Hard Drive Capacity Under Win7 64bit

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Hi Lady Fitzgerald,

Would it be better to keep the drive as it is now with 2 partitions or would it be better to restore it to 1 partition?

Frank

I suggest converting it to a single GPT partition using this tutorial: Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk. Be sure to backup any data first.

 

[SIW2]

It doesn't matter if it is one partition or two - will be ok either way. You might find it easier to save e.g. images on one partition and e.g. games on the other .

 

[mrjimphelps]

Would it be better to keep the drive as it is now with 2 partitions or would it be better to restore it to 1 partition?

Frank, it's really up to your preference. Personally, I like everything on one big partition, because I never have to worry about running out of space on one, while having extra space on the other. But different people have different opinions and preferences on this issue. There's no right or wrong way here.

Think of it as storage space. If you had, say, 200 sq ft of storage space, would you prefer to subdivide it into two fixed areas of 100 sq ft each, or would you prefer to have only one area of 200 sq ft?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...You might find it easier to save e.g. images on one partition and e.g. games on the other .

That reason is one of the few reasons to justify having separate partitions and that's only to allow using different, more efficient methods of backing up the two different file types.

Segregating different types of data (other than the OS and programs) is far more efficiently done through the use of folders. For example, let's say you want to keep your videos separated from your photos on the same drive. If you divide the drive into two partitions, each partition is fixed in size. You could conceivably fill one partition up long before the other partition does. While it is possible to resize partitions after thee fact, it is somewhat of a nuisance and you run some risk of losing data in the process.

However, if you used two folders in a 2TB drive with only one 2TB partition (sizes here are strictly hypothetical), each folder will resize itself until there is no more room on the drive without any need to repartition anything. I actually have a drive that has only two folders (with each folder having multiple subfolders).

The only time I recommend partitioning a drive is when installing an OS that uses a System Reserved partition as well as the C: partition. It is also a good idea to have a separate partition for keeping data in separate from the OS related partitions. If a drive has a restore partition that you want to retain (some people do, some don't; it's more about personal preference than anything else), then that is a valid reason for having another partition. Some people like to have a small partition to use for testing purposes (I prefer using an external drive for that; again, that is mostly personal preference).