Partition Size on 2nd HDD used for Image Files of OS/App Partition?

[Riotubes]

Hi,

I'm preparing a fresh install of Win 7 Pro on a 2 disk system (90GB SSD and 1TB HDD). I'll be placing the OS/Apps on the SSD and Data and image restore files on HDD.

Qs:

1. If I allocate ~60GB for the OS/Apps partition, and actual storage of the OS/Apps is 35GB...what size partition do I need on the HDD to save this image file? I assume the compressed file will be 45-50% of original. Will I want to store multiple image files created over the course of time as apps are added and system is further optimized, and hence need a partition that is a multiple of the OS/App partition size? What do you do?

2. Also, an 8GB RamDisk will serve as scratch disk space for some apps (RamDisk +) which can save an image of the session's writes upon shutdown. I plan to save this image to the 2nd HDD. Is it recommended that I save this to same partition that stores the OS/App image in Q #1 above, or a separate partition? If a separate partition, what size?

Thanks!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Hi,

I'm preparing a fresh install of Win 7 Pro on a 2 disk system (90GB SSD and 1TB HDD). I'll be placing the OS/Apps on the SSD and Data and image restore files on HDD.

Qs:

1. If I allocate ~60GB for the OS/Apps partition, and actual storage of the OS/Apps is 35GB...what size partition do I need on the HDD to save this image file? I assume the compressed file will be 45-50% of original. Will I want to store multiple image files created over the course of time as apps are added and system is further optimized, and hence need a partition that is a multiple of the OS/App partition size? What do you do?

2. Also, an 8GB RamDisk will serve as scratch disk space for some apps (RamDisk +) which can save an image of the session's writes upon shutdown. I plan to save this image to the 2nd HDD. Is it recommended that I save this to same partition that stores the OS/App image in Q #1 above, or a separate partition? If a separate partition, what size?

Thanks!

You are correct about approximate sizes of image files. But I don't see why you would want to put the saved images on a specific partition, although obviously you could do that.

I have 3 images at any time: the first that I made the day I installed Windows and 2 from recent periods. I make a new one every couple of months and delete one at that time. So, yes, as the system is optimized, you continue to make images so that your newest one is never very old.

I consider images as just another very valuable file and keep them in an "images" folder on my primary data drive. And I back them up to another drive just as I would any valuable file.

I know nothing about RAM disks, but I'd think ANY image file should be considered as another valuable data file to be stored as normal data and backed up.

You can of course make an image of C only, D only, or C and D combined. I image only the C drive and backup all data through other means. I don't want images complicating my access to my data.

 

[Riotubes]

Thanks for the quick reply! I see your point about the image files just being another important data file. I've never used partitions and am trying to understand their use beyond segregating the OS/apps files.

I wonder if backup software is any easier to run if a few multi-gig image files are absent from the other data files (i.e. in a separate partition), from a time perspective. Perhaps backup software is easily configured to ignore the folder the image files are placed in?

Finally, I want to use synchronization software because I am forgetfull what I've backed up both in terms of which files and even versions I've backed up. I'll be using this with just the data disc/partition I suppose (image app for OS). Does a sync app provide all the basic backup functionality one needs to perform essential backup?

 

[FliGi7]

Windows 7 has a great built-in backup utility (just type "backup" at the start menu) for most users' needs. If you are set on third party software, though, I've used syncback se with great success.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I wonder if backup software is any easier to run if a few multi-gig image files are absent from the other data files (i.e. in a separate partition), from a time perspective. Perhaps backup software is easily configured to ignore the folder the image files are placed in?

Finally, I want to use synchronization software because I am forgetfull what I've backed up both in terms of which files and even versions I've backed up. I'll be using this with just the data disc/partition I suppose (image app for OS). Does a sync app provide all the basic backup functionality one needs to perform essential backup?

I have never noticed any difficulty at all in running backup software on a partition containing OS images. They are just another file.

Any backup (synchronization) software worth talking about can be configured to EXCLUDE whatever you want--certain directories, certain file extensions, etc.

Backup software usually has "routines" or "profiles". You can have one or several profiles. You could have a single profile that backed up everything you wanted to backup and run it once a day.

