Should I partition my drive?

[AgentCipher]

Hey guys,

I'm building my new computer (most of the parts came today), and I'm debating partitioning my 1TB drive, as I can't afford SSD. One partition would be for OS files, and the rest would be for whatever other shenanigans.

What's the thoughts of the collective? I've never partitioned before, because I'd always have at least two drives, and it seemed like wasted space to me.

If I should, what applications are good for it?

 

[Ayah]

You should partition the drive while you're installing the OS. Make something like a 60-80GB partition for your OS and programs, then use the rest as storage.
It should partition the first 60-80GB on the outer rim of your hard drive for maximum performance.

 

[alfa147x]

You should partition the drive while you're installing the OS. Make something like a 60-80GB partition for your OS and programs, then use the rest as storage.
It should partition the first 60-80GB on the outer rim of your hard drive for maximum performance.

why is that better then just having one partition and then just having a folder for storage? How much of an performance increase is gained by this? because what im thinking is that maybe later you might regret partitioning in that size

 

[Nothinman]

You should partition the drive while you're installing the OS. Make something like a 60-80GB partition for your OS and programs, then use the rest as storage.
It should partition the first 60-80GB on the outer rim of your hard drive for maximum performance.

The performance difference will be negligable. Having a separate partition for data to help in reimaging/reinstalling the OS if something breaks isn't a bad idea if you've only got 1 physical drive, but ideally you would want a second physical drive for data storage as that is much safer.

 

[tcsenter]

If you want some partition scheme for I/O access and fragmentation benefits, use a second disk for a pagefile in its own exclusive partition. If you want successful kernel memory dumps, there must be a nominal pagefile on the boot partition as well (2GB + 24MB will be the max for 32-bit kernel memory dumps). Windows will most utilize the pagefile located on the partition/disk with the least I/O activity, which we want to be the second disk. If using IDE drives, configure each drive as master on separate IDE channels (SATA won't matter). For example:

Physical Disk 1
Partition 1 = OS boot/system (with or without pagefile)
Partition 2 = Installed programs

Physical Disk 2
Partition 1 = pagefile (nothing else)
Partition 2 = LRU stuff/archived/backups

How to configure paging files for optimization and recovery in Windows XP (applies to all current Windows OS)

This configuration has the best chance of paying any benefits, and even in the best case scenario, its not going to change your life.