Partitioning of system over multiple drives...?

[wingnutsglory]

I'm building another system and have the opportunity to partition the layout of it using two up to date hard drives, and am wondering what's considered the ideal.
Would it be best to place the OS on one drive, with the pagefile and programs on another? Does the placement of My Docs and media really matter in that case?
I'd originally planned to just have everything on multiple partitions on the same drive and use the other purely for backup, but I've read that unless you have the pagefile on another drive entirely, there really isn't much speed benefit. It seems like the benefit of putting it on it's own drive might also apply to programs.

Any ideas?

 

[doolittle]

For windows fresh install I usually create a 20gb c: simply because anything more is a test of my patience. Then after I finish install all the drivers, updates, apps and a dozen reboots I can finally create the other partitions, starting with one that is equal to the amount of system memory then one with the remaining space.
Then, when you relocate the page file to the swap partition you can see it in your system monitor when i/o is maxed out on the d: or whatever drive it is on. I have not noticed any performance advantage to relocate to another drive - really just for monitoring i/o seperate partitions - then create a job (my pref is cygwin cron) to backup "my documents" to the other partiton (on a seperate drive or server is best).
I usually leave the apps installed on the C: again for convenience so if I am not too lazy to make a drive image it is all backed up & restored in a single step - with the exception of the missing page file

 

[wingnutsglory]

i've heard that the main reason for creating a partition on the OS drive is to cut back on fragmentation.
shouldn't the pagefile partition (and the pagefile user defined size) be 1.5 times the memory amount? i've heard that and never really understood the reason...

 

[doolittle]

I do double it on unix server and linux installs - it helps to make room for upgrades and memory dependent apps like database servers... hmm never thought about that on windows 8O

 

[JonathanDeane]

i've heard that the main reason for creating a partition on the OS drive is to cut back on fragmentation.
shouldn't the pagefile partition (and the pagefile user defined size) be 1.5 times the memory amount? i've heard that and never really understood the reason...

Honestly your swap file size depends on how much ram you have... and you should set the min/max to the same size to cut down on fragmentation. The main reason I say it depends on how much ram you have is that for 4GB's of systam ram your swap file would be 6GB's.... so thats too much lol

 

[wingnutsglory]

so make it the same size as system ram and put it on the primary drive?

 

[JonathanDeane]

You can partition it out to another drive but be warned there is the possibility of problems in the future... with out going into more details on the other problem one is that if you remove that drive that the swap file is on make sure you put your swap file back on the main partition before you do... and if the drive with your swap file fails...

 

[wingnutsglory]

true enough..

 

[shadowduck]

so make it the same size as system ram and put it on the primary drive?

The default (seems to of changed in SP2) and what most people use is 1.5 times their installed RAM. So 1GB of RAM would be a 1.5GB pagefile.

 

[wingnutsglory]

well, i'll have 2 gigs, but isn't there a point where you should stop increasing the pagefile size (3 gigs)?

 

[shadowduck]

well, i'll have 2 gigs, but isn't there a point where you should stop increasing the pagefile size (3 gigs)?

Well 1.5 times your RAM would be 3GB so yes thats where you would stop it.