Recommendations on Partioning

Laquer Head

Well-Known Member
Heya folks,

Just want some input. I'm doing another build and using a Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB HDD, I just plan to use the single drive and my question is, what do people recommend I do.

Leave as 640GB?
Partition in half--320GB & 320GB?
something else?

Is there any real benefit or detrement to partitioning or not partitioning when using a single drive?

I read someplace that people sometime allocate 100GB for OS+programs, and then the rest to storage when using single drives..

Any insight is appreciated/!
 
It doesn't really help, I tried it before. Although I am thinking about getting a ssd and putting my OS on that and see if it helps. If you want a performance increase I would suggest looking into RAID.
 
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It doesn't really help, I tried it before. Although I am thinking about getting a ssd and putting my OS on that and see if it helps. If you want a performance increase I would suggest looking into RAID.

This isnt my primary machine so I'm not overly picky as it's just the 1 drive I got for cheap!

I like the theory of running OS and progrms on a SSD but the prices are hard to justify thus far.

I have a buddy that got a 60GB SSD to run vista ultimate on and then had a 1TB for storage but the 60GB ended up being 65% full and wasn't really a benefit. Maybe once the 120GB ocz goes down I will look at one for my primary rig.
 
If you're sticking with one HD then partitioning makes a lot of sense if it is split between OS and programs on one partition and your data on the other.
Obviously if the HD goes belly up you lose it all but if all is good then a re-install of Windows can be made anytime without affecting your data as the install is only to that partition.
Even easier if you take an image of the new install afterwards, then if attacked by a virus etc that really messes it up you just need to reapply that image and you have your fresh OS back again.
Speed wise I wouldn't think you would notice any difference in real terms if partitioned or not especially on a modern computer.
As far as the sizes of your partitions it depends on your useage. If you have loads of music , films etc then go for like 200GB/440GB. Only you know how many programs/data you have.
 
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