Or you could have several profiles, where each profile backs up a certain type of file. I have 5 profiles: data/text, mp3, pictures/video, email, and bookmarks. Between those 5 profiles, 100% of my data is backed up. Some profiles I run daily, some I run every week or so. You could certainly make one for images if you wanted, but I don't see any reason to do that. My images are backed up with my data/text profile, which I run daily.

I don't run any profile on an automated schedule. I run them all manually--whenever I want to with a single mouse click. They can be scheduled to run every 2 hours, 6 hours, at shutdown, at boot, etc. But I have found that running backups at shutdown or startup can interfere with those procedures, so I use manual.

Such software typically takes quite a while to run the first time---because it has to back up ALL files in the profile. But thereafter it runs much faster--because after the first time, it has to back up only CHANGED or NEWLY CREATED files. The first run might take several hours--pretty much like a drag and drop.

My daily data backups virtually never take over 30 seconds. I use Second Copy, but there are many similar apps---none of them use images.

I have a 2 partition primary drive: C and D. D contains all of my data. I have a single partition backup drive E. My images of C are saved to D and then backed up to E. Images are isolated, but only by being in a separate folder--not in a separate partition.

Unless you have a major over-riding reason, I'd advise you to minimize the number of partitions when possible. If you split stuff by a bunch of partitions, you have to make judgments about partition size and rate of growth--and you will guess wrong about at least one partition and run low on space on it----even though you have plenty of space on other partitions.

 

[Riotubes]

Thanks to both FliGi7 and Ignatzatsonic for the very helpful information. I have read positive feedback on syncback but if Windows 7 has a comparable app I am happy to keep it simple. Ignatzatsonic's post was definitely enlightening...the notion that you can add multiple profiles with different backup routines and to organize folders around these profiles is epiphinal. I will do this and see no reason for separate partition for the image files on the 2nd HDD. I think I'll just partition the SDD into two: OS/Apps vs Scratch Space and just a single partition on the HDD for data and backup. On the data I'll have different folders for FLAC, MPEG, MyDoc, Email pst, etc.

Is there a compelling reason to save "downloads" to OS/App partition or data disk? I'm just thinking about an inadvertant download (due to my ignorance) that could more readily corupt my system if I kept this folder in system partition?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Not sure I am following you, but........

If you are referring to a garden variety download---an mp3, a new program you want to try, a video clip, a jpeg, then to me that is just more data. I have a downloads folder on my data drive and everything lands there.

The downloaded item is eventually re-routed elsewhere after I decide I am going to keep it, process it, edit it, delete it, or whatever.

In other words, I personally NEVER download anything to C. Always to D.

Sometimes an application will choose to download something to somewhere in C:\Users, but I never put anything on C other than the OS and installed applications.

 

[oldtraveler]

In other words, I personally NEVER download anything to C. Always to D.

Sometimes an application will choose to download something to somewhere in C:\Users, but I never put anything on C other than the OS and installed applications.

I have found that 99% of the applications (programs) that I install can be done on Drive D and still will run fine from C. The advantage here is to keep the size of C minimized and thus easier to image.

 

[Ciara]

In other words, I personally NEVER download anything to C. Always to D.

Sometimes an application will choose to download something to somewhere in C:\Users, but I never put anything on C other than the OS and installed applications.

I have found that 99% of the applications (programs) that I install can be done on Drive D and still will run fine from C. The advantage here is to keep the size of C minimized and thus easier to image.

Thats what I do C:\ partition is just Win7 and all applications are installed on my second hard drive first partition D:\ ... works very well

 

[DeaconFrost]

Your image files are compressed, so you don't need to do any special partitioning on the data drive. I'd make that one solid partition and then store everything there. I have a similar setup where my data drive is a 750 GB internal drive. Everything gets stored there, and anything that normally goes on C:\, like game saves, gets synced to the data drive using SyncToy. Then I keep an entire backup of the data drive on a 750 GB external.

 

[Riotubes]

In other words, I personally NEVER download anything to C. Always to D.

Sometimes an application will choose to download something to somewhere in C:\Users, but I never put anything on C other than the OS and installed applications.

I have found that 99% of the applications (programs) that I install can be done on Drive D and still will run fine from C. The advantage here is to keep the size of C minimized and thus easier to image.

