How to partition my drive for optimal system performance?

[Evan Tanguma]

I have my Windows 8.1 OS installed on a 500GB HDD, local disc C:. I'm wondering how to partition this disc so that I can use up the most space without bogging down the system files? When I came close to drive capacity, before obtaining a new drive, I noticed that Windows booted and moved much slower. Would partitioning the system its own space avoid system slowdowns? I'd like to allocate the system files their own space in the front partition, and free up the remainder for documents and applications.

At the time of writing this, I have 324GB free of 465GB on this disc.

 

[Karsten75]

I never recommend partitioning a drive for any purposes other than having multiple Operating Systems or if the operating system does not support the size. It does not impact eh performance of modern OSes to have large drives.

 

[USAFRet]

Partitioning won't help performance. It is all reading off the same physical drive.