Partitioning a 2tb hd for Windows 7 64 bit

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Fri, 25 May 2012 18:06:05 +0100, John Williamson
wrote:
[]
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.

True. But some people seem to assume that just _because_ you have
partitions, you _are_ relying on them for data protection, which does
not follow.
[]
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."

That is certainly my opinion.

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.

For most people, yes, since at least some data is irreplaceable.
However, for some, having a quickly-restorable working system is also
pretty important.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"... four Oscars, and two further nominations ... On these criteria, he's
Britain's most successful film director." Powell or Pressburger? no; Richard
Attenborough? no; Nick Park!

On 26/05/2012 8:32 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
For most people, yes, since at least some data is irreplaceable.
However, for some, having a quickly-restorable working system is also
pretty important.
I just have one partition nowadays. And 8 GB ram on a Win 7 x64 system.
Swap file has been set to the same as the RAM, but it never gets used (I
monitor it). The 4 GB extra memory over my base system cost me something
like $40. Also I replaced the 720 RPM HDD with an SSD. Sure lots more
expensive per GB, but it simply flies like a rocket. I have a 64 GB
SanDisk USB backup stick plugged in all the time backing up my daily
data. Once a week or so I image the whole dataset to a USB3 External HDD
using AllwaySync which easliy lets me set up different data locations
and allows me to back up data from different places with one click (the
Sync All button). And once a month or so I clone the SSD to an external
USB3 disk which I can use to re-create my system any time in no time
flat. I have an older copy of the clone drive just in case I screw up
when making a new clone, and every now and then I do a duplicate of my
full data backup too. These duplicate clones and backup disks are kept
in separate buildings 99% of the time in case of theft or house fire.
And for good measure, all my family photos are on Skydrive in the cloud.

Think I'm reasonably safe. And with the RAM and SSD, the PC is just so
very very fast (and will never get a head crash with vibration & shock).

My experience with separate partitions was it's a nuisance trying to
separate the data from the system, it ends up with wasted space on the
HDD too, and achieves nothing I can't do better with AllwaySync. But
each to their own. I'm not preaching one solution over another. Just saying.

YMMV

On 5/25/2012 8:16 PM, GreyCloud wrote:
On 5/25/2012 11:32 AM, Alias wrote:
On 5/25/2012 7:06 PM, John Williamson wrote:
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.

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 ?

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 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.

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.


I don't keep large amounts of data on my Windows machines. I use Linux
for that.

Are you using ext4? You could lose data then.
Data loss occurs due to memory errors, data chip errors, cable drop
outs, and hard drive data drops. Unless you have ECC memory and other
hardware that detects these errors and corrects them, then you won't
have any guarantees.


I also back up everything to an external hard drive and two internal
hard drives. I've haven't lost anything since 1997.

--
Alias

On 5/25/2012 8:21 PM, John Williamson wrote:
Alias wrote:
On 5/25/2012 7:06 PM, John Williamson wrote:
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.

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 ?

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 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.

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.


I don't keep large amounts of data on my Windows machines. I use Linux
for that.

As the OP was asking about partitioning for Windows 7, is it really
relevant to talk about Linux and partitioning for it?


Yes.

--
Alias

On Fri, 25 May 2012 23:32:21 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Fri, 25 May 2012 18:06:05 +0100, John Williamson
wrote:
[]
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.

True. But some people seem to assume that just _because_ you have
partitions, you _are_ relying on them for data protection, which does
not follow.



Yes, that's exactly my point! What you said was "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.

That suggests that having a separate partition for data is adequate
protection. My point is that it is *not* adequate protection, and that
therefore it is *not* a good reason for having a second partition for
data.



Although that's good to do, what is *far* more important is having a
backup of your *data* on external media.

For most people, yes, since at least some data is irreplaceable.
However, for some, having a quickly-restorable working system is also
pretty important.


No argument from me about its importance (as I said, "although that's
good to do"). But your statement "And always have a backup somewhere
else, with an image of the working OS as installed on it" suggests
that that's what is *most* important, and that's what I disagree with,
strongly.

Char Jackson wrote
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.

That's not so true now of non PVR laptops. Plenty don't fill those now.

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:.

Yeah, I keep buying 2TB drives for mine, but that's mainly because
whenever I have a look at cleaning up the stuff I will never get around
to watching, I look at the price of another 2TB drive and just buy another.

On my Win 7 desktop, C: is 465GB and D: is 13TB, (500GB
and 15TB unformatted), and I'm down to about 2TB free.

I keep an eye on the price of 2TB drives since the floods
and buy another when the free gets below about 1TB.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote
Rod Speed wrote
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.

Win basically writes stuff to the swap file at boot time that it
decides that will likely be used once the system has fully booted,
basically because its quicker to get it from the swap file than to
get it from the normal system files with stuff like dlls and exes.

What special happens at boot time that necessitates the swap file?

Its not necessitates so much as is likely to be desirable to
make the system more responsive when its fully booted.

Ed Light wrote

Definitely, a small C: drive with the system and programs is the way to
go.

Not necessarily, particularly for the simpler users.

It's a non trivial exercise to keep the bulk of the data files
out of that even with Win7 for even quite competent users.

It's on the fastest part of the disk,

Yes, but that's a pretty minor consideration with modern drives.

and "short stroked".

