Benefits of Data Partition?

Zepher said:

Qdos said:

I think keeping your drive formatted to say 35Gb for the OS and having a seperate larger partition for 'my documents' is a great idea - in so much as reinstallation or cloning and restoring an OS image are much more practical.

35GB is too small. you want your programs on the same partition if you plan on imaging it for restoring later. no sense in just imaging the OS since Windows 7 takes 20 minutes on a current machine to install. The apps are what is going to take the time, so those should be installed in the default folder and then imaged after all your apps are installed.

Exactly.

I clone images to another drive that can be removed from the computer via a removable bay and labeled the drive "Image Backup Drive".
I install windows (XP or Vista or Win 7 etc), Install apps required including any MS Updates, Once everything is configured the way I want it to be, I make an image. Now I install and configure my games, once I'm happy, I then make another image.

I have a 1TB drive, I split my drive, it's split to 320gb and the rest I use for personal stuff like game updates etc.

In that case I make regular backups on many windows installs and my personal backups.
In many cases having a split drive, it's still possible of losing important data. This is why I use 2 external drives that are not constantly connected to the computer.

For the OS backup I use a 320GB or 640GB drive.
For my Personal Backup I use a 800GB or a 1TB drive.

I use Symatec ghost boot disk to conduct backups and backup restores.
One can use other backup software which can do the same thing or if not more than.

example; Acronis Disk Director Suite.
In the end it's personal preference.

anyway, moving on. :)

I believe that 32GB is way too small for OS and Applications yet alone for small games too.
It's very hard these days to find a decent 32GB or a 120GB hard drive, it's all 150GB or > (greater).

Zepher said:

35GB is too small. you want your programs on the same partition if you plan on imaging it for restoring later. no sense in just imaging the OS since Windows 7 takes 20 minutes on a current machine to install. The apps are what is going to take the time, so those should be installed in the default folder and then imaged after all your apps are installed.

I thought people would appreciate the 35Gb was merely an example, the OP stated his disk was a humble 5400rpm SATA, so there's every chance is was also of limited size in addition.

There is every point in making a bare metal drive image by the way, it should be the first thing you do after installing, tweaking, and updating Windows7 - but performed before loading additional programs - because then you have a sound point to restart from which will save you hugely in excess of the 20 minutes cited...

My tuppence worth :)

Qdos said:

I thought people would appreciate the 35Gb was merely an example, the OP stated his disk was a humble 5400rpm SATA, so there's every chance is was also of limited size in addition.

+1. Not everyone is a power user. A modest 7 install can run quite happily in that space if the box is only used for internet and word processing needs. Even less in fact. I had it on a 20gig hard drive with 4 user accounts for my kids. Ran aero and chugged along quite happily for them.

I think the OS partition (or drive size) really does depend on your personal needs/use.
We all have different setups, so a few things come into play when choosing what size you need for Win7:

My self, I run mine and all its apps on a 30GB SSDdrive and its plenty of room.

However:
I disable and delete the Hibernate file
as well as disable System Restore.
(i use Acronis for all back ups on a secondary drive instead)

These save a large chunk of space on the main OS drive.

I also moved my Pagefile off the OS drive, and set a small one on a spinning disc. (So this is something to consider as well, as it will increase the space used)

As others have said previously in this thread, moving the pagefile to another drive may not offer any perf gain.
This quite likely true, I simply do it to keep the OS drive "cleaner".
I think if you have 4GB or more RAM, you'll likely rarely access it anyway. And you may not need a very large one. (I could be wrong though)

All other games, and personal media elsewhere on other drives.


For me, going that route, with all my many apps, Win7 uses less than 14GB of Space.


Im thinking with All of these enabled and running on the OS drive, you could likely reach low-mid 20sGB of space quite easily.
So 30-40GB may very well be too small as some have said, especially if you need these things, or want them on the the OS drive. Completely a personal choice.

So, yea, really depends on your how you set it up and your needs.

im not saying this is the best way to set it up, or the prefered way etc ... just how I do it and 30GB is more than enough for my personal needs.

However, when dealing with just 1 physical disc for the entire system, most of these thing should likely be left with the OS itself, moving only personal media.

Just thought it may be worth pointing out some of the variables that make the diff. for some users. :-/