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OS Drive-Do you have a 1TB or partition it?

I

itakey

Senior member
I'm reloading my machine and I have an extra 1TB Caviar Black that I was planning on using for storage. I was reading around and people seem to talk about using Caviar Black's for OS drives since they are fast and reliable.

Question, when you do this, do you partition it and use the space for other letter drives, or, do you leave it just 1 huge partition?

I'm sure my reload will be under 50GB, but I want to keep things fast so I usually store data on a separate drive with partitions, but keep the OS drive clear.

Just curious to know what others do since it seems like such a waste to use a 1TB for an OS drive.
 
after years and years of reformats and trying to save stuff i thought i still needed... its just a PITA to sort hundreds of gigs of stuff everytime you format.

so i look at all the harddrives i have. currently, it seems that i have extra 120gb drives, not to mention they are very cheap anyway... so i will always have them around.

then, i take my multiple terabyte drive, part off 100GB, and use the rest as storage. first, the 100GB partition will easily fit onto any 120GB drive (easy cloning backup!), and its also plenty big enough for an os drive. all my games, movies, whatever gets stored onto the storage partition. putting steam games onto the storage partition is a LIFE SAVER when it comes for reformatting (no reinstalls. no lost games. it just works).

also, use the default folders in windows! everything basically gets saved in "my documents". all downloads, pics... all that stuff youll want to save gets stored underneath the my documents folder. this makes backing up really fast.

just copy that folder to your storage partition, and thats it. wipe that sucker clean. reinstall the os, and copy the my documents (which includes all its subfolders) back to your os partition. done. you have your personal files back, and everything else was saved to your storage partition.

the only part that sort of sucks is when you go to install some programs that dont really like to be on something other then the system root drive... so thats why i save the os partition for programs only, and my games get installed to the storage partition.

been doing it this way for years now, and i think most others do about the same. only other thing i want to add is, use partition cloning! too many programs these days require online activation, and usually you only get so many activates. so, set it up, activate everything, and then clone the partition to a spare harddrive. that way, when you reformat, all you do is reinstall that backup... it doesnt make it easier (because youll still have to update every freakin program to the latest revisions), but it does keep your stuff activated without killing your chances.
 
For the love of God, please PARTITION!
When something goes wrong with your Windows installation, move the usual suspects (MyDocs, Favorites, Desktop, Outlook, etc.) to the data partition and nuke the boot partition (preferrably restoring a clean snapshot).

I generally use 50GB for my OS partition, which is plenty for programs.
 
wirednuts said:
also, use the default folders in windows! everything basically gets saved in "my documents". all downloads, pics... all that stuff youll want to save gets stored underneath the my documents folder. this makes backing up really fast.

just copy that folder to your storage partition, and thats it. wipe that sucker clean. reinstall the os, and copy the my documents (which includes all its subfolders) back to your os partition. done. you have your personal files back, and everything else was saved to your storage partition.
Click to expand...

I go one step further and redirect those default Windows folders to my storage drive. This way I don't even have to worry about copying them back and forth. If you have RAID or some type of backup that gives you additional insurance from data loss.
 
Thanks for the tips everyone.
I guess I'm on the right track. I just don't want to partition a drive and then use it for both the OS AND Storage. You can just imagine that little read/write head jumping crazy to get the tasks done, instead if you have 2 separate physical drives they can do what they need on their own.

Guess i'll partition a drive so it has an OS partition, and then 1 or 2 storage partitions that will be used only as redundant backups that all get copied off to my final storage drive.

Mind boggling after I look at all the drives and files I have now, and thinking of the best way to get them all onto drives, and then backed up.

StriperMike said:
I go one step further and redirect those default Windows folders to my storage drive. This way I don't even have to worry about copying them back and forth. If you have RAID or some type of backup that gives you additional insurance from data loss.
Click to expand...

Can you share how you do that?
 
i use a smaller drive for my OS drive (500megs) and then have 2 750s in there as well for stuffs

just ordered a 2TB to use as an external backup drive
 
There's several ways to do it. My preferred method is to use NTFS junction points from c:\Users and c:\Documents and Settings. It requires jumping through some hoops, but it's worked the way I wanted since I set it up.

Plenty of howto's via google.
 
I normally right click the folders you want to move (My Docs, My Pics, etc), select properties and then select the Location tab. Change the location of each folder to your preferred location on your storage drive and you are done.
 
Thanks for the direction guys. Anyone know if there is a way to change the Desktop folder to a different drive? I'm sure this is hardly possible or super complex. Just curious since I like to keep a few key files/folders on my desktop and I have to create shortcuts (From my storage drive where the files live) all the time and its a pain. Anyone know if its even possible or if there is a setting or program out there to do that?
 
StriperMike said:
Same way as the other folders. You should have a folder called "Desktop" along with the other user folders.
Click to expand...

Is this the same in Windows XP Pro? Trying to change the desktop on one of my machines that's running XP and I probably won't be upgrading.

I know in windows 7 there is a "users" folder but that isn't how it is laid out in XP. Anyone know?
 
wirednuts said:
after years and years of reformats and trying to save stuff i thought i still needed... its just a PITA to sort hundreds of gigs of stuff everytime you format.
Click to expand...

how many times do you format? 😱



i'm using SSDs, those aren't partitioned as they're only 60GB and 40GB. windows and some programs go on the 60GB, other programs and a couple games are on the 40GB. games are mostly on a WD black, along with important documents (not in 'My Documents' because malware knows to look there). media is on a WD green.

i should probably do some sort of automatic backup from SSDs to magnetic storage.
 
I personally use a 1 TB caviar black as my primary OS drive because I'm still waiting for larger SSDs to come down in price. my 300gb raptor was not large enough for me. I do not regularly delete/uninstall games and such because i do enjoy just hoping on and playing some classics from time to time and i love my steam catalog. I have 4 2TB drives i use for raw storage and anything realllly important i just duplicate on all my drives
 
StriperMike said:
I go one step further and redirect those default Windows folders to my storage drive. This way I don't even have to worry about copying them back and forth. If you have RAID or some type of backup that gives you additional insurance from data loss.
Click to expand...

Ok, here goes with the caps lock key....RAID IS NOT A ^%$#@#%&*^%$$%ING BACKUP!!!
 
I personally put my Steam and other game directories on a different drive or at least a different partition (historically it's been a different partition, but my SSD is small enough that I just format the whole thing and there isn't room for all my games on it anyway) than my OS drive. My OS and programs drive does not have any personal documents on it. Those are all saved to a physically separate HDD and those files are backed up to a shared network drive. Around once a month I back everything up locally to an external HDD, which is then stored offsite.
 
I make the OS drive seperate from data drive...preferrably a higher class drive (WD RE3 or 4) or an SSD for speed.

If you can afford it...I strongly recommend an SSD for OS drive...performance bump is so worth it. Keep data/apps on spindle drives.
 
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