Thats what I do C:\ partition is just Win7 and all applications are installed on my second hard drive first partition D:\ ... works very well

Well, I was originally going to store ALL APPS on 2nd partition of SDD(recall I have a 2nd 1TB HDD for data) distinct from OS partition. However, I was disabused of this strategy after reading numerous posts that one should keep OS and Apps on same partition since apps are installed in the registry and, in the majority of cases, need to be reinstalled if and when the OS is reinstalled via image. Now I'm confused again!?! Apps are MS Office, Autocad, Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketchup, photo editing app, utility apps such as anti-virus, malware as well as firefox browswer I plan to run from ramdisk...not a ton of apps.

I will plan to save downloads to data disk. For me, downloads are mainly programs (firefox, anti-virus, utilities, etc.)

 

[FliGi7]

Well, think of it this way... if you install your apps on the C: drive and it crashes you have to reinstall them. If you install your apps on the D: drive and the C: drive crashes, you still have to reinstall them because the registry on C: got blown away. From a speed point of view, usually your OS disk is the fastest (at least it makes the most sense for it to be), so why would you want to put the programs on a slower disk? It seems like a disservice. Or, if you have two equally speedy drives for both the OS and data, by installing programs onto a separate drive that still require the main drives data (registry) you are introducing two factors of failure rather than one. None of these situations seem to offer a benefit other than saving space on the OS drive, which if that is the case then you probably should have bought a larger drive for the OS and applications.

Personally I install all apps on the same drive as the OS drive. I have yet to see or hear of any benefit to installing them on a separate partition or drive for programs that utilize the registry.

 

[Riotubes]

Personally I install all apps on the same drive as the OS drive. I have yet to see or hear of any benefit to installing them on a separate partition or drive for programs that utilize the registry.

I read this over and over. This is what I'm going to do. And I don't know which of the Apps I use are invasive (i.e. modify or need access to Registry)....I'm pretty sure MS Office does, not sure about Autocad, Illustrator, Photoshop and utility apps.

One last question. Since I have a 2 disk system, should I create an 8GB partition on the 1TB HDD (for data only) as first partition (fastest) for a 2nd pagefile? Of course the pagefile will also be on the SDD in the OS/App partition. I've read this could speed things up or in some way optimize performance

 

[FliGi7]

Putting the pagefile separate of the SSD drive is a debatable topic. You have plenty of memory according to your specs so it really doesn't matter where it is as you won't be using it much at all. It would probably be a good idea to remove it from the SSD and just put it on the second hdd, since it will just take up space on your SSD.

Regardless, I'm not sure why you would need a second pagefile, unless you are referring to scratch space for use with photo and video editing programs.

 

[Riotubes]

Not sure I am following you, but........

If you are referring to a garden variety download---an mp3, a new program you want to try, a video clip, a jpeg, then to me that is just more data. I have a downloads folder on my data drive and everything lands there.

The downloaded item is eventually re-routed elsewhere after I decide I am going to keep it, process it, edit it, delete it, or whatever.

In other words, I personally NEVER download anything to C. Always to D.

Sometimes an application will choose to download something to somewhere in C:\Users, but I never put anything on C other than the OS and installed applications.

To which disk/partition do you guys save Windows updates and other app updates? To the OS/apps partition or elsewhere? Such updates will install correctly even if the update file is saved to a 2nd hdd that stores data and images?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Not sure I am following you.

I don't "save" application updates. I install them.

They presumably install into C:\Program Files or C:\Windows with the rest of the program. I'm not sure how Windows handles all of that and don't concern myself with it.

There is an unavoidable bunch of stuff that lands in some subfolders of C:\Users\myusername, but I don't pay that any mind. Nor do I ever CHOOSE to download anything to that folder.

My C:\Users\myusername folder right now has 12,000 files occupying 3.4 gigs---in spite of the fact that I never choose to download ANYTHING there. Nearly all of that 3.4 gigs is in C:\users\myusername\appdata.

 

[Riotubes]

Sorry...I think I confused App Updates / Service Pak type files with "downloads" where one saves a zip/launch file that launches the programs. Basically, I don't trust my ability to keep the original OS directory, files and necessary subsequent updates clean and free of other shit that seems to fly out of the ether and into my system directories. I don't know enough to know what is legit/necessary versus what is bloat or, even worse, malicious. I thought some pre-planning re: partition strategy might help make this more manageable.