Partitioning Recommendations

[KJB]

Hello all,

I recently had a custom PC built by Velocity Micro. (Awesome company
to deal with BTW) The system I ordered came with two (2) 750 GB hard
drives (1.5TB total). Before I get too far along and things get out of
hand, I would like recommendations on the most effecient way to
partition the hard drives.

Ideally I believe (please do correct me if I am wrong) I would like to
keep the OS, utilities (AV etc) and drivers on it's own partition
(size??? XP Pro). Then a partition for applications only? A partition
for games? Then possibly several partitions for various data files? I
do some video editing so I would assume that I should have a rather
large partition set asside for that?

I have never had this much storage space available before and I am a
bit overwhelmed to say the least as to how to setup, control and
administer this monster.

Any recommendations or even a reference site I can browse would be very
much appreciated.

 

[Rod Speed]

I recently had a custom PC built by Velocity Micro. (Awesome
company to deal with BTW) The system I ordered came with
two (2) 750 GB hard drives (1.5TB total). Before I get too far
along and things get out of hand, I would like recommendations
on the most effecient way to partition the hard drives.

Its generally best to have one partition per physical drive,
particularly when you have more than one physical drive.

Ideally I believe (please do correct me if I am wrong)
I would like to keep the OS, utilities (AV etc) and
drivers on it's own partition (size??? XP Pro).

No real point in that approach.

Then a partition for applications only?

No point in that either. If you have to reinstall, you'll have to reinstall those
apps too, so they might as well be in the same partition as the OS etc.

However there isnt much point in a separate OS and apps partition either.
Superficially it has some advantages, particularly being able to image that
partition before you do any updates or reconfig etc, so you can step back
gracefully if that all goes pear shaped and a restore point isnt good enough,
but it actually makes more sense to use a decent modern imager that can
do incremental and differential images instead now.

One very fundamental problem with a separate OS and apps partition
is that its very hard to get the size of that right and be sure that it wont
turn out to be to small in the future. Which you can change partition sizes
on the fly, thats dangerous without a full image of the entire physical drive.

A partition for games?

No point whatever.

Then possibly several partitions for various data files?

No point whatever. Folder trees make a hell of a lot more sense
than separate partitions because they are a lot easier to name
sensibly, and free space doesnt get scattered across the partitions.

I do some video editing so I would assume that I should
have a rather large partition set asside for that?

No need to have a separate partition for that either.

I have never had this much storage space available before
and I am a bit overwhelmed to say the least as to how to
setup, control and administer this monster.

Nothing special just because of the size.

Any recommendations

A single partition per physical drive unless
you plan to run more than one OS.

or even a reference site I can browse would be very much appreciated.

Its another one of those areas where there is no single best
approach and there is no ultimate reference site on that question.