Should You Create a Partition?

I prefer partitioning as mentioned it helps organize data. my usual setup of partitioning is create a quite large chunk for my os and apps and room for the page file then the rest is partition depending on my needs and how big is the hard drive. i dedicate one partition for my data, another partition for my backup.

if you dont partition and there is a need to reformat your drive due to infection then you will have to allocate time for burning your data to a DVD first before formating which i really hate when i need my system back up and running as soon as possible. plus if you don’t partition a huge hard drive say 500GB then defragmenting your drive will take ages to complete.

I have tried both methods and find for a desktop the best thing to do is to buy the smallest hard drive you can find (80 gig or better) and use this for your boot drive. Only install your system software and programs on this drive and back it up once you have customized it to your liking. On your larger drives you can keep your data. Back up the data using a full backup and when required do incrumental backups. This way if you loose one of the drives the restore time will be minimal. The only time you will have to back your system or boot drive is when you have made significant changes.

On a laptop I create a folder where I keep all of my data. This way I only have the one data folder to back up. Again, create and customize your laptop the way you want, back it up, then create your data folder.

I have found this formula to work the bestfor me. It reduces the time spent doing backups and restores when required.

I stay away from partitioning as if I loose a drive I no not loose everything.

I am not sure if partitioning is the best thing to do, I feel that there is no real point in partitioning one hard drive. As if the hard drive fails, both of the partitions are going to go anyway.

If you want to do efficient backups I would recommend doing at least 2 on more than 2 different types of media.

I am unsure how it can increase the computers performance, as the only thing I can see it doing is creating somewhere to cache your open files.

Any critism would be most welcome I have partitioned drives before however I am not so sure if it is any better or not.

good read, except the part about partitions safeguarding data. If a drive begins to die, it’s the entire drive, not just a partition. Sure if we’re talking about bad sectors it may be isolated to one partition but there’s a reason the drive is getting bad sectors, kno what I mean?

otherwise well stated article

There’s some very true points in this article, I feel that partitioning is an almost necessary process for anyone who considers themselves a power user or above on the “computer experience chart”. I partition my hard drive not only to organize my data but to run multiple operating systems.

I think the discount on Acronis’s software is a good deal and I have seen this software being used by others in the past and I must say that it looks like a quality piece of software. Unfortunately for them though, they can’t compete with Open Source patitioner GParted as it is free and has excellent if not better performance than any other partitioning software available. The only catch is that not all people know about or are comfortable using a Live CD or Open Source software in general. If you want to know more about GParted though just click my name!

I think this article is a shameless plug for Acronis q;)

So I checked this out, and I noticed a few pros and cons in the feature list. Pro: Linux ext2, ext3, ReiserFS conversion support between fat and Linux partitions. Con: No OS X HFS+ support. With Intel Macs able to run windows, it would be nice to see support for mac GUID and Bios partition maps. Pro: Has a companion data backup application available. Con: I didn’t see and encryption support, that would be cool if it could do some crypt disk stuff.

As a side note: Ubuntu installs are using ext4, which is not in the supported partitions list.

Rather than partitioning, I prefer to have a boot/application drive, and a media/files drive. That way, hard drive failure on one won’t affect the other.

I used to partioned my drives and yes it did help when my computer became infected (i used to host my own site via iis). Then I kept partionaing my drives but apperantly I was using a hdd that does not like to be partioned. So I assume you would have to find a hdd that is capable of being partioned without failures. vhd seem to be the way to go now for me.

Hello,

In order to use a hard disk drive with an x86 (or x64) operating system, you have to create at least one partition on it, so I am unclear as to what you are asking. Perhaps you meant to ask about creating multiple partitions? That is part is optional.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

I guess everyone has their ideal way of dealing with HDD’s. And with Large capacity Drives being so cheap these days, it’s not hard to back up to an external drive.
Yes, partitioning is a great way of setting up your PC to “safe-guard” your hard work, especially when you get hit by those dreaded Viruses.
I tend to partition my drive, with 1 partition for the OS and Progs and have my files etc on another partition.
By setting your “My Documents”, “My Music”, and “My Pictures” to the 2nd partition, then everything automatically gets saved to the 2nd partition.
If you want to add a third partition, you can use that for your Paging file, which in turn will give you an extra boost to your windows read/write times.
But regardless of which way you like to have your hard drives set up, you should always back up your precious files to external media, whether it be an external HDD, cd’s/dvd’s or up in the “Clouds”.

