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#11
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Partitioning a 2tb hd for Windows 7 64 bit
In message , John Williamson
writes: Alias wrote: On 5/25/2012 6:25 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote: On 5/25/2012 10:50 AM, Daniel Prince wrote: What is the best way to partition a 2tb hard drive for Windows 7 64 bit? I am thinking of a small "C" drive for Windows and programs and a big "D" for all my data. Another possibility is a small "C" drive for Windows. A medium sized "D" for my programs and a big "E" for all my data. You will encounter people who object almost religiously to the whole concept of partitioning. While I can follow some of their arguments about it not being _necessary_ or even advantageous, I can't see that it does any _harm_. FWIW I have a C: for OS-and-software, and a D: for everything else (on this XP machine with 160G drive, it's 30G C: (17G full after several years) 113G D: (61.5G full). I would I think prefer your OS/apps/data arrangement, but I suspect there are sufficient softwares (especially on XP) that won't "play nice" unless installed on C: that it isn't viable. Which do you think is better? What size do you think I should make each logical drive? Thank you in advance for all replies. I'm trying to remember how I set up a W7 machine with a 500G drive for a friend; I can't remember, but think it might have been 50G C: rest D:. But she is highly unlikely to install any more software than I left her with, so is probably not representative of your use. Why partition ? One drive = one partition in my book. Lynn I agree, at least for Windows. For Linux, it's a different story. I always partition a drive with a few dozen Gig for the system drive, and the rest for data. It makes life a lot less risky when Windows suffers a brainfart and dies. Your data is still safe. If you don't partition the drive, when Windows barfs, your data, which is on the same drive, will normally be deleted when you restore windows unless That's probably what's behind my thinking. Of course, there are those who say - correctly, of course - that it is irrelevant if you do proper imaging/backuping/ghosting/whatever. you're very careful. I also keep all the install programs and licence information in a directory on the data drive to make it quicker to restore the system. I dump to CDs occasionally (-:. If you can, it's also worth having a small, very fast drive reserved for the swapfile. And *always* have a backup somewhere else, with an image of the working OS as installed on it. Hmm. Updated frequently if it's not to be a pain to use. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf You asking for a slap across the face with a wet pedant?-} |
#12
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Partitioning a 2tb hd for Windows 7 64 bit
Daniel Prince wrote
What is the best way to partition a 2tb hard drive for Windows 7 64 bit? Depends on what you have on the drive. If it's the only drive in the system, there is something to be said for a partition for the OS and apps, but not the data. That's a lot simpler to do an OS and apps image with the cruder backup systems like the one that's built into Win7. If its just a large drive for data like in a PVR, just a single partition is fine. I am thinking of a small "C" drive for Windows and programs and a big "D" for all my data. That's a pretty common config and can be useful like I said. BUT it can be a bit tricky to get the size of it OS and apps partition right so you don't have to change it later. No that that's too hard with a 2TB drive, because unless that machine is a PVR, its unlikely to run out of space very soon with the entire physical drive, so you can be generous with the OS and app partition. It's a bit tricky to safely change the size of the OS and app partition if you do get it wrong, because strictly speaking you should have a full image of the entire physical drive before adjusting the size of the OS and apps partition in case it all goes pear shaped and you may not have a spare 2TB drive to image it to. Another possibility is a small "C" drive for Windows. A medium sized "D" for my programs and a big "E" for all my data. There isnt any real point in that config. If you do need to do a clean OS install because the restore point didn't fix the problem, you have to reinstall almost all the apps anyway so they might as well all be in the one OS and apps partition. Which do you think is better? The first. What size do you think I should make each logical drive? I personally have a 100GB OS and apps partition with Win7 Ultimate 64bit. I have lots of large apps. Havent been using it for decades tho, so it remains to be seen if it needs to be bigger later. The previous XP Pro system did end up having the OS and apps partition too small, but wasn't that big. Thank you in advance for all replies. Don't forget those dead bears. |
#13
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Partitioning a 2tb hd for Windows 7 64 bit
Paul wrote
