HD Partitioning

[andtmas]

Hi,

I've just ordered the following PC - mainly for producing HD video and photo slide shows to go on to DVD.

Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X6 1090T (3.20GHz/9MB CACHE/AM3/) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS450 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £736.00 including VAT and delivery.

The question is would it be beneficial to get PCS to partition the HD - if so into what size partitions? I would assume 50GB for the operating system but would any further partitions be beneficial?

Thanks for any help

 

[PCS]

There are no benefits of hard drive paritioning, other than creating virtual drives to store your data on. If you do consider partitioning your hard drive, I would allow at least 100GB for your OS.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend partitioning your drive, but many customers would say otherwise.

 

[andtmas]

Thanks for the advice PCS - I will follow your recommendation not to partition the hard disc.

 

[PokerFace]

There are no benefits of hard drive paritioning, other than creating virtual drives to store your data on. If you do consider partitioning your hard drive, I would allow at least 100GB for your OS.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend partitioning your drive, but many customers would say otherwise.

PCS, I'm just wondering what you consider the DISadvantages of partitioning a HDD are. I believe the advantage is that you can store a lot of data files on the larger partition and have the operating system on the smaller partition. In the event that you then need to reinstall the OS, you don't have to worry about losing data (but you wouldn't anyway as we all back up data regularly don't we ).

So what do you consider the downside of partitioning and why do you personally prefer to leave the HDD unpartioned (besides the fact that you probably have an SSD for OS and another 4 HDD's besides...I know how much you people earn )

 

[vanthus]

I would have to agree with you pokerface (and disagree with pcs at my peril probably)that there are advantages in partitioning,apart from what you mention, operating system should run smoother & quicker,also defrag a lot faster.

 

[Gorman]

I found personally that we got to the point 2 or 3 years ago where i found partitions redundant.

I used to have say a 500gb drive or so and partition off windows and storage for easier disaster recovery.

Then i got to the point where it was easier to have a physical 250gb or so drive for windows and several large storage drives. Perhaps it was as drives became cheaper and larger.

I then became a fan of having the physical drive dedicated to each task. So the system drive reads / writes did not affect the storage drives and visa versa.

But as above its all down to personal preference.

 

[PCS]

There is no wrong or right, and I used to partition my hard drives back in the day. However, I don't find there is any need now, because I just create folders and put all the data there. If I was to re-install Windows, I don't have to format the drive and all the old data will be stored in the windows.old folder.

I use RAID Mirror on my PC - so I've always got backup against single hard disk failure.

 

[PokerFace]

Thanks PCS.

So am I right in saying that if I needed to reinstall Windows, I could reinstall it onto my currently partitioned HDD and unless I formatted the HDD I would end up with:

1) My docs still on my large partition (current location).
2) The new Windows system files and the old Windows system files in the smaller partition.
3) Any other files such as program files etc that are currently on the smaller partition would remain, as I have not formatted the drive.
4) Can I format a single partition only, or is the whole drive automatically formatted.

Just yes/no answers will be fine if you wish....I know you're busy!

 

[PCS]

1. The other partitions are seen by Windows as a separate drive, and therefore wouldn't be touched.

2. Yes, unless you chose to format the hard drive your computer would move all your documents/music/videos, etc to a windows.old foler.

3. As above.

4. Yes, you can format a single partition.

 

[vanthus]

You might lose applications after performing a successful reinstallation of Windows 7, so you should always prepare to reinstall your programs just in case the Repair Install damages any of your installations.

 

[PCS]

Yes - applications, etc, will not be saved. As far as I can recall everything under the folder: C:\Users\[insert-name-here] will be saved