Hard Drive Partition

[H Lou]

I recently bought a 160 GB Maxtor hard drive. Should I
partition it as one big 160 GB drive or 2 80 GB drives?
Is there advantages / disadvantages for the two? Is there
a problem with one big 160 GB partition? My motherboard
appears to be able to handle the large partition?

 

[Rick]

I recently bought a 160 GB Maxtor hard drive. Should I
partition it as one big 160 GB drive or 2 80 GB drives?
Is there advantages / disadvantages for the two? Is there
a problem with one big 160 GB partition? My motherboard
appears to be able to handle the large partition?

There are far more disadvantages to having everything on
one partition. Backups are virtually impossible (160GB is
229 700MB CDs!) without a second drive of equal size.

Rick

 

[Patrick]

I would have 2 HDD and I do its a lot easier I have
all my data on one and use the other for the OS and apps
it just means backing it is sooooo easy

Cheers
Paddy

 

[Wolf Kirchmeir]

I recently bought a 160 GB Maxtor hard drive. Should I
partition it as one big 160 GB drive or 2 80 GB drives?
Is there advantages / disadvantages for the two? Is there
a problem with one big 160 GB partition? My motherboard
appears to be able to handle the large partition?

I'd make at least three partitions:

C: W2K (10GB is more than enough)
D: applications (20Gb should be enough, even with the current space hogging
"integrated" programs)
E: data (100GB)
F: backups -- system and apps - 30GB

BTW, I regularly burn important data onto CDs.



--
Best Wishes,
Wolf Kirchmeir, Blind River ON
"Not that brains are everything --
you'll also need a skull to put them in." (Nancy Franklin, 1997)
<just one w and plain ca for correct address>

 

[Unc Unc]

this is a "to each their own" comment.

When I organized my installation I too initially made a separate drive for
apps and the system. Then I realized that it really provided no benefit and
I cannot really backup the system drive and restore it cleanly without the
application stuff being there as well. I.e. it would be a muddle if I tried
restoring the system drive without the installed apps (which were on a
separate drive) which had their hooks placed in and about the sys image (e.g
registry); if I want to backup/restore the apps installation anyway then why
not put them in with the system.

The only key item for me now is to keep that which I consider "data" in its
own separate drive so that it can be backed up easily.

So, had I 200GB to play with....

C: SYSTEM & APPS
15GB
UNFORMATTED
5GB
D: BASIC DATA - i.e. normal saved files from apps, downloads, etc
30GB
UNFORMATTED
30GB
E: MASS DATA - i.e. mp3s perhaps.
60GB
F: MISC - play area - you never know when you want some space to muck about
in. 10GB
T: TEMP
10GB

The unformatted areas are there to 1. reduce the time it takes to format
initially, and 2. leave space at various places in the drive to exapand a
partition as needed without moving more than is necessary.

If you want to backup to HD, I suggest buying a 2nd drive of whatever size
you need and backup to it.

ps. Make sure you have a copy of PartitionMagic! It's the most useful
utility I have ever come across.

Hope this is useful

Unc