To P (Partition ) Or Not To P That Is The Question

I recently finished my first build and when I receive my replacement 8800GTS I will be ready to install an OS. I have read a number of articles regarding the question of partitioning the HDD on OS install. In reading these articles it is unclear whether partitioning is even necessary and, if so, why. This computer has a 320 Gb Seagate SATA drive and will be used almost exclusivly for gaming. My question is whether it is recommended that I partition this HDD and, if so, why. Also, if I do partition how large should the OS partition be? Initially I will be installing XP Home but will probably upgrade to Vista once MS works out the bugs and the third party folk catch up.

I created a 20gb windows partition, 2gb pagefile and the other ~170gb is for main files. Basically means i wont lose everything or have 2 spend ages backing everything up when i need to re-install windows as the mains files partition will remain untouched.

It is up to you what you do, but i would recommend partitioning it.

Forget the page file. Just create the partitions you need; Windows will handle everything you need...

What are you talking about? Formatting the drive is an option for reinstalling an OS, not a requirement. Vista also likes to manage where you install and store things, not suggesting this good thing but it's a bit of a control freak by default.

There are reason you may considering partitioning such keeping defrag times down and so on. Partitioning is NOT any safer for your data. If you are that careless none of your data is safe.

I see no performance advantages for keeping your OS on a separate partition from the rest of your files, if you only have 1 drive.
If defrag your drive regularly, you should get the same performance with 1 big partition.

I partition my HD because I run several OS, so it's more out of necessity. SOme people do it to because they think it's more organized.

Since you will not be able to fully separate your programs (games) from the rest of the OS, as many libraries and system files are installed in the windows/system directory, you won't be able to reformat your windows partition (if something goes wrong) while keeping the rest of your files intact ...

One reason to making at least one extra partition (with XP installed on it) is to have a sort of a "recovery" OS that you can access the rest of your drive with, in case your original partition becomes unbootable/unuseable.
That gives you the option to easily recover some important files. This extra partition doesn't have to be very large, maybe 20Gb, as it won't be used often.

One last thing to note, is that the more free HD space you have on a certain partition - the less chances of fragmentation when you install new software. That will keep your PC running generally smoother (albeit not significantly) on a day to day basis, and require less frequent defrags.
I don't know if you noticed, but playing a high loading game (anything that has a long loading screen between maps) is always faster on a HD with tons of free space, rather than a HD thats filled to capacity. Because of this, it might be benefitial to keep your main partition (with your OS and all your games) as large as possible.

CHeers

I believe there is a lot of garbage info about partitioning out there. It used to greatly impact the speed of data access in the 486 and Win95/98 days, but I believe that for the most part it is only a matter of convenience today - or required for multi-OS loads. I have timed a 400G drive with and without OS/app/pagefile/data partitioning on an AMDX2 5000 with 2G RAM and Windows size set pagefile. I saw no speed difference. I have kept a single partition for over a year and see no major fragmentation issues either way. I access about 10 apps a day (not counting startup apps) and save about 4G a week in torrents that are usually deleted within the month. What could I possibly be doing right here? For convenience, it is easier to save data to a single logical letter all of the time, but for disaster recovery you'll still have to reinstall an app due to registry settings - so it is only a convenience issue for the modern PC/OS as far as I can tell.

How about using flash drives of 8gb for the OS.... a 4gb flash drive as the pagefile. A 500gb hdd has a file storage unit, and a raptor for games.

Yes no maybe so?

Me likes!

Altough pagefile : 512meg is plenty, I don't know why you would make it bigger!

the 1.5X you ram is from the old day IMO. with 128meg of ram 196 of swap might be a good idea =)

I have 2GB and yesterday (while playing 'Prey') my pagefile use went up to over 1024MB.
No matter how much memory you have, Windows likes a swap file.
Memory utilisation is much more aggressive in Vista and it likes a pagefile equal to your RAM - so in my case ~2GB.
So it seems the pagefile will not go away,
L8R

Hard drives write from the outside in. When your disks spins at thousands of RPM the outside will always spin faster than the inside, thus making it faster.

I make a seperate partition on the hard drive for my OS's so they'll load faster at boot up and I partition the inside for use as general storage.

If I'm wrong lemme' know.

The folks who are saying partitioning doesn't matter and recommend just going with one great big 'un, are not wrong. But I think they've also never been in a situation where following that tactic has turned around, bitten off a big chunk of their behind, and then laughed at them.

The primary reasons to divide things up into a smaller OS partition and a larger data partition are (1) if you ever need to resort to a clean install life is simpler or (2) you can more easily create a backup image of the OS partition. (It's a heck of lot easier to save an image of 16GB paritition than of a single ~380GB (or so) partition).

If you never have problems with Windows big enough that you want to resort to a reformat/reinstall, then having a separate OS partition is not going to buy you that much. And I'm sure there are lots of people out there who never have had any problems with it.

I'm not one of them. Personally I have done so many clean installs of windows I sometimes think it's what I now do "for entertainment".

I actually go even further than the 2 partition scheme. I have my main hard drive partitioned into a 16GB OS and the remainder data. I then have a separate hard drive that holds my windows "My Documents" folder. That way if I have to reformat I don't have to worry about backing up and restoring the stuff in "My Documents". All I have to do is tell windows to change the location of that folder once it is reinstalled.

