Any benefits by partitioning HDD?

**black_mamba** · 02-05-2008, 04:27 PM

I'm thinking about using just one HDD in my system It's 160GB and I was going to partition about 20GB for the system/boot drive and the rest as media storage. Or is it better to just keep it as one drive?

**Kimota** · 02-05-2008, 04:40 PM

The main benifit of partitioning your drive is the ability to do clean install of your OS (i.e your OS becomes corrupt) without losing data.

Depending on how you install XP (and your needs) you can go quite a bit smaller than 20GB for the OS partition.

**Bullwinkle777** · 02-06-2008, 03:51 PM

**Rockhammer** · 02-07-2008, 10:27 AM

Absolutely. Do yourself a big favor and keep your data separate from your OS. Once Windows installs, your My Documents folder will default to your C: drive. But really, it is just a special windows shortcut. To move it, just right click on the folder in Windows Explorer, select properties, then hit the button labeled 'move'. You can either just assign it to the root of your data drive (i.e D:\ ) or more preferably to a folder on your data drive.

**black_mamba** · 02-08-2008, 04:13 PM

Thanks everyone. I'm fully aware of the restore/backup benefits. I already do this on my desktop (1 80GB boot drive and 3 500GB storage drives, and yes I have "My Documents" mapped to another folder on one of the other drives). I guess my question was more related to performance and wear-and-tear/reliabilty of the drive. I haven't had to partition a drive for years now that HDDs are so inexpensive, but obviously something to consider when trying to keep the number of devices to a minimum.

Oh and I stated incorrectly, I am actually thinking of 12GB for the boot partition. I tried to run an nlite'd install, but even after I cut out everything I thought I didn't need, the install still took up almost 2GB. I figured 12GB should be enough for virtual memory and map data for IG and MS S&T, the main space hogs. Better to run these from the boot drive drive right?

**jonessc** · 02-09-2008, 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by black_mamba

Thanks everyone. I'm fully aware of the restore/backup benefits. I already do this on my desktop (1 80GB boot drive and 3 500GB storage drives, and yes I have "My Documents" mapped to another folder on one of the other drives). I guess my question was more related to performance and wear-and-tear/reliabilty of the drive. I haven't had to partition a drive for years now that HDDs are so inexpensive, but obviously something to consider when trying to keep the number of devices to a minimum.

Oh and I stated incorrectly, I am actually thinking of 12GB for the boot partition. I tried to run an nlite'd install, but even after I cut out everything I thought I didn't need, the install still took up almost 2GB. I figured 12GB should be enough for virtual memory and map data for IG and MS S&T, the main space hogs. Better to run these from the boot drive drive right?

I always do that way if ever you want to use EWF your media is always seperate from the OS

**TheLandYacht** · 02-09-2008, 03:06 PM

Originally Posted by black_mamba

I guess my question was more related to performance and wear-and-tear/reliabilty of the drive.

Not that it'd be a significant factor (a small fraction of a percent difference), but partitioning drives theoretically increases the wear and tear. Since the R/R heads have to travel from the OS partition (to access any programs) back to the DATA partition (to start & play your music), and back & forth each time it wants to access vmemory, your theoretical wear&tear is higher with partitions.

Is this theoretical increase something measurable? Who knows, all my drives are partitioned in some fashion.