just about to do the xp pro install… just wondered what peoples experience with different partition setups was. gonna make at least 2 partitions, one for os (+ programs?) and one for data. not sure about the sizes though. i have also see people talk about having special partitions just for the hibernation file, or for the page file. what are opinions on that?

cheers
jack

On my TR I have just one 1 partition, while on my desktop I have 2 80 gb hdd and the one which I have installed win xp pro has 2 partitions..one of 10 gb containing the OS and one of 64 gb or so. The third partition would be the other hdd itself. It works fine but I dont know if changing those partition sizes would make things even better.

I hate multiple partitions…some people swear by them. I like one big partition that gets formatted at least once a year to keep it fresh. Some users like one partition for files and another for programs.

Erik

I like multiple partitions but only if they are sensibly defined. In most cases, I have two partitions with OS/Programs on C and all data on D. It makes backing up extremely easy and flexible. Also, it makes fresh OS installs much easier as the data is already on the drive and all you need to do is point your My Documents to that location. It saves a lot of time. Actually, I don’t even do fresh installs anymore as I use pre-configured “clean” images made using Acronis TrueImage that have my most common apps installed and just dump it onto the C partition. It takes only 14 minutes or so and then I’m up and running save for installing a few apps.

Also, it makes defragging more efficient. For the most part, your C drive stays relatively fragment free other than miscellaneous temp files (which could be forced to D). You then really only need to defragment D more often since it has the most changes. It also ends up being faster.

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]I like multiple partitions but only if they are sensibly defined. In most cases, I have two partitions with OS/Programs on C and all data on D. It makes backing up extremely easy and flexible. Also, it makes fresh OS installs much easier as the data is already on the drive and all you need to do is point your My Documents to that location. It saves a lot of time. Actually, I don’t even do fresh installs anymore as I use pre-configured “clean” images made using Acronis TrueImage that have my most common apps installed and just dump it onto the C partition. It takes only 14 minutes or so and then I’m up and running save for installing a few apps.

Also, it makes defragging more efficient. For the most part, your C drive stays relatively fragment free other than miscellaneous temp files (which could be forced to D). You then really only need to defragment D more often since it has the most changes. It also ends up being faster.

This does seem like the best way, I am just not that organized…you should see my desktop, litterally 100+ icons…some don’t even show on the screen anymore, I really need to clean it up.

Erik

C is strictly for programs/OS.  This one gets a GHOST image.

D is strictly for all data.  This one gets backed up reguarly (at least, it should).  I try to use NTFS junctions to make my system look like everything’s on C while storing the actual files/etc in D.  For instance, my “C:\Documents and Settings\...\My Documents” folder is just a pointer to “D:\Data\My Documents”.  Same thing goes for select program settings under “C:\...\Application Settings”.  This way, I just back up whatever’s in this partition and know I covered all my bases.

E is for stuff I download/store until I get around to organizing it.

I should really have a junction set up for my temp directory, but haven’t gotten around to it.

so the consensus is that no one has tried having a hybernate/page file partition? I have read about people doing this but im not sure of the advantages.

You can have a page file partition but you can’t have a hibernation partition. The hibernation file can only be on C: or the partition that has the Windows OS and it can’t be changed.

If you use a static paging file then it lessens the need to put it on its own partition as it will never get fragmented if set up on a non-fragmented drive.

I wouldn’t worry about fragmented hibernation file.  It only gets accessed twice when you’re using the computer: once while powering up, and once while powering down.  The paging file, however, may potentially get accessed thousands or millions of time in a single sitting.

I don’t think there’s much advantage to having the paging file in its own partition except, perhaps, as a way to avoid Photoshop’s complaints about storing its swap file and the system’s paging file on the same partition.  Perhaps there is confusion between Window’s paging file and Linux’s swap partition?

In any case, you can always disable the hibernation and paging files, defragment C, then re-enable both files.  That should give you unfragmented files.  And, as long you set the min paging file size equal to the max, it should stay that way.

IIRC, I have 6GB reserved for C, 10GB for D, and the rest for E.  This approximate arrangement has been working well for me for at least 2 years (across several machines)

I have my TR HD in 2 partitions:

C is 6.5 GB for OS
D is 23 GB and for Programs and Data

Makes the most sense to me, since there’s not enough space to really have a 3rd one for data…

I have it organised like this:

C:\  15GB   for Windows and Programms (NTFS)
D:\  15GB   for Documents and Files (FAT32 because it’s easier to use in linux)
and the rest (10GB) is for linux

rec