Daniel Prince wrote What is the best way to partition a 2tb hard drive for Windows 7 64 bit? I am thinking of a small "C" drive for Windows and programs and a big "D" for all my data. Another possibility is a small "C" drive for Windows. A medium sized "D" for my programs and a big "E" for all my data. Which do you think is better? What size do you think I should make each logical drive? Thank you in advance for all replies. Depending on what backup strategies you've got, you might let that affect how you partition. If it wasn't for that, you could do a single big partition. I keep my C: relatively small (40GB right now), and it doesn't really affect my backup method. I continue to use the "System Image" capability built into Windows 7, which effectively only backs up the "used" space on the partition. So if I made C: 2TB in size say, the System Image function would still only be doing a roughly 26GB copy (the amount of space actually used currently). But, if I ever needed to copy C: verbatim for some reason, it's a 40GB copy operation. I'm not encouraging 40GB as the "right size". To make that possible, I turned off System Restore. The "right size" would be a partition larger than that. For most people, they'd find the space restrictions annoying with that size choice. But that size does allow sector by sector backups to be done more quickly (if, say, the NTFS file system was damaged, and I needed to transport the partition somewhere). My "data" partition doesn't have too much on it right now, but that would be another 250GB+ or so. And because the contents are mostly garbage, I don't even back that up. It's basically a "scratch" partition. If you have indexing enabled, it might mean less stuff to index as well. You could have C: indexed, and leave the data partition un-indexed to save computing time. My experience here is, if you restore the computer from a backup image, it resets indexing as well, and then I have to put up with well over three hours total compute time just to index. If I had Windows 7 on my main computer, then a couple things would change. I tend to preserve primary partitions on the main computer, as it is set up for multi-booting. I'd probably make a single partition for Windows 7 (no System Reserved), and give Windows 7 no more than the one partition. I don't like creating Extended/Logical partitions, because they're just a nuisance to manage. (I tried that in the past, and didn't like it.) And no matter what you do, a 2TB drive is going to be both an asset (never run out of space) You will if it's a PVR. And with capture cards so cheap, you'd be mad to have a separate PVR IMO. and a nuisance (partition management operations, copy operations, backup operations, could take forever). Not if you use a decent backup system that does incremental backups. I tend to buy drives in pairs, as a means of encouraging backups. So when you have the 2TB drive, you should also buy space to store its backup copy. You may choose to only backup part of the primary, particularly with a PVR. And if you have more than one PC, you may choose to put the backups on the other PC etc too. |
#14
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Partitioning a 2tb hd for Windows 7 64 bit
John Williamson wrote
Alias wrote Lynn McGuire wrote Daniel Prince wrote What is the best way to partition a 2tb hard drive for Windows 7 64 bit? I am thinking of a small "C" drive for Windows and programs and a big "D" for all my data. Another possibility is a small "C" drive for Windows. A medium sized "D" for my programs and a big "E" for all my data. Which do you think is better? What size do you think I should make each logical drive? Thank you in advance for all replies. Why partition ? Because it can make some ops easier, particularly for those who arent as fluent as they might be with the complexitys. One drive = one partition in my book. I agree, at least for Windows. For Linux, it's a different story. I always partition a drive with a few dozen Gig for the system drive, and the rest for data. It makes life a lot less risky when Windows suffers a brainfart and dies. Your data is still safe. If you don't partition the drive, when Windows barfs, your data, which is on the same drive, will normally be deleted when you restore windows unless you're very careful. I also keep all the install programs and licence information in a directory on the data drive to make it quicker to restore the system. You don't normally do that enough for the speed to matter and an image of the OS and apps partition is generally a better way to do that, particularly if you do a new image whenever you install or tweak the settings much. If you can, it's also worth having a small, very fast drive reserved for the swapfile. Its generally better to spend that money on more physical ram instead, so the swap file is only used at boot time. And *always* have a backup somewhere else, with an image of the working OS as installed on it. That's less necessary now with restore points. Still worth having, but not as vital. |
#15
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Partitioning a 2tb hd for Windows 7 64 bit
Yousuf Khan wrote
