partitioning help please!!!

[matmum]

hi

i have got a new pc with an 80gb harddrive. could anyone please help me with partitioning it ( i will be using partition magic pro 8).

i have installed win xp pro - i had an idea as follows - but i am not sure if its that great -

C - XP O/S (10gb)
D - Applications (25gb)
E - Games (20gb)
F - MPGS/Downloads (20gb)
G - Swapfile (5gb)

i am not sure if i thats too many partitions, whether the allocating of space is correct - and whether the order is the best way to do it - and also i dont know how to put the swap file on its own drive -

any help would be greatly appreciated
thnx
matt

[Telexen]

1. The best way to do that would have been to make the one 10gb partition for Windows during setup, and leaving the rest unallocated, then using WindowsXP's built in Disk Manager for partitioning...I'm not a fan of Partition Magic

2. I doubt you're going to need a swapfile drive ... Windows handles it's own page file just fine and I find it unnecessary to move it.

3. You can have that may partitions if you want, but having one for Windows and one broken down into folders for all your downloads is more conventional, I think

4. If you do want to use Partition Magic (you will to limit C: now) you can just follow it's instructions...there should just be a graphic of your drive space, and links on the left side (resize, create, install OS, etc) ...so it's pretty self explanitory.

[Siliconjunkie]

First I agree about partition magic, unless you have a need to resize a partition, it really isnt necessary. Second, 5 gig is ENORMOUS for a swap file unless you are going to have about 2-2.5 gig of memory, even then its overkill. There is 0 advantage to making a swap partition for Windows. There is some advantage to moving it off the system drive, but thats not the case here.

If you only have one drive here is what I would do:
Make a 20 gig partition when installing for the OS and apps.
Make the remainder of the drive for archive/mp3/mpg and whatnot.

I have found that alot of apps dont like being installed on another drive and you will inevitably <sp?> end up installing them on C:. There is no advantage to putting them on a seperate partition since if you have to reinstall the OS you will also have to reinstall the apps/games. I also find it hard to keep up with things when you have lots of partitions.

I have 3 physical drives in my main machine, 1 30 gig for OS/apps 1 9 gig for downloads 1 120 gig for mpegs and CD Images. My swap is split between the 2 extra drives. MS says this is best for performance, but I cant tell the difference.

This has worked out good for me sofar and I can always add more without having to rethink my whole scheme. Once you partiton it is a HUGE pain to change the drive.

[dustyrun]

PartitionMagic 8 is the way to go for simplicity..I would cutout the swap partition and split the extra room between the partitions that you think you will fill the fastest.

My drives are broken down as the following
my 1st 120gig
c: 1st operating system {windows xp pro+ apps}20 gig
d: 2nd operating system {windows 2000 pro}20 gig
e: 3rd operating system {windows 2003}testing 20 gig
f: Data--{all personal data + updates that I have entered} 40gig
G: Games 30gig

my 2nd 120gig
H: Extra--{My images,programs,mp3s,photos

my 40gig
I: cache- strictly for caching when I do a burn for DVD or Cd.

All hooked on a promise ide card.

use ghost image to dvd & 2nd hdrive every 2 weeks

These are hooked onto the motherboard ide channels:

J: Liteon DVD/CD player
K: Plextor 40x burner
L: Pioneer DVD burner

Z: Virtual Drive


Rick

I agree with what silicon says. That is a good strategy. Though 20GB for OS and applications is too much. I have 6GB and have windows XP Professional, Office XP Pro full, Easy CD 6, Photoshop 7, Retrospect Backup, True Image, Harvard Graphics, Kazaa, AVG Antivirus, Norton Utilities 2003, ACDC Browser, Partition Magic 8, Drive Image 2002, DVD Xcopy, Alcohol120%, and a bunch of other stuff and still have 1.5 GB left over from 6GB.

The data/downloads go on a physically different drive and on two separte partitions. I also have a 120GB drive split in 2 partitions--the primary one is 800MB for the swap and the rest is CD images/backups/drive images and so on.

Being a Type X paranoid personality (I keep xerox of xeroxes just in case) I have redundant backups and swear by a program called Retrospect Backup by Dantz Corporation.

[Siliconjunkie]

I need alot of space on the system drive since I use my desktop as temp space, pretty much anything I am messing with ends up there, downloads go there first then are unzipped and such. Also games eat drive space fast, as much as 1-2 gig each. Anyhow, thats my logic behind the size, but everyone uses their computer differently.

Anything I care about is backed up daily to another machine, mail is done daily as well but I keep the last 7 backups. I use Genie Backup manager for my mail and home grown robocopy scipts for everything else.

I would also reccomend using multiple drives if you can, since that means you wont lose everything if one fails. My truely disposable storage of general junk is spread across 3 9.1s and 3 45s in a hodge podge hardware/software RAID 0 set. Basically all that lives on it is MP3s and more CD Images, if it dies, no real loss.

Since you mention Alcohol 120%, once you use it, you never go back. No need to keep CDs out, just make an image and never have to use the CD again.

[matmum]

hi - thnx for all your replies - so to summerise i really only need to have 2 partition - the first containing xp pro and my applications (15gb) and 65gb for all my other stuff like downloads mp3's etc on the other, also i need not bother putting the swap file on its own drive - so is this the best way to go to clarify - also can i make the partitions when i first install win px pro and not bother with partition magic

another reason i thought of using more partitions was on a defragmenting level as i thought it made sense to have smaller drives so that they would take less time to defragment.

all the best
matt