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What size partitions in a 640 gig hard drive?

donfm

donfm

Senior member
I have a new 640gig hard drive and I am not sure what would be the best sizes to make my Logical Partitions. How big for the operating system? (winXP Pro 32 bit) And how many and what size partitions would be a good starting for the remaining drive storage?

Yes I am new at this.......
 
I dual boot and use 75gb for my 2 partitions but is strictly for OS and programs I install games on a different partition. The reason for that for me is I do a lot of backup images of my OS partitions and it only takes 20-30 mins to do a backup.
 
thanks but do you have any suggestions on a good size to partition the rest of my 640 gig drive and how many partitions are practical?
 
Two primary considerations for the OS partition:
- Leave just enough free space for expansion, temp files, installation cabs, etc.
- Don't make it so large that HD access times suffer due to large head seek travel.

Personally, my OS partition size is approximately twice the size of actual used space (15GB partition with 7 GB actually used).

If the OS partition is arbitrarily large, the HD read/write heads must travel farther to reach the used tracks of the next and subsequent partitions. For example, if my OS partition were 50GB size, the HD r/w head would have to span over 43GB of unused tracks just to reach the first track of the next partition.

Edit:
And the r/w throughput will also be faster for the track at the 15GB position than for the track at the 50GB partition.

Hope this helps!

 
I use 60gb for my os and all my programs i use daily. (yeah its a bit big, but got tired of constantly increasing the partition size when i added programs, so i just decided 60gb is enough...LOL)
Then the rest for a second partition for games, music or whatever.

That way i can image my 60gb OS partition and save the image to my storage partition for a clean install of windows with all my apps already setup whenever i want.
 
I've never understood the need to have multiple partitions on a drive. I just use seperate hard drives. I have an OS drive, that handles, the OS, Apps, and My Documents, then all my data is stored on seperate drives.
 
Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
I've never understood the need to have multiple partitions on a drive. I just use seperate hard drives. I have an OS drive, that handles, the OS, Apps, and My Documents, then all my data is stored on seperate drives.
Click to expand...

If you want to use imaging software its based on backing up partitions. You can have different thing you want to back up that way but 2 of the main concerns are time and storage space. For me I dual boot Windows XP and Windows Vista and want to make those partition backups as small as I can so
1. I can keep more backups in case of a failure exists in a backup.
2. The smaller OS backup is faster to do so it promotes me to do them more often.
 
Well I wasn't too worried about the partitions other than the OS partition. It would seem that an excessively large OS partition slows down your computer from what I just read. I can decided on the storage partitions later as I see the need to change.
 
It would seem that an excessively large OS partition slows down your computer from what I just read.
Click to expand...

That's not true in the slightest. In fact, if anything the opposite is true because the more full a filesystem is the more work it takes to place new data.
 
I used to have multiple partitions, but it is a PITA to manage them after the initial setup. Now I have reverted to one large partition with OS , apps, and storage all together. I simply defrag regularly (PerfectDisk, well worth the money) and backup (Acronis) often
 
Defragging is wildly overstated on its effectiveness for speeding up file access on a modern hard drive being used in desktop setting. Defraggler gives you the power to select individual files and folders to defrag and its free so I use it esp on game folders for game that get patched a lot like most MMORPGs found here......................................

http://www.defraggler.com/
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
It would seem that an excessively large OS partition slows down your computer from what I just read.
Click to expand...

That's not true in the slightest. In fact, if anything the opposite is true because the more full a filesystem is the more work it takes to place new data.
Click to expand...

I was assuming you had adequate space for the OS filesystem and app files with say double the actually used space on the OS partition. No matter how large your partition is if the disk is full it is going to be slow. That goes without saying. What the gentleman above said makes sense. 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.
 
Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
I've never understood the need to have multiple partitions on a drive. I just use seperate hard drives. I have an OS drive, that handles, the OS, Apps, and My Documents, then all my data is stored on seperate drives.
Click to expand...

Only drive with multiple partitions is in my laptop cause I can only have one. Otherwise I use a smaller drive only for OS install and programs. Ofcourse smaller drives tend to be slower. It doesn't effect my main comp since i use two 74gig raptors in Raid 0, but its a bit ennoying in my media centre. Meh sacrifice a bit of speed for flexibility.

Otherwise in my laptop a 50 - 70 gig partition is enough for OS and programs. Using a 120gig one now cause wanted to install a few of games.
 
Originally posted by: techmanc
Defragging is wildly overstated on its effectiveness for speeding up file access on a modern hard drive being used in desktop setting. Defraggler gives you the power to select individual files and folders to defrag and its free so I use it esp on game folders for game that get patched a lot like most MMORPGs found here......................................

http://www.defraggler.com/
Click to expand...


well when the computer defrags every night while I'm sleeping, it definitely doesn't hurt performance when I use it the next day.


 
Originally posted by: wired247
Originally posted by: techmanc
Defragging is wildly overstated on its effectiveness for speeding up file access on a modern hard drive being used in desktop setting. Defraggler gives you the power to select individual files and folders to defrag and its free so I use it esp on game folders for game that get patched a lot like most MMORPGs found here......................................

http://www.defraggler.com/
Click to expand...


well when the computer defrags every night while I'm sleeping, it definitely doesn't hurt performance when I use it the next day.
Click to expand...

Did I say it was totally useless just not worth the time it take to do a complete defrag vs the performance improvement maybe once a month be reasonable.

Also if your not using a UPS while your doing the defrag its a good way to trash your hard drive if you lose power while defragging.
 
Since you have a 640GB Drive, I would say that the first partition is good up to 150GB...that would keep you in the fastest portion of the drive. This would give you ample room for OS and applications.
 
...Also are you using a UPS while your doing the defrag as thats a good way to trash your hard drive.
Click to expand...

techmanc

I'm lost on your idea of how a ups can have any effect on a drive...please, do explain...

 
Originally posted by: Tweakin
...Also are you using a UPS while your doing the defrag as thats a good way to trash your hard drive.
Click to expand...

techmanc

I'm lost on your idea of how a ups can have any effect on a drive...please, do explain...
Click to expand...

sorry it was late please reread my edited post.
 
Originally posted by: techmanc
Originally posted by: Tweakin
...Also are you using a UPS while your doing the defrag as thats a good way to trash your hard drive.
Click to expand...

techmanc

I'm lost on your idea of how a ups can have any effect on a drive...please, do explain...
Click to expand...

sorry it was late please reread my edited post.
Click to expand...

I can buy that...
 
I used to muck around with all kinds of partitions to try to be more organized, help with backup strategy, etc. It's all a waste of time unless you're into it for the tweaking aspect. The only thing that's needed is having either two drives, or two partitions if you have a single drive, so that you can easily format and reinstall the OS if/when you need to. The difference in performance in having a large vs. a small OS partition is going to be very small.
 
Originally posted by: LokutusofBorg
...The difference in performance in having a large vs. a small OS partition is going to be very small...
Click to expand...

While this is basically true, every little bit helps when it comes to the slowest device in your system...
 
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