Use a Partition manager utility or windows disk manager?

[dextronaut]

Im partitioning my hard drive for the first time. I want to do it to increase performance. What is the name of it again, where you make a small, first partition to keep read/write speeds at their maximum?
anyways, I just built a computer for my first time. I have a 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 with Win 7 Ultimate. Would 200gb be a good first partition to keep my OS, apps, and couple of games on? I have asrock's xfast RAM and want to use my RAM disk for paging file and cache. just need to learn about it a lil more.
anyways, is Windows built-in disk manager good enough, or should I install an outside disk partition utility? btw, Im not stupid and easy dumbed-down interfaces are not preferable to me, so if Windows can handle everything efficiently, than that's fine. But if there's any extras to some programs other than the easy GUI than Id be willing to download a recommended one.

 

[dodger46]

'Start' type 'disk' and choose 'Create and Format Disk Partitions' from Control Panel.
It's OK for simple ops like you describe, but anything more complex I use Easeus Partition Manager.
(200 gig plenty for OS and progs, and really the ony advantage of having partition is keeping your data separate if you want to re-install Windows in the future)

 

[dextronaut]

thanks for the quick reply. Yeah I saw that Easeus program you have online. Is it free? what operations does it include that Windows doesnt? kk just wanna make sure 200gb isnt too much and will slow it down. I benchmarked my HD and it seems 100gb would be most optimal butanother 100gb isnt that much slower and id like the extra room.

Any recommendations on programs to create an image backup of windows, or will WIndows do that fine as well?

 

[dodger46]

Size won't make any appreciable difference to speed, Easeus is free, and is useful if you want to mess about with the partitions at a later date, the Windows software seems a bit limited in that regard. I use the Windows Image backup but haven't had to put it to the test yet...

 

[dextronaut]

well the bigger the partition the more it reaches into the platter of the HD and the less read/write it gets. the innermost(or is it outter) partition reads the fastest.

 

[quesionboy]

The build-in disk mangement in Windows 7 could help you solve some common partition problem in Windows 7, btw, the partition size of the system does not influence the speed of data reading/writing, if your os is 64 BIT, 50GB for system is enough, if you want to get a high perfomance, SSD for system would be a better choice.

If you want some free partition software, GParted(OSS), Partition Assistant Home Edtition(Freeware) would be OK. both of them could be rearded as the latest "Windows 7 partition magic".

 

[ljmichael]

If you want to make your main system partition speed up, the only way is do not partition it, just make it as a single partition, if you partition it, no matter what partition size you set for system partition, it will loss some performance also.

Tips:
From "quesionboy" answer, you could download that software from CNET, that is freeware
http://download.cnet.com/Aomei-Partition-Assistant-Home-Edition/3000-18512_4-75118871.html