C Drive vs External Hard Drive

[Dawter]

I'm quite new to Windows 7 but so far I love it.
My Inspiron 15R has 900 and some GB's on the C drive.
I have an external hard drive that is 150 GB's.
On my old laptop I didn't use the My Documents or My Music on the C drive.
I used the external hard drive to access and store everything important to me because my laptop only had 40 GB's on the C drive and after losing things while storing them on the C drive I just kept everything on the external hard drive.
Now that I have about 900 GB's on the C drive would it be smart or feasible to start using the C drive to store everything important and use the external hard drive for backups?

Thank you.

 

[LittleJay]

My personal opinion? With all that space on your C drive I would definitely save your personal files there, but also keep backing them up on the external drive as well. That way if one drive fails you won't lose everything.

 

[Kari]

A personal, very subjective opinion:

In my opinion, having the OS (system files & folders) and personal user data on the same drive adds risk to lose something important if (when) things go wrong. This laptop I am using now came with 1TB HDD, which I have divided to 3 partitions (highlighted partitions in screenshot = original 1TB drive):



This gives me more freedom, I can for instance install OS completely fresh, formatting C: (OS drive) without losing my user data on E:.

My recommendation: Shrink C:, create new partition(s) for your data.

Kari

 

[Dawter]

I think both of you are right. Regardless of whether I partition the thinking is the same- Backup, Backup, Backup.
Now, about these partitions...I need to learn about them.
Thank you both so much. I'm liking this forum really well based on the help I am receiving. My sister just bought Windows 7 and I will definitely be directing her to this forum.

 

[LittleJay]

Hi Dawter, you are very welcome. Kari has a good idea about partitioning your C drive to have separate partitions for the OS and your data. It does simplify things if you want reinstall Windows, or even to create a system image of just the OS partition. I didn't mention it in my post, as I wasn't sure how comfortable you would be about partitioning your C drive, but if you are interested post back and we can help you with that.

 

[whs]

I definitely vote for partitioning the drive - C, user data, miscellaneous. Keep about 60GB for the OS (C) and the rest as needed.

You will not be able to shrink the current C partition enough with Disk Management. You have to use the bootable CD of Partition Wizard. Download the .iso and burn it to CD - best with ImgBurn.

Here is a little tutorial on how to resize (shrink) a partition. If you get stuck, ask us.

Once you have shrunk C and have available unallocated space, you can use Disk Management to define your 2 new partitions.

Important: before you manipulate your C partition, take an image of C. Here is how: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?ltr=I

Once you have a defined user partition, define new empty user folders there (Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos). Then move your current files to the approriate folders. Then right click on each folder that you previously defined and INCLUDE it into the appropriate library.

 

[Fewman2]

whs - been thinking about adding a data partition also and understand why you may not be able to shrink C: (files not movable) to a specific size but Partition Wizard will perform that task? Is there a tutorial on the process with Partition Wizard?

 

[Dawter]

whs- this sounds good to me, "C, user data, miscellaneous."
Here's what I have. I haven't clicked "Apply" yet.
Any thoughts before I click "Apply?"
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/Dawter/partition_zps5c7b43b9.jpg

Well, I did click on "Apply."
After it made the partitions I realize I didn't allocate the rest of my GB's.
Do I need to go in and allocate it? Make up a name for it?
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have to go to bed now.

 

[whs]

Looks good to me.

 

[Dawter]

So. leave the huge chunk alone?

 

[whs]

It is good as a buffer for later use. But you can also go into Disk Management and extend the misc. partition.

I always leave a chunk unallocated because it is easier to extend a partition than to shrink a partition.

 

[carwiz]

The drawback is that if the disk drive craps out, you loose everything including the partitions. It's still just one physical disk drive no matter how many disks you define on it. And the more disks you define lowers the overall capacity of the drive. Not to mention making access slower. Except for a purely organizational stand point, multi-disk partitions on a single drive never made much sense to me. But that's just my bloated and over-stuffed multi-drive PC opinion.

 

[whs]

The drawback is that if the disk drive craps out, you loose everything including the partitions. It's still just one physical disk drive no matter how many disks you define on it. And the more disks you define lowers the overall capacity of the drive. Not to mention making access slower. Except for a purely organizational stand point, multi-disk partitions on a single drive never made much sense to me. But that's just my bloated and over-stuffed multi-drive PC opinion.

I think you are exaggerating. 3 partitions on a drive are not going to make a big difference in terms of capacity and speed. And it is absolutely compulsory to seperate the user data from the OS.

 

[carwiz]

Compulsory? Who says?
That's what Libraries are for.

 

[whs]

Compulsory in the sense that if your OS goes on the blink, you don't want to lose your data or have a hard time retrieving it with live Linux CDs and alike. And I really don't know what the library argument may do for you in that case.

 

[carwiz]

As I said, if the hard drive tanks you loose everything but each to his own. I simply said "I" see no use for pseudo drives. HDDs are cheap enough to fill a case with them and have real disks if that's what you want. Who gives a squat about the OS. It's the data that's important to me. Libraries can be restored in minutes from a backup to a new drive.

I only speak of an option. It's NOT compulsory that you comply.

 

[Kari]

OP should IMO be warned that too many primary partitions on the same disk converts basic disk to dynamic. (Basic and Dynamic Disks (Windows)).

You can have maximum 4 primary partitions on basic disk.

 

[whs]

Right Kari, but he only wanted 3 partitions all together. And if he uses Disk Management to create the additional 2 partitions, he will end up with only 1 primary anyhow - the other two will be extended and logical.

 

[Dawter]

I am a she...LOL
Thank you all so much for your input and help. I realize we don't all think the same.
Now I have to review what you all have said and I'll be back.

 

[Kari]

I am a she...LOL

It's not the first time we have called her him and vice versa, not forgetting Cindy who was a he who wanted to be she and left us when her his cover was blown...