It is surprising how strongly some people feel about the issue of partitioning or not. Voices are raised – faces become a bit redder – language becomes a bit more colorful. If you are from the school of thought that partitioning is absolutely not necessary, please leave a comment at the bottom of the page. Your point of view is valuable and should be considered.

This presentation, however, will favor partitioning. There will be some of us who will remember the days when, for example, a 3GB hard drive on your laptop was considered to be “state of the art”, and the cost of that machine was several thousand dollars. Now, that seems archaic, and the hard drives increasingly grow in size – and some are partitioned.

One of the best arguments on the side of partitioning was given by Mitch Tulloch, in an article for Microsoft. The three major points that Mitch basis his argument are:

• partitioning organizes work
• partitioning safeguards the data
• partitioning increases the computer’s performance

One of the points is that Mitch makes is: At the end of each month, I copy last month’s Archive subfolders to CD, label it by date, and put it somewhere safe. That way I have last month’s backup ready if both my hard disks fail from a lightning bolt hitting my office, or my computer is infected with a virus, or a thief steals my computer. Needless to say, the security programs should be run to make certain that the back-up is not infected.

One of the most popular and well-used partitioning programs is Acronis Disk Director Suite. It has won industry recommendations and users’ praise.

The Acronis Disk Management and Partitioning program is easy to use and effective. It supports Windows (NT 4, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista). And, until July 22, 2009, the Acronis people are offering our readers an amazing thirty per cent (30%) discount.

This program is a CNET Editors’ Choice Award winner: A suite of utilities that will keep your hard disk healthy. An excellent set of tools that will allow you to keep your hard disk healthy and organized. The Acronis Disk Management program has had many third party reviews and it has been top rated.

Thanks to the Acronis people for the generous offering for our readers.

• Protecting Yourself from a Hard Drive Disaster
• Simple Backups Can Save You Time and Money
• Back Up Your Data with Special Savings from Acronis
• Internet Hard Drive
• Online Backup Service Review
• Keep Your Computer in Tip-Top Shape
• Backup Security and Synchronizing (even for Macs!)
• Are You a Pack Rat?
• What’s the Best Hard Drive Enclosure to Buy?
• Are Registry Cleaners Safe to Use?

Have you ever been frozen in Carbonite? That might not be a bad thing, so long as Carbonite is the program you’ve installed to backup all your data to a virtual hard drive in the sky. Throw away the tape drives, man – it’s all about your Internet Backup options. Yes, Carbonite happens to be an up-and-coming application that lets you store an unlimited amount of data to another computer in the universe (in a set-it and forget-it fashion). Jason Dunn has been using it for a while, and his word is gold when it comes to software and Web services – so I trust Carbonite vicariously. Of course, I’m not recommending Carbonite for 100% of your backup needs – but it will make for a great backup of a backup (truly off-site). You can download a copy and try it yourself. It’s free for 15 days, but unlimited Internet storage for $5 a month!? Dude, you’d be insane not to use something like this to backup your data. And as a disclaimer, I get credit for download referrals (and you can sign up for their referral program, too).

• Should You Create a Partition?
• Carbonite Coupons
• Online Backup Service Review
• Keep Your Computer in Tip-Top Shape
• Backup Security and Synchronizing (even for Macs!)
• Are You a Pack Rat?
• Simple Backups Can Save You Time and Money
• Are Registry Cleaners Safe to Use?
• Protecting Yourself from a Hard Drive Disaster
• How to Save Money with Online Backup Service Discounts