-john

I've tried it different ways over the years and am now in favor of the two partition 'system' and 'program' drive approach. Drive C is a 16GB partition for Windows, the swapfile and hibernation save data while Drive D has its own "Program Files" folder where most installations go. I also modify the Windows registry to relocate the "Documents and Settings" folder to the 'program' drive

My reasoning is that the swap file and system files are physically stored at the "beginning" of the drive where read/write access is fastest.

Yes - I have tried to learn about the new Vista technique, which uses Flash memory (if present) to speed up the OS, but the whole OS on there? Kewl
What about the solid-state HDs that are actually memory?
One of those for the OS, and then painfully slow drives like Raptors or 7200.10 for everyday storage, LoL. Sounds good!
Hey thanks for writing, Rep. We need knowledgable folks in here (and maybe you hear things before the rest of us do...)
I am amazed at some of the people setting up their own rigs, building and configuring hardware and BIOS fearlessly. Certain among them are without benefit of knowledge... basic stuff like concepts, memory speed or whatever. FSB? They dunno! But it's great because you gotta jump right in, that's how you learn I guess (and why Tom's is here).
Hardware is inexpensive lately... but just today I read a guy says he doesn't know memory timings or anything like that - but he was building an E6700 with some killer memory like Dominator or Titanium Alpha!! LoL, heheh...
Sorry, should've PM'd probably.
So PEH, you're good now? Did you partition that monster and learn what a pagefile is?
See PEH, he has big $$ stuff (8800GTS!) but he's just learning, we're all learning,
L8R

When that happens, I'll be grateful. My older computers all have a partitioned C drive. I did avoid the partion question on my newest computer by having two hardrives, one for the OS and base programs, with the D drive for all data. Even then, I go by the old mantra of "backup, backup, backup". I never trust anything when it comes to computers.

I'm not sure, but I think that read / write times of a USB flash drive are slower than HD's.

Portable though...

Unfortunately, I have not gotten far enough to worry about partitioning. When I wrote my original post I was assuming that the replacement 8800GTS that I received from NewEgg would work and I would be ready to install the OS. Alas, I am having the same problem with this 8800 as I did with the first. So, until I solve the problem of why I cannot get any video when the system is powered on whether I partition or not is academic. I do,however, appreciate all of the input I have received to this question. It has given me a lot to think about. When I get this **** thing working I will have to review all of the responses.

Since my last post I had the 8800 tested at Compuse. It works! My PSU is the Corsair HX620. It is supposed to have more than enough power to drive this video card. I am beginning to wonder if it is defective but I have no idea how to test that theory short of buying a new psu and swapping. Any suggestions?

Just cause compsua says its working, doesnt mean it does.
I would be supprized if they could test that card as they arnt the brightest bulbs in the store.

Awe, well always good to see whats back there.

Yes. Programs require files stored in the OS to run. WHen you remove the OS, the required program data gets removed. Even if you reinstall the OS, most programs will not work still, such as games, and MS Office.


And You can reinstall the OS OVER the old one, so you dont even need seperate partitions to protect your data.

keep the swap en temp folders of the os on a different partition, if possible a different drive.
for the other data, think for yourself which data you want to keep seperate ( personals, movies and MP3 are a differnet partition on my computer)
keep different things seperated; i don't put my socks on the same shelf as my T-shirts?

You do keep a fragmented partition / HDD, but that can be fixed in an hour: Defragmenter.

You do NOT keep your old windows files, such as the registry hive. Nothing remains of the old OS, but all your data on the same drive / partition not related to the OS will stay. ...

Its an option in windows setup: So yes, it would deffinently work

Ahhh... vidcard eh?
I just re-read your original post. So, if the 'replacement' vidcard doesn't work then there was probably nothing wrong with the first one, right?
You should give us info (like in my sig.) Motherboard/CPU/memory/PowerSupply especially.
Somethin' strange going on...
L8R

Yes, you can do a clean install which will replace windows without destroying any of the other data not directly a part of the Windows OS. It will also reset the Windows Registry and destroy all previous configuration data.

This won't help you if you want to reformat because you're afraid your file system has been corrupted, but that should never really happen I realize. (Speaking strictly for myself, I also don't care. If I reformat then I know the file system is good. Paranoia).

With a clean install you'll still need to reinstall all of your programs because when you destroy the Registry Hive all the configuration data for that program disappears as well. In theory it might be nice to be able to back up ONLY that portion of the Registry which contains the configuration data for your programs. However, in practice I'm not sure I would actually trust any backup utility which claimed to do this.

For me, the most persuasive reason to have separate OS and data partitions is for backup. If I have a single 250GB or even just 160GB partition, it's harder to backup an image of that partition. If they are separate, it is much easier to backup an image of the OS partition. And it's the OS partition that I am most likely to want a disk image backup of. It's the OS partition where configuration data is stored in little nooks and crannies of the drive that I would fear I'd miss with a file based backup. It's also the OS configuration data which is most likely to get corrupted.

If you never have any problems with Windows and never expect to have any problems with Windows, then the trouble of separate partitions is not worth it. And I'm sure there are such people in the world. Probably a lot of people like that actually. I am just not one of them.

-john

zjohner

Thanks!.
Those comments are very helpful

Grant