Partition Hard Drives

[dtm32236]

So, I've read about the benefits of partitioning a large hard drive, and the only one that's relevant to my issue is to speed up performance.

I just got a 1TB Sata HD to store my media (music, movies, tv shows, games). I'd rather not partition the drive, and just have 4 folders labeled accordingly. That would be the most simple way to do it, as I don't know how large each directory will get.

BUT, if I partition the drive so that the 4 categories are their own drive, will it really speed up the performance noticeably? I just don't know if it's worth substituting convenience for speed.

Any thoughts?

Thanks so much...

[scragar]

I can't imagine any benefits to partitioning the hard drive other than a separate formating and a reduced need to defragment each section as a result.

The main advantage to repartitioning the drive is that if you ever need to reinstall all your files are safe from being erased by the reinstall.

[dtm32236]

The main advantage to repartitioning the drive is that if you ever need to reinstall all your files are safe from being erased by the reinstall.

That's a good point. This drive will never contain an OS though - it's for data only, so that shouldn't be a problem.

I guess that I'll be okay without partitioning. I'll probably just leave it as one drive with the 4 main directories.

Thanks a lot scragar.

[\\.\]

Theirs plenty of reasons why you should partition the drive and one is that if anything happened to the partition, track 0 / boot sector gets nuked, whatever the reason, including your OS gets nuked, your whole drive becomes a paperweight.

If you have 4 partitions, 2 with operating systems on, you are not only safeguarding the files and data on those partitions but also having multiple operating systems makes life easy should one (current boot up) fails, you have a backup OS to get in to your drive & data, as long as the folders are not encrypted...

If your an "Eggs in one basket" guy, then that's your choice, I can only advise that you back up regular.

[dtm32236]

Theirs plenty of reasons why you should partition the drive and one is that if anything happened to the partition, track 0 / boot sector gets nuked, whatever the reason, including your OS gets nuked, your whole drive becomes a paperweight.

If you have 4 partitions, 2 with operating systems on, you are not only safeguarding the files and data on those partitions but also having multiple operating systems makes life easy should one (current boot up) fails, you have a backup OS to get in to your drive & data, as long as the folders are not encrypted...

If your an "Eggs in one basket" guy, then that's your choice, I can only advise that you back up regular.

Thanks \\.\

I'll definitely consider adding an OS to be safe. This seems like a good idea.

[dtm32236]

Hey guys, I've haven't worked much with partitions and OSs on additional hard drives.

Partition 1 - E: - Operating System
Partition 2 - F: - Movies
Partition 3 - G: - Music
Partition 4 - H: - TV Shows
Partition 5 - I: - Games
Partition 6 - J: - Software

Is there a limit to the number of partitions, and will I be able to cover these partitions through the OS? I know that you said to put an OS on 2 of the 4 partitions, but is it okay to have just one on it's own partition?

And I already have everything stored on it, unpartitioned. Am I able to use free space to create partitions and then install an OS on one?

Sorry for asking stupid questions - I've clearly never done this before. I really appreciate the help though.

Thanks again.