Partitioning My Harddrive

[Zylo]

I have two 74-GB Raptors, and might add a 250GB drive in the future, but for now 148GB seems to be large enough.

I want to partition a system only disk, and have seperate partitions for games/applications and such.

What is the best way to partition the disk?

Here is what I am thinking on the primary:

- 2GB partition for swap/page (I have 2GB of ram, want to run WinXP)
- 10GB system
- 62GB Prog/Apps/Games

and on the second:

25GB - Movies
25GB - MP3
24GB - Misc/Files + Photoshop Scratch Disk

Will that many partitions cause performance issues in WinXP?

Any ideas on optomizing the setup I have there?

Almost forgot.. if it helps, system specs are:

- Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
- A64 4000+
- 2GB Corsair TwinXMS
- 2x 74GB Raptors

 

[GVX]

- 2GB partition for swap/page (I have 2GB of ram, want to run WinXP)
- 10GB system
- 62GB Prog/Apps/Games

You might want to give your OS partition 20GB just to be safe. I mean, some programs (such as service packs) require to be installed on the C: drive (or whatever your OS partition is named), so having extra space might not be a bad plan.

I knew somebody who made his OS partition under 4GB and was unable to install service pack 2.

Just a thought.

 

[echoes]

- 2GB partition for swap/page (I have 2GB of ram, want to run WinXP)
- 10GB system
- 62GB Prog/Apps/Games

25GB - Movies
25GB - MP3
24GB - Misc/Files + Photoshop Scratch Disk

Why are you separating movies/mp3/misc?

What's going to happen when you run out of space on the mp3 partition and have plenty of space on the other 2 partitions (for example)? Sure you can deal with that and there are workarounds, but it'd just be an annoyance.

Here's how my system is set up (160 GB Samsung)

20 GB: OS, applications
140 GB: video, mp3, data, documents, etc.

I understand the rationale for keeping OS and programs separate, but I figured that when I have to reformat, this will force me to update my programs at the same time. I hate how the Program Files folder inevitably gets cluttered up with junk.

 

[seasponge]

and is there really any performance gain/reason to put your swap file on its own partition when using windows?

 

[Zylo]

and is there really any performance gain/reason to put your swap file on its own partition when using windows?

That is the reason behind this thread, I don't know.

So, echoes, you don't think there is an advantage of seperating installed apps/games, etc from the OS partition?

 

[KevinO]

I don't see an advantage unless you don't want to lose saved games. If you blow away your OS partition you are going to probably have to reinstall the game anyway due to missing registry entries etc.

As far as putting your swap file on the same drive, but its on partition, there really isn't a benefit besides keeping it from getting defrag (that is if you let windows control it). I think if you put it on the first partition you might get some performance since it will put it on the fastest part of the drive. The optimal place to put it is on a seperate drive from the OS.

 

[jstenuf]

and is there really any performance gain/reason to put your swap file on its own partition when using windows?

There can be if you format your swap file partition as Fat 32.