Best partition size

[Davek]

With a large drive (120GB or larger) with NTFS and XP what
would you recommend as the best way to divide up these
drives for optimum performance? I've read where it's a good
idea to place XP on a partition smaller than 20GB, but what
about the rest of the drive....for optimum performance
should that just be left to one whopper partition or split
into smaller ones? On this particular machine I'm strictly
going to use NTFS.

TIA
- Dave Kistner

 

[Norm]

I agree with Ken, one partition. I've gone the partition route and all
those drives just get to be more than I want to deal with. Get a good
imaging program and another disk to image to and your all set.

 

[JT]

I've found it's a good idea to at least have a separate partition or disk
for your data files such as music, video, text files etc..... That way if
your OS crashes, your data will be safe.

 

[Patrick]

With a large drive (120GB or larger) with NTFS and XP what
would you recommend as the best way to divide up these
drives for optimum performance? I've read where it's a good
idea to place XP on a partition smaller than 20GB, but what
about the rest of the drive....for optimum performance
should that just be left to one whopper partition or split
into smaller ones? On this particular machine I'm strictly
going to use NTFS.

TIA
- Dave Kistner

Dave:
I have found in my experience that two partitions is best.
I have a 60GB drive partitioned into a C: (10GB NTFS) and a D: (50GB
NTFS)
I use the C: for the OS (XP Home) and installed software. The D: drive
contains my documents, mp3 and video files as well as ISO images i'll be
burning to CD.I believe keeping data files separate from where the OS
resides is safest as I can wipe the C: and do a fresh install of XP
without losing my precious files on the D:

HTH.

 

[jaster]

Dave:
I have found in my experience that two partitions is best.
I have a 60GB drive partitioned into a C: (10GB NTFS) and a D: (50GB
NTFS)
I use the C: for the OS (XP Home) and installed software. The D: drive
contains my documents, mp3 and video files as well as ISO images i'll be
burning to CD.I believe keeping data files separate from where the OS
resides is safest as I can wipe the C: and do a fresh install of XP
without losing my precious files on the D:

HTH.

What difference does that make? If you backup your data then why use D?
It's all on the same physical drive. With NTFS you need the XP boot CD to
access D in case of only C failure. When you install programs 90% of those
programs will be installed with the OS partition and if you wipe XP you have
to reinstall the programs again. Sure lots of video, mp3, ISO's but if the
drive fails only backups make sense (especially CD backups).

There might be a trade-off of optimal cluster size vs. logical partition
size, ie, lots of little files vs. larger files but when you intend to use
only 1 OS on the drive what's the point of more than 1 logical partition?