Partitioning Your Drive – How do you feel?

View Poll Results: Do you multi partition your drives?

Voters
57. You may not vote on this poll
  • Never

    10 17.54%
  • Always

    28 49.12%
  • Sometimes

    19 33.33%
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  1. Posts : 3,427
    Windows 10 Pro x64
       #31

    I partition mine, its just a organisational thing. I have my OS partition and a Data partition on my main 500GB drive. Then my little 160GB is used for backups (thank you Acronis and awesome compression) and a small 4GB partition for my homemade Recovery Partition in case the main drive goes south so I don't have to go rooting around for the disk again.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 9,537
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
       #32

    Dave76 said:
    The Howling Wolves said:
    I'm from the real OLD School.
    I have never partitioned my drive as I never had a need for doing it.
    Your withholding vital information.

    What size is/are your current HDD(s)?


    pparks1 said:
    Always if it's a 1 drive computer. This way you can put your data and files on the second partition and reload or reimage the OS to the main partition. External drives work for this as well.....but to me, it's worth have the space right inside of the computer and not having to wait for the data to stop copying.
    +1, agree



    I always partition my HDDs.

    If you put your OS in a smaller partition, say 40 to 60GB, it will not have to search the entire 250GB, 500GB or 1TB, less disk thrashing.
    These days the time saved might be negligible.

    With your OS and personal data in separate partitions, backups are easier due to different schedules, restoring a backup to an OS partition is easier.

    Backups should be on another physical HDD. Since I use a 1TB HDD to hold backups for two computers I partition the backup HDD also.
    Dave,
    I have a 400GB HD( of which 290GB is still free) + 500 GB WD External HD.
    I am not a real saver of photo's, music and what few important things I have are on the external and thumb drive.
    If you would enlighten me on the advantages I would get by partitioning I am all ears.
    I am always open to new and better ideas. Especially from experts like we have in this forum. So Lay It On Me!
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 12,177
    Windows 7 Ult x64 - SP1/ Windows 8 Pro x64
       #33

    THW, It will depend on what the user wants to do with their machine.

    For me, prefer to partition all my HDDs.
    This allows me to restore or re-install my OS without affecting my data.

    Everyone has their reasons and preferences.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 5,941
    Linux CENTOS 7 / various Windows OS'es and servers
       #34

    Like all these things it depends on how you use your machine.

    But since even with loads of LARGE applications like Adobe CS5 suite and MS office installed Windows 7 won't require more than around 60 GB - so you don't want to allocate a 500GB HDD to Windows - bearing in mind that if you restore then the ENTIRE disk is wiped data and all.

    Dividing it up int at least 2 and probably 3 partitions IMO like others have said is the way to go.

    You can keep data / backup the OS images etc etc on the other partitions.

    Possibly a good idea also is to have a tiny bootable partition which boots up your recovery program should you need to restore your OS image --saves hunting around for a bootable CD / DVD.

    By having a restorabe image on one of the other partitions you won't have to re-install Windows from scratch and all the applications and fixes you have applied again. Hunting around for install disks, serial numbers etc etc is a real pain as well as looking for all the fixes / patches / updates installed and INSTALLING THEM IN THE CORRECT SEQUENCE.

    If Windows is on a single partition on the drive then you won't be able to save the image anywhere on that drive and sometimes restoring images from an external USB drive doesn't always work on some machines depending on the backup program you are using;

    Cheers
    jimbo
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 3,253
    Windows 10 Pro x 2/Windows 11 Home
       #35

    Had to partition the drive on my older computer to duel boot XP and Vista as I only have 1 main drive ( only drawback is if I have to do a recovery back to factory condition the whole drive is formatted & only XP remains )
    but easily solved by making images of each drive & restoring both images. I store my backups, media, software installers ect on a partitioned external drive.
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 16
    W7
       #36

    My laptop has 2x 250GB HDD which i would like to merge into one partition
    How do I do that ?
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 22,814
    W 7 64-bit Ultimate
       #37

    hkessels said:
    My laptop has 2x 250GB HDD which i would like to merge into one partition
    How do I do that ?




    Hello hkessels, welcome to Seven Forums!



    The only way would be with a RAID array.

    Redundant Array of Independent Disks
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 5,440
    Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 7601 Multiprocessor Free Service Pack 1
       #38

    hkessels said:
    My laptop has 2x 250GB HDD which i would like to merge into one partition
    How do I do that ?
    Whats the make and model of your laptop as I have never seen one with two hard drives!
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 84
    Windows 7 64bit Ultimate
       #39

    I do partition on 3 hard drives drives.

    1 hard drive hold 500GB each


    Drive 0
    ====================================
    Drive C for Main OS Win 7 64-bit Ultimate clean install.

    Drive D for Download stuff like tryout some trial software and check if any files are infected.
    ====================================

    Drive 1
    ====================================
    Drive X for Photo and Video

    Drive X for Apps program (like CCleaner, etc) and all drivers for reinstall
    =====================================

    Drive 2
    ====================================
    Drive X for Game iso, Game emulator stuff (oh yeah mame games)

    Drive X for ALL PC Games (Steam, Etc)
    ====================================

    That is my preferences above and 3 hard drives is good enough for me.

    BTW, Little advice, Never install any PC games on Main OS drive, more likely heavy fragment, stutter, PC games can cause messed it up on main OS drive. O_o

    dg
    Last edited by dgwin7; 17 Sep 2010 at 11:07. Reason: edited
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 83
    Windows 7 Pro 64
       #40

    My Dell Vostro has space for two drives, but I have never been motivated to order the special adapter from Dell. Probably costs more than a 500GB drive. The Disk Management utility offers a "spanned volume" choice to make two drives look like a single drive--but I have never used it.

    I like my partitions. Lately, (last ten years or so) I have always bought my computers with a small hard drive, at the same time I bought an extra, larger internal replacement. Then first thing out of the box, swap drives and install the OS etc on the new drive. If I ever sell the computer, the old drive goes back in. until Vista, I always formatted 3 partitions, OS/Software, Data, Temp. When the defragging on the fly feature showed up, I stopped making the temp partition.

    Back a ways, I lost a HD, and everything on it. Cant remember the years, but it was a 20MB HD.
    After that I got backup-fever, and the data partition just makes it easier.
      My Computer


 
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