Storage Solutions How should one partition a drive?

vebk

vebk

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I am in the process of upgrading my computer. Have got a new graphics card, will be getting some RAM, and a new hard drive as well. Am planning on getting into gaming, so am thinking of erasing everything from my current hdd and reinstalling Windows so as to give it a nice clean start. The drive is now almost a year old and is unpartitioned. I heard that it's better to partition the main hdd so as to create a separate partition for the OS (and program files (?) ).

So my plan is roughly this:
1) Install the new hdd (250GB). Here I need help as to how should I partition this if at all. I will be keeping music, pics, movies etc. on this.
2) Move everything I need for the old hdd (80GB) to the new one.
3) Reformat, and partition the 80GB hdd. Here what partition should I create?
4) Do a fresh install of XP on the 80GB.

So with two fresh, clean drives, new RAM (2 x 1GB dual channel), new graphics card hopefully I can maximize on what my system can pull off in terms of gaming.

Another quick question - Once all this is done, and I start playing games, should I install them to the 80GB or the 250GB?
 
It really depends on how you like to arrange both your software and OS. To give you an example of my own setup.

On a 300gb hdd.........

I have XP on a 20gb primary NTFS partition (this is more than enough for xp by itself) I don't install any of my software on this partition for a number of reasons.

This is how I do it and why:-

1.) I install xp in first partition as primary NTFS not more than about 20gb. The reason I do this is because I install all of my software to it's own partition. I do this because:-

a.) Once I have installed xp AND installed all of my basic software necessities..... I do a backup of the XP OS partition using Acronis Disk Image (disk image programs like Norton Ghost or others will do just as well) This gives me a freshly installed backup of only the OS which is nice and small, to use anytime I want, but also this image backup is small as it compresses the unused space and does not take long to complete.

2.) I create a software installation partition also primary, and install all of my software here. this includes all of the software necessities before I do my backup.

3.)lastly I create another partition which I use as storage/holding space for media and other files.

4.) every once in a while you should do another disk image backup of the OS partition.

5.) lastly you should always leave a small pagefile on your os partiton, but add another one on one of your other partitions... or even better if you want you could put a pagefile on the 80gb hdd... this would be even more ideal as it is always better to have an additional pagefile on a different hdd than the OS.

The advantage to this is that if you have an OS crash, you can safely restore the OS without loss of data elsewhere. You can start from a fresh install or a previous backup and be up and running in no time at all.

This is conceptually a much simplified version of my own setup since I also have 3 different OS's booting from Grub... but I think you should be able to understand the basic idea from this explanation.
 
That was helpful pixel...

Thanx..

Actually every time i format my OS i.e once a month... Its painful to install all the basic softs... from Codecs..To Media Players to Winamps..and Drivers..

So i was thinking on similar lines i.e next time i format my OS..after installin basic softs..i was gonna make an image which i can use it anytime..

Well installing softwares on other driver..havent thought of it yet..but it might be complicated.. Coz say if my most recent backup is not recent enough and i have couple of softwares installed after taking backup...

and when i use that backup..those softwares which are installed on Software partition..will have no dependencies with OS ?

I am not sure if i framed my question right :O
 
So what size partitions should I make on my two drives - 80GB (primary, OS drive), 250GB (media, games etc.)?
 
@dipen01

The only software dependencies that will still be active, will be the ones from the last os backup you did. There is not unfortunately a perfect system... but you can always re-install the few pieces of software that require it. Also it means it will be safe for you to delete any software installed since previous os backup without screwing up the registry.

The beauty in my mind... is that you can always go back to an earlier state... or just a clean slate pretty easily.

We all have software that we consider bread and butter.. ie.. we always install it and it is important to us..(for me photoshop would be one) So once you have installed all of your drivers.. install tghis software too. Now do your backup of the os partition and you have a nice clean image to come back to with all your driver and important software already installed. if you had to do a completely clean install you would have to install all of your software not just some of it :)

@vebk

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Size really depends on your usages and your needs, which are different for everyone. I have posted this pic as a guide only... yours may differ depending on your needs.

1. is the primary boot partition 2gb is plenty and easy to backup.

2. this is your software installation partition, the size here depends on what you plan to install. If you are not installing a lot of games 30gb should be enough... if you play a lot of games make it as large as you deem necessary.

3. The balance goes here, this would be a storage partition for media and files....and is likely to get the most fragmented so it is a good idea to separate it.

Another option would be to Install OS like in #1, put #2 on your smaller 80gb drive and make all the rest of the space for #3 on the larger drive.

All of it works... it just depends on what works for you :D
 
@pixel :- thanx for the tip :)

I guess its time i rearrange my partitions :p

Some will be surprised by my current Partitions
C(OS):- 12GB
D(Data) :- 219 GB :bleh:

When i was using XP it used to be 5 GB for OS and rest for data :p
 
Actually ... not surprised :) 12gb is plenty... Xp doesn't really take up more than 2 -3 gb..... I just have plenty of hdd space so I put a little extra there :) just in case..... I always like to have a little overkill to make sure I don't run into unexpected problems.
 
so how does one go about reformatting an old hard drive, and then installing XP in a partition? As in don't you need XP to partition it in the first place?
 
^^ The XP installation CD does the job itself dude. Just put in the CD and format the old XP paritition and install again on same place, u may or may not want to format other partitions on the same HDD and its just fine.
 
the easiest way for you to do this is to download gparted livecd. Download the .iso file here... burn it to cd, and boot into cd. Partition drive as we have discussed, then install OS to correct partition.
 
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