What size partitions in a 640 gig hard drive?

[Xarick]

How about for 1tb?

I was thinking 250 and 750
or 200 400 and 400
or 100 400 and 500

 

[Tweakin]

Run HDTune against the drive and then look at the figures...

 

[Nothinman]

If your hard drive has to look for data all over a 600 gig drive just to run the operating system and apps the performance will undoubtedly suffer.

It never has to "look for data all over a 600 gig drive just to run the operating system and apps". The MFT is contained in one area and that tells it where everything is, so when looking for data all it has to do is look in one relatively small section of the drive. Now when actually reading the files there's a chance that they're scattered around that 600G but I dare you to come up with concrete numbers that prove a smaller filesystem performs better. Hell just try and prove that a defragmented filesystem performs better with hard numbers, both are pretty much impossible to measure.

 

[rivethead]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but there is some relevant info in it for me.

My question:

Does it make sense to put your OS on one partition and your primary apps on another?

For example, I would think having my OS on one partion and then MS Money, MS Outlook, MS Office, VLC Media Player, ImageBurn, etc. on another (and then maybe even another for media and docs) would be a good thing.

It seems to me that over time my OS gets bogged down with the usual crap obtain via every day use. A fresh, clean install does wonders. I would do a fresh, clean install more often except it's a pain in the arse to reinstall Office, MS Money, etc. (all the main apps that I use). If I had them on another partition, I could just reformat the OS partition and do a clean install.

Thoughts?

Yeah, I'm a noobie to all this stuff.

 

[rivethead]

Nevermind. I found more info in my search here: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...rd1=partition+strategy

 

[Nothinman]

For example, I would think having my OS on one partion and then MS Money, MS Outlook, MS Office, VLC Media Player, ImageBurn, etc. on another (and then maybe even another for media and docs) would be a good thing.

Data yes, apps no. And even better still is a separate, physical drive.

It seems to me that over time my OS gets bogged down with the usual crap obtain via every day use. A fresh, clean install does wonders. I would do a fresh, clean install more often except it's a pain in the arse to reinstall Office, MS Money, etc. (all the main apps that I use). If I had them on another partition, I could just reformat the OS partition and do a clean install.

There's no such thing as "usual crap obtain via every day use", if you're careful with what you do your machine will run the same virtually forever. I'm currently using an XP install that has a creation date on the Windows directory of 2006. And you'd still have to reinstall most of those apps anyway, especially the MS stuff.

 

[elconejito]

Most people aren't really careful with what they do with their computers. "Normal" people get all kinds of junk on their machines by installing software, removing software, temp files, misc updates/patches for their software. All of that adds up. In many cases I've seen people's computers speed up after a fresh install or even restoring an image of a clean system right after install and all updates.

But I agree that you'd still have to reinstall most of your apps anyway and the partitions are of limited value (IMO), and the best solution is a separate hard drive. Even though that isn't in everyone's budget.

 

[vhx]

Originally posted by: rivethead
Sorry to dig up an old thread, but there is some relevant info in it for me.

My question:

Does it make sense to put your OS on one partition and your primary apps on another?

For example, I would think having my OS on one partion and then MS Money, MS Outlook, MS Office, VLC Media Player, ImageBurn, etc. on another (and then maybe even another for media and docs) would be a good thing.

It seems to me that over time my OS gets bogged down with the usual crap obtain via every day use. A fresh, clean install does wonders. I would do a fresh, clean install more often except it's a pain in the arse to reinstall Office, MS Money, etc. (all the main apps that I use). If I had them on another partition, I could just reformat the OS partition and do a clean install.

Thoughts?

Yeah, I'm a noobie to all this stuff.

It could probably make sense in the fact that you don't lose your data that easily, it's easier to backup, and it's more organized. (If they are on separate disks) However, a lot of applications rely on things such as the registry, the Application Data folder, and the User folder. In which case you'd be backing those things up anyways. Some programs might not even work properly because they think the current drive it's on is the OS drive and could have issues finding things.

As far as performance goes I doubt there would be any performance gain. In fact there would probably a negative performance gain due to the seeking between both hard drives, especially in things like gaming applications. Then again I could be wrong, but seems most probable.