Was wondering why my dell demension e310 has two drives, (C
, 51.21GB and
(D
18.32GB. "D" drive is labeled "backup." I have never saved anything on
the D drive, and it always has 99% free space. Should I start using this
extra 20 gig drive for whatever? What is it for? Answers appreciated!
You have two partitions, and of those particular sizes, because Dell
chose to set it up that way.What you use the second partition for is
entirely up to you.
Here are some of the reasons why people have more than one partition
(along with comments on how appropriate it is to do):
1. The dual boot two operating systems, with each on a separate
partition.
2. They put their page file on a separate partition, mistakenly
thinking it improves performance. However, the main performance issue
with the page file is the time it takes to move the drive heads to and
from it. So, for almost everyone with a single physical drive, the
page file should be as close as possible to your other frequently
accessed files, on the same partition
as Windows, normally C:
3. They us a second partition to back up their data on the first
partition. However if you care about your data, you should reconsider
the idea of putting backups on a separate partition Such a scheme is
better than no backup at all, but just barely. It is always possible
that a hard drive crash, user error, nearby lightning strike, virus
attack, even theft of the computer, can cause
the loss of everything on your drive.
4. Some people recommend separating the operating system and installed
applications on different partitions because think that if they ever
have to reinstall Windows, their applications will remain. They are
wrong. Even if your applications are installed on a partition separate
from that the operating system is on, you can *not* reinstall the
operating system without losing the applications. The reason is that
all applications (except for a very occasional near-trivial one) have
entries and pointers to them within Windows, in the registry and
elsewhere. With Windows gone, all those entries get lost, and the
applications get broken. So that benefit doesn't exist.
5. Some people separate their data from everything else on the drive,
reasoning that it is easier to backup their data that way. That is
correct. If your backup scheme is one of backing up just your data,
rather than imaging or cloning the entire drive, it usually makes
sense to do this.
