ANY reason not to turn off System Restore for non-boot drives?

[a2mgoog]

If I have a 1 TB drive, and partition it so that my C: partition is
only 10GB or so for easy backup, then by default Windows XP will
reserve about 120GB on my non-system partitions for system restore
points in the System Volume Information folders, which as far as I
have read are never used for anything. That's a lot of space. Is
there any reason to leave System Restore turned on for non-boot
partitions? Thank you.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

If I have a 1 TB drive, and partition it so that my C: partition is
only 10GB or so for easy backup, then by default Windows XP will
reserve about 120GB on my non-system partitions for system restore
points in the System Volume Information folders, which as far as I
have read are never used for anything. That's a lot of space. Is
there any reason to leave System Restore turned on for non-boot
partitions? Thank you.

If your system files / program files are all on the system
partition then you don't need System Restore for the
other partitions.

 

[Gordon]

If I have a 1 TB drive, and partition it so that my C: partition is
only 10GB or so for easy backup, then by default Windows XP will
reserve about 120GB on my non-system partitions for system restore
points in the System Volume Information folders, which as far as I
have read are never used for anything. That's a lot of space. Is
there any reason to leave System Restore turned on for non-boot
partitions? Thank you.

Only if you have SYSTEM files on that drive....System Restore only monitors
SYSTEM files...

 

[a2mgoog]

If your system files / program files are all on the system
partition then you don't need System Restore for the
other partitions.

Program files? What program files? Are you saying that if I install
Paintshop Pro on my G: drive that System Restore will back it up?
Thank you.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Program files? What program files? Are you saying that if I install
Paintshop Pro on my G: drive that System Restore will back it up?
Thank you.

I suspect it will but I'm not sure. Give it a try:
1. Install some program on drive G:.
2. Create a Restore Point.
3. Uninstall the program.
4. Use System Restore.
Is the program back again?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

If I have a 1 TB drive, and partition it so that my C: partition is
only 10GB or so for easy backup, then by default Windows XP will
reserve about 120GB on my non-system partitions for system restore
points in the System Volume Information folders, which as far as I
have read are never used for anything. That's a lot of space. Is
there any reason to leave System Restore turned on for non-boot
partitions?

No. You *should* turn it off on all non-system partitions.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

No. You *should* turn it off on all non-system partitions.

By the way, one more point. 10GB is very small for the C: partition.
Especially with such a large drive, I would make it substantially
bigger--50GB or even more.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

By the way, one more point. 10GB is very small for the C: partition.
Especially with such a large drive, I would make it substantially
bigger--50GB or even more.

In my experience 20 GBytes is generous for a system partition,
even for a server, as long all user data is kept on a separate
partition. My current system partition for WinXP Professional
requires just 8 GBytes. It is fully loaded with the usual apps
including various sound and picture processing programs and
lots of diagnostic stuff (e.g. the TRK), plus the paging file.

 

[a2mgoog]

In my experience 20 GBytes is generous for a system partition,
even for a server, as long all user data is kept on a separate
partition. My current system partition for WinXP Professional
requires just 8 GBytes. It is fully loaded with the usual apps
including various sound and picture processing programs and
lots of diagnostic stuff (e.g. the TRK), plus the paging file.

I keep My Documents and the paging file on separate partitions, and
like you, I've never needed more than 10GB.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In my experience 20 GBytes is generous for a system partition,
even for a server, as long all user data is kept on a separate
partition. My current system partition for WinXP Professional
requires just 8 GBytes. It is fully loaded with the usual apps
including various sound and picture processing programs and
lots of diagnostic stuff (e.g. the TRK), plus the paging file.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In my experience 20 GBytes is generous for a system partition,
even for a server, as long all user data is kept on a separate
partition. My current system partition for WinXP Professional
requires just 8 GBytes. It is fully loaded with the usual apps
including various sound and picture processing programs and
lots of diagnostic stuff (e.g. the TRK), plus the paging file.

