Shrinking A Volume On A Partition

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OutlawKing

OutlawKing

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Dec 30, 2014
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On one of my SSD I have an OS installed on one primary partition. My question is can I shrink that partition and split it into two without it affecting the OS and data on it? there's plenty of unused storage to do it.....

Its 120GB SSD with 80GB Free...
 
Solution
Solandri

You can, but I have to wonder why you want to do this on a drive this small. I used to do it because I was obsessive-compulsive about keeping my OS and data on separate partitions. Then one day my data partition filled up while there was still plenty of space left on my OS partition. Splitting the two unnecessarily just adds more complications down the road. Instead of the remaining free space being shared by both OS and data, you now have two predefined spaces where one will run out of space while the other still has free space. The main reason for doing this on a HDD (preventing fragmentation by moving oft-rewritten data to its own partition) simply doesn't exist on a SSD.

If you do proceed...
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Aidan Rooney

Aidan Rooney

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Technically yes you can, if you shrink it will just grab any unused space :) i've done it to split my HDD into 2x500GB parts. of you're on windows 8 just press the windows key and then type "partition" and one option will be there, might want to use a calculator to get it in half as 1GB is actually something like 1024mb :)
 
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MCServerOwner

MCServerOwner

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Dec 12, 2012
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99% of the time it works fine for the average user, but I stay away from doing so as good practice, as I deal with large amounts (several terabytes at a time) of sensitive data, and can't risk failure. I work with linux and large servers, which are slightly more finicky than Windows PCs :)

EDIT: My favorite disk partitioner is GEDIT. (It's a linux tool that can be put on windows too.)

2nd EDIT: Always leave a 1gb buffer (or more) to ensure you don't ruin buffers created by Windows. Also, a 1Tb disk is actually read by software as less, so remember that.
 
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Solandri

Solandri

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Jan 4, 2012
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You can, but I have to wonder why you want to do this on a drive this small. I used to do it because I was obsessive-compulsive about keeping my OS and data on separate partitions. Then one day my data partition filled up while there was still plenty of space left on my OS partition. Splitting the two unnecessarily just adds more complications down the road. Instead of the remaining free space being shared by both OS and data, you now have two predefined spaces where one will run out of space while the other still has free space. The main reason for doing this on a HDD (preventing fragmentation by moving oft-rewritten data to its own partition) simply doesn't exist on a SSD.

If you do proceed, make sure you backup the current drive configuration (i.e. do a full drive image backup, then create your back software's boot CD so you can restore the backup). I've shrunk a volume dozens of times without problems, but it's one of those operations where a problem will result in data loss. And since this is your OS drive, that means your system will likely not boot.
 
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OutlawKing

OutlawKing

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Dec 30, 2014
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Thank you all for the advice. It's acually a complicated reason I'm doing this. I have 3 storages 1 HDD and 2 SSD. I have windows 8.1 installed in 32bit on one ssd and win 8.1 / 64bit on the other. Reason for that is I play some older games that only seem to work on 32bit but... Since I save the games on the ssd with the 32bit SSD I can also access them when I'm booted into win 8.1 64bit I just realized this, so as long as I keep the game files on that SSD I'm fine to play them with out having to switch booting between 64/32 and just use 64bit So I want to use some of that space which I Know I wont be using on there. for other things. If I shrink that partition I just don't want it to effect the whole win 8.1 /32bit OS / Files. From what I'm getting it should work fine but there always a chance for error......

You bring a good point solandri I am a bit ocd with partitioning data. I use a HDD for all my files and personal and then two ssd loaded with an OS. I don't use alot of space I do t ever see myself using more then 500GB!
 
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