Hard drive partitions

[gozad]

I bought a WD 640 Black and am going to partition it and make one of the partitions my OS drive. I read that the drive is made of two 320GB platters. Is there any benefit to partioning it into two 320GB drives to match the platters, vs partitioning it into four 160GB drives? I read a smaller OS drive gives better perfomance so am wondering to go with 4 smaller partions or 2 partitions that match the platters. Thanks!

 

[gtvr]

you don't partition along the platter size, it's like tracks on a record, each partition is a ring, and it will exist on multiple vertical platters. In other words, don't worry about the platter size.

Depending on your OS and the number & type of apps you install, I'd make up to 100GB for an OS and frequently used app partition (such as IE/firefox/office) and less used / larger apps & data on a 2nd partition. This will help performance somewhat.

 

[sminlal]

GTVR is correct, the first partition takes the outermost tracks on ALL the platters, no matter how many platters there are. The outermost tracks are the fastest, so size the first partition to fit your OS, applications, and an allowance for future growth and use the rest of the drive as a second partition for your data files.

Having the OS in a separate partition helps with your backups - the OS requires an "Image" backup of the entire partition, and those backups will be a lot smaller if they don't include your data. You can use "file"-based backups to back up your data only when it changes without including the OS. And, when you need to upgrade the OS you can do so without disturbing your data files.

IMHO creating more than 2 partitions isn't worth it. You run into the risk of filling up one partition while having free space in another one, and you end up having to shuffle things around. There's also the fact that too many partitions can actually hurt performance if you're accessing more than one of them at a time.