Daniel Prince wrote What is the best way to partition a 2tb hard drive for Windows 7 64 bit? I am thinking of a small "C" drive for Windows and programs and a big "D" for all my data. Another possibility is a small "C" drive for Windows. A medium sized "D" for my programs and a big "E" for all my data. Which do you think is better? What size do you think I should make each logical drive? Thank you in advance for all replies. I would say leave it at 2 partitions rather than 3. At one time, for simplicity's sake I used to say 1 partition even. However, I do now backup my data, especially the boot drive, so in order to quickly backup a boot drive, you should keep as small as possible. There isnt any point in making it as small as possible. Just makes sense to keep as much data out of it as feasible. There are real downsides with having the OS and apps partition too small. You really should image the entire drive before making it larger later and with a 2TB drive, many wont have anywhere to image it to for safety before increasing its size and with a 2TB drive you wont normally be short of space unless it's a PVR, so you should make it a decent size to minimise the risk of having to make it bigger. But you can't make it ludicrously small, there has to be some room for applications to be installed and for them to keep some of their data in there too. And there is no real downside with say having it half used, that wont affect how quickly it can be imaged with modern imagers. And the speed of imaging the OS and apps partition isnt really that important anyway, because you wouldn't normally image it that often, except if you are really paranoid and always image it before changing anything settings wise, before all installs and all updates etc. So I keep a 200GB boot partition, That's nothing like as small as possible. and the remainder for other data. But Win7 is a bit messy to reconfigure so there isnt any data that matters in the OS and apps partition, particularly for the less fluent users. Also I would suggest that you give the larger partition 32K clusters rather than the default, as you're likely going to have much larger iles in the larger partition. Really depends on the sort of files you have. That's true of a PVR, but not with say music files etc. And with a 2TB drive, the difference free space wise is pretty small anyway and with modern drives you arent likely to notice anything much speed wise in a proper double blind trial without being allowed to use a benchmark. |
#16
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Partitioning a 2tb hd for Windows 7 64 bit
On Sat, 26 May 2012 05:07:36 +1000, "Rod Speed"
wrote: Paul wrote And no matter what you do, a 2TB drive is going to be both an asset (never run out of space) You will if it's a PVR. And with capture cards so cheap, you'd be mad to have a separate PVR IMO. No kidding. There's no such thing as enough space or never running out. My Win 7 media server has two volumes: C: is 75GB and D: is 27.2TB, (80GB and 30TB unformatted), and it's a struggle to keep some free space available on D:. On my Win 7 desktop, C: is 465GB and D: is 13TB, (500GB and 15TB unformatted), and I'm down to about 2TB free. -- Char Jackson |
#17
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Partitioning a 2tb hd for Windows 7 64 bit
In message , Rod Speed
writes: John Williamson wrote [] If you can, it's also worth having a small, very fast drive reserved for the swapfile. Its generally better to spend that money on more physical ram instead, so the swap file is only used at boot time. [] Tell me more about this swap file being used at boot time thing. What special happens at boot time that necessitates the swap file? -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Live Faust, die Jung. |
#18
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Partitioning a 2tb hd for Windows 7 64 bit
Definitely, a small C: drive with the system and programs is the way to
go. It's on the fastest part of the disk, and "short stroked". And this is a big one for me: you can image it separately from all the data, and restore it without back-dating your data. Also, you can do thinks like having My Documents on the data partition, and in such a program as Thunderbird Mail, you can have the "profile" folder with the settings and e-mail store in it, on the data partition. I like to put a smallish partition right after C: for heavily used data, so the heads will be short-stroking and not have to reach deep into the disk. Then, the next one after that, would be a large multimedia partition, and I put one for partition images at the end. I actually use the portable versions of several programs (portableapps.com), so that they are totally independent from C:; I do restore C: whenever it crashes, to keep it pristine. One kink in that is that portable firefox and portable thunderbird have to both be running if you're going to call one from the other, or there are issues. If you use Boot It Bare Metal as your partition manager, imager, and boot manager, you can have more than 4 partitions. You can only have 4 in any one boot menu item, of course. That's why to make the data partitions volumes in an extended partition. All those data partitions are volumes in an extended partition. Another thing you can do with BIBM is boot from a 2nd or 3rd hard drive, with the SWAP option. There is an issue with that, though. Once in awhile something just thinks it's not where it's supposed to be. For instance, .NET 4 would not update. Actually, that was on the same disk but moved to another position on it. To update .NET 4 I had to copy the partition back to its original position, update it, then copy it back. Hope that gives you some ideas. -- Ed Light Better World News TV Channel: http://realnews.com Iraq Veterans Against the War and Related: http://ivaw.org http://couragetoresist.org http://antiwar.com Send spam to the FTC at Thanks, robots. |
