BUT, even though all progs and data are on a separate partition, after a couple of years, when it comes down to it, you will want to do a full reinstall (progs, everything) to keep things running nicely.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: bovinda
What's the best way to partition them

Use the partition manager in vista - either during install or diskmgmt.msc after. As mentioned, layout and size or subjective and you'll probably not get it exactly right the first time. The only advice I would give is not go over four partitions per drive

 

[wwswimming]

it's useful to have a "partition on the side", 10-20 GB. you'll barely notice it
off a 300 or 500 GB drive, but it can come in handy if you need to resurrect
a system.

 

[JackBurton]

1 partition on each drive.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
1 partition on each drive.

/thread

 

[Papercup]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
1 partition on each drive.

seconded

 

[Boztech]

Personally I would put them in RAID 0, create one primary FAT32 partition of 50-100GB for Acronis images, and another primary partition out of the remaining space for OS, apps, and data

 

[bovinda]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
1 partition on each drive.

OK, I appreciate the feedback everyone. However, Jack's quote (and the several affirmative responses) did get me curious--is there really any performance gained with a partition? I can understand the need to only reformat a smaller area if the OS and programs take a nose dive, but other than that, why partition?