To Partition or not?

[werty12345]

Ok, so I will be clean installing Windows 7 in sometime and was wondering if its advisable to partition my drive or just have a single partition with OS and data in it. Need your valuable suggestions. What are the pros & cons of each? Thanks!

[Chancer]

I always create a separate partition for data. That way if Windoze, or other programs, screw up and I have to reformat the data is untouched.

[Sylence]

Having a partition with your operating system and main programs separate from the rest of your files like videos, pictures, music, documents, and downloads can actually increase performance since fragmentation would occur less often. Another plus, as mentioned above, is that should you have to reinstall your OS, only the OS and some programs would be affected. Your documents and other files should be fine and untouched (unless you format the whole drive).

 

Pro :

1. Reformatting will not delete your personal data when it placed on a different partition than the operating system
2. Temporary files will not cause file fragmentation, when it is placed on a separate partition.
3. Dual booting operating systems will not interfere with each other, when each operating system is placed on separate primary partitions
4. Enables organization of your data on a level beyond directories.
5. The outer edge of the HDD has the best performance, by creating a partition here, then it is possible to manually decide what files should have the best file-performance. (Defragmentation tools solves this automatically)
6. Faster access to files and directories, when using FAT16/32 on large partition the File Allocation Table(FAT) will become extremely large and slow to search through (NTFS can solve this, though one should only use 85% of the partition)
7. Less slack with small files, when using FAT16/32 the cluster-size can become quite big, causing a small file to use a lot more space than its actual size (NTFS can solve this)
8. Defragmentation is not required for the entire HDD, when having several partition only have to defragment the partition where files are often create/deleted
9. Gives a little more security, incase the File Allocation Table (FAT/MFT) on one partition is corrupted, then it will not affect the other partitions. (Backup solves this)

Cons :

1. File copy/move between partitions on the same HDD is extremely slow
2. One can still organize data by using folders.
3. Partitions are less dynamic than folders, thus one can reach the partition limit even though there is still plenty of space on the HDD. (Though one can use Partition Magic to resize the partition)
4. The HDD is forced to make a long seek when accessing a file on another partition

[tiliarou]

Since windows 7 fragmentation management on HDD is very well optimized and fragmentation is between 0 and 1% with default settings.

On a SSD, fragmentation is not really a subject (interesting article on defrag for SSD: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheRealAndCompleteStoryDoesWindowsDefragmentYourSSD.aspx)

So it's up to you for partitioning, as mentioned before major advantage is being able to reformat and install clean system with one partition for OS and one for data.

On a SSD you will have less speed issues than the "Cons" developed by saeed so it also depends if you have an HDD or SSD.

[Pete 12]

Install your OS on a SSD, dont make partitions on it and never defragment ( !), place the rest of your data on HDDs which you can partition and defragment.

Use as much RAM as you can buy, use a fast processor and motherboard and you have made a blazing faaast machine............

 

Good Luck !

[HNB]

I never make partition, because customers always put their shit on desktop, unless i relocate desktop to other partition (slow)

In all case unless hardware problem HDD, lot of live boot tools permit to recover all needed files.

[tiliarou]

1 hour ago, HNB said:

I never make partition, because customers always put their shit on desktop, unless i relocate desktop to other partition (slow)

In all case unless hardware problem HDD, lot of live boot tools permit to recover all needed files.

" unless i relocate desktop to other partition (slow) " ? in what way is it slow ? It's very easy to move system user folders on another partition and you do it only one time so I don't see how it is slow.