Multiple partitions: Is it still necessary?

[Falcon2004]

...or partition magic does something it shouldn't

As it so often does :'(

[dgr]

i detest partitions - you never know what your storage requirements are going to be.

on my main box, i have my raptor as general purpose, then 2 120s as 2*media

the linux box is of course boot, swap and /.

[unrealrocks]

I just have two partitions on this machine, one for Windows, one for everything else!

[Lexeus]

As it so often does :'(

I have never had a problem with partition magic on any of the computers I have used it ?

Well anyway, partitions are useful for management and organisation
I have 3 hard drives, IDE 40gig, IDE 120gig, SATA 160gig, and I have them partitioned as follows.

40Gb Disk - 12.6Gb Windows Partition - 25.6Gb Temp storage drive, DVD, cd ripping

120Gb Disk - Large storage disk, Movies, mp3's, you name it, it's on there

160Gb Disk - 64Gb Programs Partitions + My documents, files etc - 25Gb Downloads partition (Useful for trying to make sure you sort downloads in a smaller partition instead of a large Gb pile up - Also I have set this download partition for a virus scan every day) also got alot of my mp3 collection here
The other half of this disk is yet to be partitioned , starting to need it now though, as my programs partition is almost full.

I think in general its nice to have 2 partitions per hard disk, just makes organisation nicer, an less you really want large partitions.

Incidently, does anyone know if there is a way to add space to a partition on a hard drive from another hard disk?
I want to add some space from one of the other drives to my 120 Gig storage drive.

[schrickvr6]

I have a 40gb seagate ide drive with a 12.8gb partition for windows and programs,the rest of this is used for ripping and temp downloading space,things are then moved to a 120gb maxtor ide drive which is not partitioned and is used purely for storage.I then have two raptors in raid0 for games, pagefile is on the maxtor.

never had a problem with partition magic

[Spud1]

My Data drive is all organised nicely into folders

exactly - folders

much more flexable than partitions, do EXACTLY the same job (except for multiple OS's) and alot safer in terms of stability

[Paul Adams]

The 120Gb disks I have, I split into 40Gb for OS and apps/games/utilities that install themselves or components on C: without being able to change them.

The other 80Gb is my second partition where I opt to install software and hold Ghost images of the other PC's C: drives so I can do a recovery over the network by booting from a floppy disk by connecting my USB FDD.


I prefer to select where I install software so they are never in the default locations - that just gives viruses, worms, etc a head start - same goes for installations of web and FTP servers.

I don't hoard tons of movies or MP3s on my machines, I prefer to watch DVDs or listen to CDs for that sort of thing

[GAteKeeper]

I am fan of partitions but I have gone too far:

Disc1 (80Mb WD)
Windows 15gb
Swap 1gb
Data 40Gb
Movies 23Gb

Disc2 (120Gb WD)
Data 40Gb
Movies 40Gb
Mp3s 50Gb

Disc3 & 4 (both 200GB WD)
no partitions both full of movies

Disc5 (46Gb Deathstar)
Old windows install 10Gb
Data 20Gb
Movies 15Gb

Ok so that is excessive and I am trying to clear down to 1 or 2 partitions per drive. I am a firm believer in 1 OS partition as well as a 6month re-install proceedure. I used to keep ghosts of my core windows+drivers but I never used them and if windows messed up I had always installed new hardware since the ghost so it was out of date. Instead I keep most of my programs and drivers on my hard drives for a simple and fast re-install

GAteKeeper

P.s. does anyone know how to force XP to not have a swap drive (I have a 1.5Gb file in the root of C:\ that I cant get rid of or move. And yes I have tried every setting under the sun in the virtual memory windowy thing (Control panel-system-advanced-performance settings-advanced-virtual memory)

[skattrd]

I like partitions, but then I ran out of space, so got more drives and don't partition anymore, just use seperate drives

2 x 36Gig (1xwin2kpro 1 XP pro)
1 x 73gig Work in progress + swapfile
2 x 200gig storage

[Rabs]

I teach all my customers to use multiple partitions on 60GB+ drives, they thank me when they kill their OS

[Jiff Lemon]

Incidently, does anyone know if there is a way to add space to a partition on a hard drive from another hard disk?
I want to add some space from one of the other drives to my 120 Gig storage drive.

If you running 2k/xp, you could create a partition, but instead of assigning it a drive letter, you mount it as a folder in the exisiting drive.

[Lexeus]

ooh, sounds just right
How would I go about doing that ? Disk management ? OR would I need to use a 3rd party app ?

thanks

EDIT: Running Win XP Pro SP1 by the way

[Lexeus]

ah, found it in windows help.

Thanks alot for that .

Any idea what would happen if I reformatted my windows disk. Would it still keep the partition link to the folder ?

[Falcon2004]

While we all on the topic of partitions, can anyone tell me how much space you need to leave for the registry to expand in the windows partition? I want to set it up so that i have a small partion for windows, a partiton for files and a 3rd partition for programs, would I be right in saying that only the registry would expand in my windows partiton? and if not, what else would and how much space would i need to leave?

Thanks
Falcon

[eldren]

*returns after having had to reinstall on an old 3GB because his original 2K install won't boot anymore. And still no Sammies. *

Falcon - you can set the maximum size of the registry. Go off to Control Panel > System Properties > Advanced > Performance Options > Change > Maximum registry size. Mine is, by default, 55MB. Current size: 10MB. Unless you're installing and uninstalling software on a regular basis, though, your registry shouldn't grow much.

Anyhow! No one's actually answered my question. To rephrase it, does having a single large NTFS partition result in a loss of speed or efficiency, as opposed to having several smaller NTFS partitions on the same drive?