Number of partitions for 1TB HDD?

[andy5174]

What's the best number of partitions for 1TB HDD if there is one? What kind of partition should I create for external HDDs, Primary or Logical? What kind of format should I use for USB flash disks, FAT/FAT32/NTFS? Thank you.

 

[rockyjohn]

The best number of partitions depends on how you use your computer and how you want to want to set up your hard drive.

I use three partitions:
1. Software - O/S and applications which I never back up as I have the original discs
2. Data - which I back up regularly
3. Video & Audio - which I also never backup as it is data that I copied from a CD or DVD so I have the original copy for backup
4. Backup drive

I prefer this method because I only have to reformat and restore the software on drive 1 if the system becomes corrupt and it simplifies and expedites the regular backup of info on drive 2. I use drive 4 to backup drive 2 data. This is in addition to regular offline backups. Backing up to drive 4 is easier and faster than doing an offline backup to flash memory or DVD and will provide a recent copy if a file is corrupt or inadvertently trashed, but off course is no help if drive becomes corrupt.

I used to have a fifth petition on which I loaded applications - essentially software other then the O/S. However, since some place data in system files, which means it would have to be restored if the system was reloaded, I combined the two.