New
#1
About Partitioning again
Setup specs:
Sager Laptop - cpu i7 820 1.73 ghz quad - 8GB Ram - ATI 5800 (1GB)
2 500 GB WD SATA HDD
Sorry to bring disk partitioning up again... I see by searching it has been raised on several of the forums several times.
The aspects discussed below do not appear to have been addressed.
From my searches, it appears the popular position is not to partition.
But what that leaves unanswered is what to do if you rely on disk images for system backup.. I mean backup of the OS, in a way that is re-installable to bare iron should that be needed. I use Norton ghost 16, and it does allow backup using a directory scheme.
That sort of backup cannot be used to reinstall of course, so where it may be fine for data, it not a good choice for an OS backup plan.
(Note that when I say `System disk' in places.. I'm not referring to a 200MB NTFS partition that appears to have something basic to do with windows 7 install, but to the main OS installation)
I want fairly small images for my image based backup system. Something on the order 100 gB or probably even less like 70-80 gb to have enough space not to worry about over running the partition (with the OS installation).
Of course, I don't follow the windows practice of putting everything in `My Documents'... and normally make sure data goes to a different partition than OS.
I have two 500 GB disks, so without partitioning, I would nearly have to use a major portion of the system disk for DATA ... otherwise I'd be loosing a hefty portion of my system drive since the OS will never need 500GB.
The OS and whatever data I put there could easily be up to 350-450 GB sooner or later.... (without partitioning) That is a bit hefty to be creating images of.
Even with an i7 820 quad cpu and 8 GB ram... that is a going to take a lot of space on the backup media ( a hard drive an a remote (local lan) machine) and a pretty hefty chunk of time.
If however, I put the OS on its own partition, I can fairly quickly create an installable disk image. And of course backup of data needs to happen to, but for me that is a separate system based on directory hierarchies.
So with those considerations... what do experienced people recommend?
My inclination is to partition the System HDD (500GB WD SATA), into
100 GB (for OS installation)
200 GB for the projects partition.
(This `projects' partition, is to allow a disk image based backup of whatever current project
I'm working on)
And the remainder on another partition. So 3 partitions for the disk that contains the OS.
(My 2nd 500 gb drive, I would leave all on one partition)
If that seems sensible then the next question is, since the OS is already installed, can I (using the system tools) create a 100 GB partition holding the OS?
Create a 200 GB partition for projects as they occur, and make a partition of the remainder.(another near 200GB)
I'd keep data off the system partion of course, but even there I find it handy to keep a partition available for a currently under way project (The 200gb partition mentioned above)... that way, I can back up via disk image... in some reasonable size and time.
I ask that because experimenting with the system partitioning tools, it appears that even though I only have 53 GB on the system disk..., The shrink tool says I have only 218 GB of shrink space. (See the attached screen shot of shrink info)
Fragmentation is not an issue.. if shows 0% fragmentation.. (and the OS has not hardly been used yet)
Any one know why the shrink tool shows only 218 GB can be shrunk? Will I really not be able to shrink the partition to say 100GB?
Last edited by HarryPutnam; 28 Jul 2010 at 13:02. Reason: Grammer and forgot the attachment