BEST WAY TO? - Manage Multiple Hard Drives - Win 7 64-bit

Hi All,

I am going to be performing a clean install of Windows 7 64bit. I've been reading that it is generally a better idea to segregate the OS from applications from documents. I have always used the C: drive for everything and thought about giving this a try. I'd like to get some advice from others who have done this and get some "best practices" if I could.

I have the following drives available: 320GB, 300GB, 750GB. I was planning to install the OS on either the 320 or 300, install my applications and game clients on the other 300, and use the 750 for all of my docs, pics, music, videos, downloads, etc.

Is there anything else I should consider? Does this plan make the most sense? I figured a clean install would be necessary becasue it will be next to impossible to relocate applications from one drive to another.

Is there anything I should look out for? Is it relatively easy in Win 7 to adjust default "Save To" locations and moving my Libraries (Docs, Music, Pics, etc.)?

Thanks for all the input!

You can try any of these steps:

1.Since you have plenty of HDD space available,you can install windows to either 320 or 300 GB drive and save your documents and data in either of other two remaining drives.

2.Or you can create a single 100 GB partition just for OS and install programes/application in same drive as OS (recomended for imaging purposes) and data in other drives.If you have any data intensive games which take up considerable amount of space then install it in either of other drives/partitions.

I would suggest not to move your libraries and keep them in default C drive.

Link to create/manage partitions is Partition / Extended : Logical Drives

I posted in your identical thread here: New Install Setup - Drive Segregation Help

dreamer said:

I would suggest not to move your libraries and keep them in default C drive.

Why is this? Wouldn't this make more sense? That way if there is an unrecoverable error with Windows, my documents will be safely stored on another disk.

This is in fact a good argument for linking your user folders to another HD: User Folders - Change Default Location

Another option is to use Win7 backup center to keep a current image and file backup to second HD.