Windows 7 - Hardrive setup and maintanance (help)

My Windows 7 premium 64 bit laptop has a 640 GB hardrive. I gave 95 GB to C partition. I notice there is 12 GB reserved for recovery partition. Should this be present even though I've turned restore off? Is it necessary or advised to leave it be? I'm wanting the remaining hardrive 500 gigs or so to be my remaining 2nd partition. Is default allocation unit size best for this? Most of my files I keep here are over a gig in size. Do people manually defrag or let auto drfag for Windows 7? How does auto defrag work? I've noticed default settings for this are to start automatically at a set time. But what if my computer has not been on at that set time for a while. Will it start up anyway? If my hardrive is almost completely full for weeks or months on end I imagine it will be pretty fragmented. If I can then dump the entire hardrive content every few months onto external storage and then perform a defrag before loading the data back on hardrive is this a good way to keep harddrive healthy? I have a habit of keeping my hardrive mostly full at all times. If this is bad practice I'd appreciate advice on how to mitigate the repercutions this may have on my system. I understand defrag only works well if hardrive is at least %20 empty. It seem to me my system will perform best by filling up my D partition first before filling up C partition is that right?

leif,
That's many questions.
Here are some answers.

I notice there is 12 GB reserved for recovery partition. Should this be present even though I've turned restore off? Yes, System Recovery is different from System Restore.

Oh yes, on many of these matters,
WIN key (that's the one with the funny looking, wavy flag on it) + F1 key
That gets you to Win 7 Help. Once there just enter, for example, System Recovery.

I notice there is 12 GB reserved for recovery partition. Should this be present even though I've turned restore off? Leave it be!

I'm wanting the remaining hardrive 500 gigs or so to be my remaining 2nd partition. Is default allocation unit size best for this? Yes.

Do people manually defrag or let auto drfag for Windows 7? Some manually, some auto. I use manual.

Microsoft did improve their defrag. Once again, use Win + F1 for more info and/or google this topic.

Others may have other experiences, but I've not found defragging to be of much importance as in the XP days.

My intuition tells me that you had better make yourself a System Repair DVD (see left-hand pane of Backup & Restore). And you probably should take advantage of the simple, easy-to-use, solid Backup & Restore capability of Windows 7.

Enjoy Windows 7 and I'm sure that some of the others will come forth with still more answers and suggestions for you.

1. The 12GB system recovery partition should stay.
2. You should enable restore points. Else you will have a hard time to recover the system in case of trouble. Imaging is an additional good means to protect yourself.
3. Defrag I would do manually. Then you are certain the system is on.
4. Q: "I have a habit of keeping my hardrive mostly full at all times". This I do not understand. Do you store dummy data?
5. Whether you fill up C or D is neither here nor there. But it is good practice to seperate the user data from the OS partition. But this requires a whole folder transfer operation. I have made a little video to explain that.

My 500 Gb partition D will be used exclusively for holding movies files 1 gig or larger. With this in mind would there be much benefit in picking a particular allocation unit size? Picking a larger size will result in less defragmentation correct?

If you only store and never delete files, there will be no fragmentation. But why don't you store those videos on an external drive from the start since they will end up there anyhow.

Leif,
Don't sweat the small stuff. WHS has made an excellent suggestion.