Drive Partitioning

[Caveman]

I've got two machines I'm about to reformat/reinstall Win XP Home on... A laptop and a desktop (specs in sig).

I'd like to partition the HD into a section for the OS, a section for Programs and a section for Data. I assume this will increase performance slightly and make backups much easier... I suppose I can determine how big the "programs" or the "data" section should be but what about the section for the OS? What is a good size to use for optimal performance?

Also, the following article seems to put down the idea of partitioning though it was published several years ago... Can anyone dispel what the article says (basically, that partitioning is a dumb idea unless you're using it for multiple OS boots...)

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=43

 

[KillaKilla]

Depends on the drive size...

On my 80GB:
15GB OS/patches
65GB games/apps/media

Never even come close to maxing out the 15GB part...

 

[Caveman]

Anyone else have some good practicle data on HD partitioning and it's advantages, especially in speed...

 

[psyeudkev]

For the OS (in your case XP home, not much difference with pro anyway), absolute *minimum* is around 2 - 2.5 GB, for Windows to put its bloat. You said you're putting programs on another partition, so I guess maybe 3 GB ought to do it?

Here's how I did my 60GB Maxtor:

5.5 GB - OS and Programs
10 GB - Work, Docs, Mp3s (I don't have that much)
7.5 GB - Games (haven't played in like, almost a year? It's used as extra storage now, too lazy to repartition)
35 GB - Storage (larger files especially that doesn't count as documents or sensitive data)

...And this is how another PC with 8 GB hard disk(yes, small) is done:

4.5 GB - OS and Programs, some data
3.5 GB - Download space for big files


I wouldn't want to partition it too close, as in 'fitting' size. You gotta give it some room. Also, do note about the Pagefile size you're going to use (NOTE: Put it as the same partition as the OS, usually the first partition). For most uses, an amount similar to RAM up to 1 GB (or so) should be enough, set it to static size (same min/max) so it won't gobble the entire partition. The reason why I put my pagefile in the first partition is so the HDD doesn't need to go here and there, and XP does use a bit of the Pagefile no matter how much RAM you have... (sad, I know)

On the matter of speed, if you aren't the super enthusiast who'd care about every little bit of performance, speed won't be too much of an issue... Maybe try to keep the Games partition within the first half of the drive, that's where most drives have good performance. Past the middle zone, in most benches I've seen the read/write drops gradually.

Just my opinion based on experience ... yes, *do* put the OS on a separate drive ... reinstalls won't be so (gulp) painful!

 

[Caveman]

Yes, I'm an "enthusiast"... I try to squeeze every last bit of fps from my flight simulations that I run... On a 40GB Desktop HD, I think I will go with 5GB for the OS and patches, 7 GB for my flight sims, and 7 GB for my other programs and the other 21 GB for data... A 3-5% gain in performance is what I'm hoping to get...

This should keep the OS and the programs in the first half of the drive...

Sound like a plan?

 

[SUOrangeman]

For the record, I want to point out that no one other than Caveman has separated apps from the OS (conceptually or in reality). I concur with that "no separation" thinking, even as a dul-booter.

Even with some appropriate use of Ghost, some apps will still not work as expected after an OS/image restore because you installed them to a separate partition. You will have to reinstall some apps anyway.

-SUO, running 7 or so OSes, including 4 flavors of Windows