Best way to partition a 500GB HDD for OS/Boot?

[tizz]

Ok so i've just got a new 500GB drive to replace my dieing boot drive.

I don't need a 500GB boot and program drive.. but i've got one, its a nice samsung f3, shiny.

Is there a guide, or a best way to partition for boot and program partition, gona stick XP 64bit on there.

C: = 150GB for OS
D: = 350GB for Programs ??

• Does this sound logical, is 150 to big for boot / os partition?
• Any issues with installing programs on another partition?
• Will the first partition I create be in the fastest readable area of teh plater or do i need to specify?

Just a few questions that id like to ask and would be usefull to know.

Thanks everyone. 😍

 

[sminlal]

The size of your boot partition depends entirely on how many applications and other files you put on it. Personally, I think 120-150GB is a reasonable size, but then I install a lot of stuff on my system.

There's no law that says you NEED two parititions - you could also use just one large partition for everything. The biggest reason to use a separate C: partition for the OS is to reduce the size of an image backup of the OS. If you don't plan to do image backups of the OS then you may not need separate partitions at all.

If you're very careful about how you distribute things, you can use partitions to improve performance. But given your question I think it's probably simpler for you to use as few partitions as possible.

 

[jesmoke]

It sounds like for your needs you don't really need two or more partitions at all. You would probably be better off just doing one large partition.

 

[gracefully]

One partition is enough for both OS and programs. However, I recommend that you set the partition to use only 150GB like in your first post. This makes sure that Windows will only use the outermost (and fastest) area of the hard disk to make sure you have best performance. If ever you find that you need more program space, just enlarge the partition. Use GParted, since you're using XP.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Fo reasons to partition ....10th message down

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/279758-31-partitioning

As for size, pardon me for being an ole goat but I still think in binary.....back in the day it really mattered how you chose the size as once you crossed the "binary barrier" you went up in cluster size and "cluster slop" became a concern. But again, I still think in binary (despite HD manufacturers insistence otherwise )and usually use a 64 GB NTFS partition for Win 7, 16 GB for XP.

I like to add a small FAT32 partition for the page file and temp files....1) no need for NTFS file protections so can skip that overhead and pick up a marginal speed increase.....2) keeping them out at the fast outer edge of the drive for the entire life of the drive helps stop the slowdowns you experience as a machine / OS ages and the page file is fragged and at innder edge of disk.

After that it's up to you.

 

[tizz]

Thanks for the replies, nice post on the other thread too JackNaylorPE.

Yeh i'm not fussed about making an image or any backups, as if something goes wrong, i'll just format again, its only OS, programs and games on this drive.

I do use this machine heavily for work in Adobe products as I'm a designer and work from home as well as the office, so the scratch disks (temp storage when running a prog) could all be set to the second partition too, may help keep running speeds fast and tight.

I do find it interesting about creating a small partition for the page file and temp files too, thats something i didn't think about.

i'm about to do it so i think this is what i'm going to try:

64GB : OS (XP 64 bit)
6GB : Pagefile (i've got 4GB of ram, is it correct that the page file should be 1.5 times larger than the physical ram?)
430GB : Programs & Games

All other files and my work are all on separate hard drives at present, so i think this should keep things running smoother and faster for longer as time goes on.. i hope so anyway.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

6GB : Pagefile (i've got 4GB of ram, is it correct that the page file should be 1.5 times larger than the physical ram?)

I'd go with at least 16, page file and scratch disk (size as per Adobe recommendations)can go there tho, if you have a 2nd drive, that's even better

 

[sminlal]

(i've got 4GB of ram, is it correct that the page file should be 1.5 times larger than the physical ram?)

The "1.5 X RAM" figure is a generally a safe default value that's not likely to cause any problems, but with 6GB of RAM there's a very good chance that you actually need a lot less. For those tight on space it's often worth monitoring memory usage and trimming the page file down based on what's actually used, but with the capacity available on your hard drives it's probably not worth bothering.

 

[tizz]

Hey,

yeah once i got in there i was like ... why 6? it's not like im short on space, so i went for 12 insted. It's all up an running now, although I realy don't know why i went for a 60GB OS partition. It's a tad overkill.

Could of halfed that and still had plenty after all the updates etc. Was tempted to re format and do it again, but ahh well, it's all running sweet atm.

I'm intrested to see how the system stays speed wise after a few months of proper ussage.