#19
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Partitioning a 2tb hd for Windows 7 64 bit
Rod Speed wrote:
John Williamson wrote I always partition a drive with a few dozen Gig for the system drive, and the rest for data. It makes life a lot less risky when Windows suffers a brainfart and dies. Your data is still safe. If you don't partition the drive, when Windows barfs, your data, which is on the same drive, will normally be deleted when you restore windows unless you're very careful. I also keep all the install programs and licence information in a directory on the data drive to make it quicker to restore the system. You don't normally do that enough for the speed to matter and an image of the OS and apps partition is generally a better way to do that, particularly if you do a new image whenever you install or tweak the settings much. I do it my way because when (About once a year on average), not if, Windows barfs big style, It's usually something that can't be cured by restoring last week's image. I install Windows, do all the updates, check it's working as expected, *then* record the clean Windows image. Then, when I need to restore it, I can install the programs one at a time, omitting the ones that I no longer use, after updating the old image to the current state of Windows as it should be. If you can, it's also worth having a small, very fast drive reserved for the swapfile. Its generally better to spend that money on more physical ram instead, so the swap file is only used at boot time. I have 2 Gig of RAM on this netbook, and even though Windows 7 very rarely uses more than a Gig of that, it seems to run more smoothly with a swapfile enabled. It takes more or less the same time to boot, either way. Shrug And *always* have a backup somewhere else, with an image of the working OS as installed on it. That's less necessary now with restore points. Still worth having, but not as vital. You've obviously never had a computer stolen or fail unexpectedly, then. I have, which is why the laptop is the backup for the home PC and vice versa. It takes a few minutes each time they see each other on the network to synchronise all the data files, and they have almost the same set of software installed. Then there's the USB HD which gets connected and synchronised once a week or so, or whenever I remember. So far, I've not accidentally lost a byte of data since about 1984. -- Tciao for Now! John. |
#20
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Partitioning a 2tb hd for Windows 7 64 bit
On Fri, 25 May 2012 18:06:05 +0100, John Williamson
wrote: I always partition a drive with a few dozen Gig for the system drive, and the rest for data. It makes life a lot less risky when Windows suffers a brainfart and dies. Your data is still safe. If you don't partition the drive, when Windows barfs, your data, which is on the same drive, will normally be deleted when you restore windows unless you're very careful. Three points: 1. Windows almost *never* "barfs and dies." If you need to reinstall Windows, it is almost invariably because you screwed something up. I've run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and now Windows 7, each for the period of time before the next version came out, and each on two or more machines here. I never reinstalled any of them (with a single exception--a problem that I worked on for weeks unsuccessfully), and I have never had anything more than an occasional minor problem. 2. If you need to reinstall Windows, the most likely reasons are a hard drive crash, user error, nearby lightning strike, virus attack, even theft of the computer, and all those reason scan cause the loss of everything on your drive, regardless of how many partitions you have. 3. What is most important is that if you rely on your partitioning scheme to protect your data, that suggests that you do not regularly back your data up to external media. That's playing with fire. I also keep all the install programs and licence information in a directory on the data drive to make it quicker to restore the system. That's an excellent thing to do. Have it there, but *also* have it on your backup media. If you can, it's also worth having a small, very fast drive reserved for the swapfile. If you swap enough that that makes a significant difference, you don't have enough RAM. And if you don't have enough RAM, your money is better spent on more RAM than on "a small, very fast drive reserved for the swapfile." And *always* have a backup somewhere else, with an image of the working OS as installed on it. Although that's good to do, what is *far* more important is having a backup of your *data* on external media. |
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