Hard Drive partitions!?

[muzzybananas]

Hey guyz,

I have 2 hard drives for my PC. first is the 500gb Seagate 7200.10 and the other is the 1TB Seagate 7200.11. I want to format my PC. I have too many partitions and want to reduce them. Can i know the best partitions i can use and what sizes they should be?

Do too many partitions slow down the processing?

[tehboris]

You probably want two partitions on the hard drive you want to install Windows on. 20GB for windows the rest for every thing else. Then one partition on the other drive.

[bufftheshwood]

You probably want two partitions on the hard drive you want to install Windows on. 20GB for windows the rest for every thing else. Then one partition on the other drive.

I would add one small (literally) suggestion and say that you should actually have 3 partitions on that "system drive" that will house your OS. One for Windows, one for swap/paging file (I usually double the amount of RAM and use that as the size), and one for everything else. So if you have two gigs of RAM, make a separate partition on your first drive (or a secondary HD, your choice) that is a little larger than 4096MB in size. The tweak will speed up program start times and your OS will be a bit snappier. Anyway, just my 2 cents.

[tehboris]

I would disagree with the having the swap file on a separate partition on the same drive as windows as that would make the drive 'work harder' than if you didn't. If you do want to have a separate partition for swap it should be on a different hard drive, this will increase the load on that drive but decrease the load on the windows drive.

[davmoo]

What tehBoris says. Having a separate swap partition on the same drive as Windows will only slow things down.

Unfortunately this is one of those topics that turns in to a religious debate. Ask a dozen people how to format your drives, and you'll get at least 18 different opinions. If this were my system, I'd probably make a 100GB partition for Windows and a 400GB partition for my data on the first drive, and a 4GB - 8GB (depending on how much memory you have) swap partition and a 902GB - 906GB data partition on the second drive.

[tokenuser]

What tehBoris says. Having a separate swap partition on the same drive as Windows will only slow things down.

Unfortunately this is one of those topics that turns in to a religious debate. Ask a dozen people how to format your drives, and you'll get at least 18 different opinions. If this were my system, I'd probably make a 100GB partition for Windows and a 400GB partition for my data on the first drive, and a 4GB - 8GB (depending on how much memory you have) swap partition and a 902GB - 906GB data partition on the second drive.Yep. Personal preferences ...

I'd keep the drives whole. Make sure that Windows was installed and patched first so it was contiguous on the first drive. I'd put the swapfile on the second drive ... but let Windows manage it. If Windows needs to have it grow temporarily, let it grow - don't constrain it to the 4GB you allocated for a swap partition.

[muzzybananas]

Yep. Personal preferences ...

I'd keep the drives whole. Make sure that Windows was installed and patched first so it was contiguous on the first drive. I'd put the swapfile on the second drive ... but let Windows manage it. If Windows needs to have it grow temporarily, let it grow - don't constrain it to the 4GB you allocated for a swap partition.

So, you say i should have 2 full drives; One 450-455 gb and the other 902-905 gb. No partitons. How do i put a sawpfile. And i want to install windows 7 too. so i want a double boot. What do u suggest then.

What do u mean by patched?

[davmoo]

And i want to install windows 7 too. so i want a double boot.

If you're wanting to dual boot, then you almost have to have separate partitions for each OS.

At this point, then, I'd suggest the easy route...split the 500GB drive in to two partitions, install Vista on the first partition, install Windows 7 on the second partition. Leave the 1TB drive whole and let both OSes use it.

Keep in mind that if you want to use an application while running either OS, you will have to install it twice...once booted to Vista, once booted to Win7.

[tehboris]

I'd just put Vista in the bin and use 7 and stick with the single OS plan. Dule booting Vista and 7 is like duel booting 2000 and XP.

[muzzybananas]

I'd just put Vista in the bin and use 7 and stick with the single OS plan. Dule booting Vista and 7 is like duel booting 2000 and XP.

Is windows 7 RC1 very stable. Are you only using windows 7.

i have 4gb of ram. when does windows use the virtual memory i allocate. Does it use it simultaneity with my normal RAM or does it use it when needed.

[tehboris]

80% of people at work use it without issue. In fact, less issues than Vista becasue driver support exists. I still use XP becasue it's far too much effort to upgrade when it's not broken.

As for the swap file question. XP and prevuse keep a copy of memory in the swap at all times. Vista and 7 only use it when they need it (This is what Linux has done since always).

[muzzybananas]

80% of people at work use it without issue. In fact, less issues than Vista becasue driver support exists. I still use XP becasue it's far too much effort to upgrade when it's not broken.

As for the swap file question. XP and prevuse keep a copy of memory in the swap at all times. Vista and 7 only use it when they need it (This is what Linux has done since always).

So you say i should only use windows 7 with no partitions. 2 full drives. Then i should use some space from the non OS drive as paging. right.

[davmoo]

So you say i should only use windows 7 with no partitions.

Keep in mind that if you run Windows 7 at this point, there is no clean upgrade path from the RC to what will be the final version. Sometime between now and next June, when the RC expires, you will have little choice other than reinstalling everything with a purchased copy of Windows 7.

I'm not saying this is a show stopper. I've got a couple of PCs with Win7 on that I will have to deal with this on. But it is something you may want to keep in mind.

[bufftheshwood]

I would disagree with the having the swap file on a separate partition on the same drive as windows as that would make the drive 'work harder' than if you didn't. If you do want to have a separate partition for swap it should be on a different hard drive, this will increase the load on that drive but decrease the load on the windows drive.

Sorry for not specifying that. I agree with this statement. It should be a separate partition on a second physical drive, not the same one. That's the idea I meant to communicate but see that I wasn't very clear at all. I've had my swap on a secondary partition on a separate physical hard drive for a very long time and it works out well. Sorry for the confusion, but I would still recommend doing this. You'll see at least a 5-10% performance increase.