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Partitioning Drive - Why?

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - Partitioning Drive - Why?

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DGalt   07-23-2009 at 06:42:10 AM

So I just put together a new system. I have a 500Gb WD Caviar Black HD that currently has 3 partitions: 10Gb for XP Professional, 40Gb for Windows 7 RC, and then 50GB for "Stuff"

I originally was just going to put Win 7 on the system but I was having issues. Now that everything is fixed, though, I"m considering just deleting the XP partition and using Win 7 RC as my OS

That's not what this is about though. My question is, why do people partition their drives into multiple things (e.g. C:\, Video Files, Program Files, etc.....whatever)? Is there some advantage to this?

I'm just a bit confused as to why I should not just give all 500Gb to the drive that I have Win 7 installed on. I only gave Win 7 40Gb under the guidance of someone, but they did not explain why I should not give that drive all of the available hard drive space.

thanks :)


Message edited by DGalt on 07-23-2009 at 06:42:55 AM
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Bronze Storage badge sminlal   07-23-2009 at 09:11:55 AM

Here are the reasons I can think of offhand to split a single hard drive into multiple partitions:

- To install more than one operating system (as you have done)

- To separate critical stuff (like the operating system) from general user files so that if the user fills up their partition it won't prevent the operating system from running.

- To get statistics on disk activity for files in different folders by putting the folders on different drive letters.

- To ensure that performance-sensitive files are partitioned at the start of a physical drive where the performance is best (but using another partition on the same drive tends to nullify this by causing more head movement than would be the case with just one partition).

It doesn't sound to me like any of those apply to your situation, so if I were you I'd just go with one big partition.

Reply to sminlal
MRFS   07-23-2009 at 03:45:52 PM

add:

separating private data files from the OS
so that restoring a drive image of C:
does not destroy private data files

storing such drive image files on a
second or third partition on the
primary HDD, where they are easily
available to the restore environment

placing the swap file at the lowest disk addresses
on a secondary HDD, to minimize armature strokes
during paging operations e.g. minimizing a window


MRFS



Reply to MRFS
DGalt   07-23-2009 at 05:29:17 PM

I understand creating a partition for files (I think I'll end up doing that, for docs and music, etc). Is there a way to redirect "My Docs" to a different partition?

I'm not so sure what you mean by the drive image. I'm assuming that's simply a backup for the drive (like Mac's Timemachine). How do you create that?

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