I partition my drive for things such as linux and other OS’s. I say thank god for partitioning, because if we couldn’t partition, then we would need to own at least 2 hard disks to dual boot from.

I have run multiple partitions on my hard drives for many years now. When the time comes that, for whatever reason, you must re-install your OS, you don’t have to hunt through the partition, backing up whatever data you don’t want to lose. It will all be in the data partition.

It is a valid point to make these secondary partitions on a separate hard drive. As has been said, if the OS hard drive fails, you will lose BOTH partitions and it won’t have done you any good to put your data in a separate partition. You should always back up your data, no matter in what partition (or on what drive) you put it, as everyone should know. It might be your data drive that goes south before the OS drive; you just never know.

As for performance:

<Alistair: “I am unsure how it can increase the computers performance, as the only thing I can see it doing is creating somewhere to cache your open files.”

Windows uses what is called a Swap or Paging File, which is a cache of sorts for RAM. When more RAM is required for what you’re running than you have installed, some of the contents are saved to the swap file (Windows ME and earlier use a swap file; Windows 2000 and later use a Paging File) and other software or system processes are loaded into RAM for processing.

Normally, the Windows Paging File is set to be dynamic by default, with Paging Files set on each partition and/or drive that is connected to the computer. Due to the dynamic characteristics of the Paging File(s), this can lead to fragmentation of the File, which will slow the computer’s speed.

To correct this, you may set the Paging File to be static (usually around 1 1/2 X the amount of RAM installed; if you have ample hard drive space, 2 X RAM might be better)and put it in a partition separate from the OS (preferably on a secondary drive, as you will see in a moment). In this manner, the paging file size is static and not prone to fragmentation.

Putting the Paging File in another partition on the same hard drive will not increase performance. However, if you have a secondary hard drive you will experience some level of increased performance.

Today’s processors are so fast that they can virtually access two hard drives at the same time. If everything is on one drive, the same drive must access the system processes, the software, the data, and the paging file. Of course, it can only do this one search operation at a time.

Having your OS, software, and data on one drive and your paging file on another gives your processor the advantage of being able to access System Processes, software, etc. from one drive while at the same time swapping RAM out to the paging file on another.

I also prefer GPartEd (you beat me to it, Ben! :-) ). The GPartEd Live CD is an excellent tool and supports virtually all file systems to some extent. And it is free (both as in price and as in Open Source).

A little correction (not much, but here it is):

<”As a side note: Ubuntu installs are using ext4, which is not in the supported partitions list.”

Actually Ubuntu (9.04 Jaunty, which is the latest release; 9.10 Karmic Koala is still in Alpha) defaults to ext3; ext4 is optional. The newest Fedora release defaults to ext4, though.

Good points here. I can see arguments for and against. Personally I have never partitioned, I just make regular backups on good quality DVD’s . If my Hard Drive fails (and it did die once) I can rest assured my data is safe. Not the most practical way to do things I’m sure, but it works for me.

I partition my data, but not my hard drives. I don’t see the sense in creating multiple “logical” drives on the same disk. I use separate physical drives.

3 internal
(1) Operating System……………………………VRaptor 150GB
(2) Applications……………………………………..VRaptor 300GB
(3) Music\photos\documents……………….WD 80GB

2 external, which I swap each month
(1) backup on-site…………………………………WD 1TB
(2) backup off-site…………………………………WD 1TB

But I guess if I could only have one HDD like a laptop and it was my main computer with all my data, I would partition the disk if only for easier backup.