Each to his own. My system partition is 100GB, and 56GB of it is used
(no user data there). That's running Windows Vista Ultimate, but even
for those running XP, one never knows what operating system one may
upgrade to in the future.

In my view, it makes no sense to restrict oneself to a small system
partition when you have a drive anywhere near as big as 1TB.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Each to his own. My system partition is 100GB, and 56GB of it is used
(no user data there). That's running Windows Vista Ultimate, but even
for those running XP, one never knows what operating system one may
upgrade to in the future.

In my view, it makes no sense to restrict oneself to a small system
partition when you have a drive anywhere near as big as 1TB.

56 GBytes is huge. It would be interesting to see the space
profile on your system partition. Here is mine. The first number
represents "bytes", the second "files".
0 0 C:\My Download Files
85 2 C:\Recycled
69,362 48 C:\RECYCLER
377,040 1 C:\Config.Msi
38,482,686 329 C:\MYOB105
175,243,430 1,822 C:\Documents and Settings
232,892,982 98 C:\MSOCache
778,841,422 10 C:\
1,538,539,221 13,564 C:\Program Files
1,663,555,395 2,991 C:\System Volume Information
3,553,344,512 18,644 C:\WINDOWS
7,981,346,135 37,509 (Total)

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

56 GBytes is huge. It would be interesting to see the space
profile on your system partition. Here is mine. The first number
represents "bytes", the second "files".
0 0 C:\My Download Files
85 2 C:\Recycled
69,362 48 C:\RECYCLER
377,040 1 C:\Config.Msi
38,482,686 329 C:\MYOB105
175,243,430 1,822 C:\Documents and Settings
232,892,982 98 C:\MSOCache
778,841,422 10 C:\
1,538,539,221 13,564 C:\Program Files
1,663,555,395 2,991 C:\System Volume Information
3,553,344,512 18,644 C:\WINDOWS
7,981,346,135 37,509 (Total)

Without going into great detail, the great majority of it is in two
folders: \Windows and \Users

Ken

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Without going into great detail, the great majority of it is in two
folders: \Windows and \Users

Sorry--and also \Program Files. \Program Files alone is over 8GB

 

[R. McCarty]

Vista has a significantly larger footprint because of the folder \WinSxS
in the Windows folder tree. A standard install will have around 4.0
Gigabytes of data inside WinSxS. Side-by-Side is the methodology to
prevent the DllHell issue that has affected previous Windows versions.

 

[a2mgoog]

In my view, it makes no sense to restrict oneself to a small system
partition when you have a drive anywhere near as big as 1TB.

Well, I don't look at it as restricting myself, I look at it as making
it much faster to do backups and restores. I do have 25 GB reserved
for the C drive in case I ever need it, with currently 10GB allocated
to C, and 15 unused. The Acronis software makes it a snap to
reallocate the used/unused if I run out of room, but in the last five
years I haven't needed more than 10GB.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Vista has a significantly larger footprint because of the folder \WinSxS
in the Windows folder tree.

Which is why I pointed out that restricting the size of the system
partition to a low number is not wise. The operating system you run
today is not necessarily the one you will be running tomorrow.

A standard install will have around 4.0
Gigabytes of data inside WinSxS. Side-by-Side is the methodology to
prevent the DllHell issue that has affected previous Windows versions.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Well, I don't look at it as restricting myself, I look at it as making
it much faster to do backups and restores.

??? Why do you think a backup or restore will be faster if the system
partition is smaller? Are you imaging the entire drive or just backing
up data?

Either way, the partition size shouldn't matter.

 

[a2mgoog]

??? Why do you think a backup or restore will be faster if the system
partition is smaller? Are you imaging the entire drive or just backing
up data?

I am imaging the system partition. I must be missing your point,
because it seems obvious to me that a smaller partition would take
less time to back up.

 

[Lil' Dave]

No. You *should* turn it off on all non-system partitions.

Just curious. Is your definition of an XP system partition any different
that MS's? Same question for an XP boot partition?
Dave