Partition of 256GB SSD

[Brian Stirling]

I just picked up a new Ultrabook (Asus UX31A) that comes with a 256GB SSD, but I was surprised to find it had been partitioned to have the following:

1. 200MB EFI System Partition
2. 98.54GB OS "C" drive in NTFS
3. 4.00GB Primary Partition
4. 125.61GB Data "D" drive in NTFS
5. 10.00GB Recovery Partition

So, I think breaking the SSD into two usable partitions doesn't make a lot of sense and am thinking about combining them using Win7 Disk Management utility -- is there any reason i should leave it the way it is?

If I resize/combine, is there some settings I should tweak?


Brian

 

[Berryracer]

be careful when changing the partition size as misalignments might happen

if that happens, you will need Paragon Alignment Tool 4.0 to fix it as it will badly hurt performance if its not fixed

 

[Brian Stirling]

Yeah, I was aware of the potential alignment issue but I'm not sure what the best approach to prevent that is if I use the built in utilities in Win7.

I think the biggest issue I have with separating the SSD into two roughly equal usable drives is that is makes the main OS drive "C" smaller and that will tend to overuse that storage which isn't a great thing with flash memory. Then again, I doubt I'd be pushing the service life unless the amount of space available was just a little bigger than the space required.

So, any pointers to the best approach for resizing (eliminating "D" and expanding "C")?


Brian

 

[razel]

Assuming all your partitions are already aligned, then you won't have alignment issues using Win7's built-in utilities. If your partitions aren't aligned, then Win7 won't fix it either. So just be sure it's aligned before proceeding.

What'd I do?
1) Copy D : off onto an external drive.
2) Reboot into ASUS recovery partition and ensure it still works.
3) Delete that D : partition
4) Repeat step 2.

If the recovery partition isn't working, then use TestDisk or MiniTool's free Partition Wizard to recover partition D. Then repeat step 2. At that point, you have a decision to make. I know some laptops allow you to make recovery DVDs, others don't and force you to spend $50 on one. It's up to you. By the way, if you are running Win8 and are not allowed to make recovery DVD, Win8 seems to always let you make a recovery USB drive regardless of what manufacturers limit you to. I noticed this with newer laptops that have the Win8 key in it's BIOS.

 

[Cerb]

So, I think breaking the SSD into two usable partitions doesn't make a lot of sense and am thinking about combining them using Win7 Disk Management utility -- is there any reason i should leave it the way it is?

So that factory restore won't mess up your data. If you have OS media and/or recovery discs made, then you can do whatever.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Well I deleted the two partitions after the C: drive and extended the C: drive and all appears well. Now C: is 228GB versus 98.5GB. I used the tools within Win7 (Disk Management from within the Computer Management under Administrative Tools.


Brian