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Question Recommended Drive Config these days...

C

Caveman

Platinum Member
I've got a dedicated Single Disk for Win 7 that I've been using for the past 4 years with no issues... That Win 7 dedicated disk includes 2 partitions: 1 for the OS itself which is 100 GB and the balance for all programs.

I'm installing another 1TB drive in the same PC for Win 10 (intent is to setup as dual boot with Win 10 as the primary drive).

I've never had to reinstall the Win 7 OS, etc... So I'm wondering if having a partition of the OS is kinda pointless and just ends up wasting space (anything not used up in the 100GB portion)...

What are your thoughts on this? What would you do if you were to install a new Win 10 Drive?? Would you partition it or leave it as one chunk??
 
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First of all, I would physically disconnect the Windows 7 drive, and install Windows 10 on the secondary HDD as a stand-alone installation. Then use the BIOS boot menu to select between them. Set the BIOS default boot to boot to Win10. (So that when it auto-restarts in the middle of the night after updates, it will be able to finish them, and not have to wait for you to come in in the morning and select from the boot menu.)

Second, no SSD? Are you serious? And you're on this forum? Have you not heard of SSDs?

Edit: I would like to apologize to OP. Apparently, he has two SSDs, one with Win7 and one with Win10. Only, he has his information spread out over three separate threads, so I didn't have the full picture. C'mon OP, you can do better, and I'm sorry.
 
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Caveman said:
I've got a dedicated Single Disk for Win 7 that I've been using for the past 4 years with no issues... That Win 7 dedicated disk includes 2 partitions: 1 for the OS itself which is 100 GB and the balance for all programs.

I'm installing another 1TB drive in the same PC for Win 10 (intent is to setup as dual boot with Win 10 as the primary drive).

I've never had to reinstall the Win 7 OS, etc... So I'm wondering if having a partition of the OS is kinda pointless and just ends up wasting space (anything not used up in the 100GB portion)...

What are your thoughts on this? What would you do if you were to install a new Win 10 Drive?? Would you partition it or leave it as one chunk??
Click to expand...

It depends on why you are doing it. In the olden days, we micro-partitioned out of a vague hope that you'd get increased performance. With some hardware it even worked (if only a little). If you are doing it only for this reason, it is a waste of time with any modern spinner drive.

Pretty much the only valid reason for installing the OS into a separate partition these days is to allow better fine control in separating your OS and data. There isn't anything wrong with it per se, and I fully admit that I have disciplined myself to the point where I always do it on my own systems out of force of habit. While I do back up for an emergency, I always prefer a clean OS install when possible to replace a malfunctioning OS. I might only have to reinstall an OS once every couple of years on my own systems on average, but I've also done it enough times over the years to recognize the tremendous time savings of being able to just format a partition, drop the OS install, then grab my saved drivers and software installers off the other partition(s) on the same drive without having to mess with external media or re-downloading. I get a semi-functional system (subject to the whims of the Microsoft Update gods) back in a fraction of the time that I otherwise would.

BTW, partitioning an SSD does not affect its longevity (wear leveling algorithms are applied to the entire SSD so long as the OS installed has TRIM support, which all modern ones do).
 
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Virtual Larry, I did the drive installation exactly as you stated which I've done several times adding an OS to a Laptop. This time it was like it worked "too well" and the OS never saw the second SSD (probably my fault as I may have had something configured wrong in the BIOS). At any rate, I ended up using Easy BCD and finally sorting things out...

Steltek, I know exactly what you are saying with partitions and I'm using a freak about proper use of a separate partition for an OS but I've NEVER (in 20 years) had to reinstall an OS and... this particular PC will only have a few programs so it's not the end of the world if I have to reinstall the entire thing...

So, I went ahead and installed the OS and Programs on one chunk.... Living dangerously 🙂
 
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