Is your hard drive currently being used as one big storage unit for every file on your computer? If this is the case, you can simplify maintenance and backups, as well as improve system performance, by dividing your hard drive into multiple partitions.

What are partitions?
Partitioning is a process that enables one physical hard drive to be split into several (or many) virtual hard drives. Each of these behaves like a separate stand-alone drive: they can be as large or as small as you like; they have their own drive letter assigned (D:, E:, F:, etc); and each one is independent of the others, which means they can have different file systems (FAT32, NTFS, etc) and even different operating systems (Windows 98, Windows XP, Linux, etc).
 

Why should you bother with partitions?
You’re probably thinking that partitioning will turn an already complicated device into an even more devilish nightmare of complexity. It may seem that way at first, but, ultimately, it will simplify your use and give you lots of benefits. Here are the main ones:

• The principal benefit of partitioning for most users is that it allows the separation of your user-created data, such as documents, spreadsheets, MP3 files, and photos, from your operating system and program files. This is highly desirable because it makes it much easier to keep tabs on your user data for backups and maintenance.Let’s look at defragmentation as an example: you’ve probably been advised that this process is required to keep your system in good working order. A drive only becomes badly defragmented when files are continually being added and deleted — such as occurs with your user data, not with system and program files (unless you are constantly adding and removing applications). When you defragment an unpartitioned drive, you are therefore including unnecessary files, which makes the process take much longer than it need be and probably less likely to be done regularly.The separation of data from programs and system files is also of great benefit in recovering from a system crash or virus infection. See the FixTool guide to Quick Reinstallation of Your System.
• Having several smaller partitions allows for a more efficient use of available disk space than when you have one large partition. It also enables system maintenance tasks to work more efficiently.
• As disks get bigger and bigger, it just makes good sense to assign different areas to different tasks, both to allow better organization and to increase working efficiency. For example, Photoshop and other multimedia programs work better if they have a dedicated partition defined as a temporary work area. If you’ve got all that space, why not use it to your advantage?
• If you want to use two or more operating systems, you will need to use partitioning. You may, for example, want to take advantage of all the free software available with the Linux operating environment, but still keep your Windows options open. You can have both with a partitioned hard drive.

How do you create partitions?
Windows comes equipped with basic software to enable partitions to be created, but be warned, these tools (generally) don’t allow the resizing of existing partitions without the total deletion of all existing files. This is okay if you have a bootable Windows CD, all your programs on CD, and all your data and settings backed up. You can then start from scratch with a clean installation of the software into as many partitions as you like.

A better and more user-friendly approach is to use a commercial program such as:

Partition Magic
PartitionExpert
Partition Commander

These tools allow current partitions to be resized and new ones created without any data loss. A Google search will also reveal a number of free partitioning utilities.

How many partitions do you need?
If you want to keep it simple, the number of partitions can be as little as two — one for the operating system and program files and the other for your data files.
A better layout might be as follows: use the C drive for the operating system and a few programs like your Web browser, security applications, and backup software; the D drive for all other installed programs; the E drive for My Documents; the F drive for temporary files; and the G drive for backups and archiving of files.

Internet research on this topic may give a better idea of a partition scheme that suits your individual requirements.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 10:56 am and is filed under Tutorials, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Windows 98, Windows 95, Preventative Measures, Performance & Optimization, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.