That's not what the term means. It means a drive is
artificially restricted to a smaller size than it actually is.

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.

You can do that with any decent backup app without it having its own
partition.

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.

But that isnt that trivial to organise for simpler users.

I like to put a smallish partition right after C: for heavily used data,
so the heads will be short-stroking

Again, you are mangling the use of that term...

and not have to reach deep into the disk.

That's a very minor consideration with modern fast seeking hard drives.

Then, the next one after that, would be a large multimedia partition, and
I put one for partition images at the end.

Its mad to keep the images on the drive that's got the
partitions being imaged on it.

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.

Not really feasible if you configure the OS or apps much.

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.

Daniel Prince wrote in
:

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.

If you are not going to backup your system, just make it one big one
partition.

I would never do the 3 partition system. Just gets in the way down the
road. (been there, done that - data needs more room, or system, or the
program area, you just can't win AND a lot of programs are tied to the
system disk)

If you are going to do regular backups, this is how I would set things
up:

1. 60-120GB SSD - "System".
2. 2TB HD for - "Data".

or if you just can't afford a SSD or have a laptop with only 1 drive:

1. ~100G partition - "System". (system, programs)
2. Rest of disk - "Data". (pic, music, movies, etc. DATA!)

Why. There are tons of free tools that make "metal" copies of
partitions. Use these on the system Disk/partition, and if it dies, you
can grab any SSD/HD, and get back running in no time. Also, doing a
small system partition, makes the time for a backup shorter, and that
makes it more likely to happen. ;-)

You NEVER need to use a "metal" backup for your data, as you can use
anything to back it up. You can even back up your system disk to the
"data" disk, and then that backup is just another data file, that again,
can be copy by anything!!! (By anything, you can even use file manager
to copy folders!!!)
BUT NEVER USE THE SAME PHYSICAL DISK FOR THE MAIN BACKUP DEVICE!

With 7, you can just use the add folder from the HD to your "Libraries".
You can even set them to the default save directory!!!

Then get yourself a large USB drive, or if there is a files server in the
house, use it, and backup to them on a regular schedule. (I then backup
the truely irreplaceable stuff off site, but then I have access to a
personal off site server)

BTW I do put a few items on the "data" partition. MMOs (games) are on
the data disk, but I never back up the "games", just a few small files.
Why, because I can just download the game again, anytime, and all data is
on their server (except a few small files). (that will take a ton of
time on a few of the games, but saves me about 45GB of backup space)

Backup examples:
~size ~time(minutes)
System disk backup 20GB 11
Data (daily) 1275GB 20

The reason for the short time for data, is the "data" backup program I
use, only backs up "new" "data". I do a system backup manualy, once a
month, and the "data" daily. I'd have to do it more, if there was any
truely imporant data on it.

Hope this helps you, and anyone in the future.....



--
_______________________________________________
/ David Simpson \
| |
| http://www.nyx.net/~dsimpson |
|We got to go to the crappy town where I'm a hero.|
\_______________________________________________/

John Williamson wrote
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,

I don't get anything like that.

It's usually something that can't be cured by restoring last week's image.

Corse it can.

I install Windows, do all the updates, check it's working as expected,
*then* record the clean Windows image.

I don't keep just one image of the OS and apps partition.

I do have an image of just the OS before any apps have
been installed, but hardly ever need to use that image,
only if a very badly behaved app mangles the OS install
completely when you don't install the app correctly and
that's hardly ever seen, and only seen once because I
document that app's behaviour.

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.

I don't do that often enough to need to do anything special.

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,

Yeah, that's much too little.

and even though Windows 7 very rarely uses more than a Gig of that, it
seems to run more smoothly with a swapfile enabled.

Yes, but the speed at which it uses it doesn't warrant
the very substantial cost of a much faster drive for it.

You're a lot better off spending much less on more physical ram instead.

It takes more or less the same time to boot, either way. Shrug

Sure, but I was commenting on your proposal to have a much
faster drive for the swap file. That almost never makes any sense.
If the swap file is used much, you need more physical ram instead.

The only real exception is when the motherboard cant
take anymore physical ram and so the cost of replacing
the motherboard, ram and cpu is substantial, or when
you cant use the 64bit version of the OS because one
of the apps or drivers isnt available or viable in 64bit form.

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've had both, and more than once in both cases too.

I have, which is why the laptop is the backup for the home PC and vice
versa.

I wasn't talking about backups. I was talking about images of the OS
partition.

If the system is stolen, you can always just do another clean
install of the OS if you have to and then restore the data backup.

Same with a system that fails unexpectedly.

It takes a few minutes each time they see each other on the network to
synchronise all the data files,

Again, that's data backup, not the image of the OS partition being
discussed.

and they have almost the same set of software installed.

My desktops and laptops generally don't.

I do save the backups of particular systems to
other desktops and laptops, and that's a better
approach than synching the data, particularly
when you do something stupid and change
some of the data inappropriately and want to
reverse that change etc.

Then there's the USB HD which gets connected and synchronised once a week
or so, or whenever I remember.

Some of us automate the backup so you don't have to remember.

So far, I've not accidentally lost a byte of data since about 1984.

I havent accidently lost a single byte of data since the
early 60s and that's over a much bigger collection of
machines than you have ever had anything to do with.