What's the point of partitions?

[ClickHere2Surf.com]

Besides the obvious, having multiple OS's, why do some people make a 1GB partition for windows (installing programs adds DLLs to there and it might run out of space), one for music, one for videos, one for games, etc?

Isn't that what folders are for? Some say it's so they dont loose everything, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still a single drive and if it crashes everything is gone, regardless of partitions. Viruses also can easily spread to other partitions, they aren't magic walls that block viruses, if they were then it would make more sense, but they can't block viruses either.

I can understand one partion for the OS and your files in another so you can re-install without wipping your files (on a planned occasion, not due to a crash), but even then, you can do that with no partitions. But what about those that make a partition for music, one for the os, one for games, I mean what's the point? You're just limiting your space for each section for no reason, what if you suddenly have more mp3s or more games than fits the partition? This wouldnt be a problem with folders.

Does anyone know of any advantage of doing this or are these people not aware of what folders are? Or am I missing something?

Thanks

[WebHead]

I agree. Many years ago I used to create two partitions typically. One for Win98 and the other for data. The reason why was because I found myself constantly having to reinstall Win98 because it became corrupted so often. Over the last few years, with WinXP and other improved systems,.. I rarely ever have to reinstall, so it makes more sense to just use one partition.

[Platypus]

Yes, the major original purpose for partitioning was to make one drive appear to be two or more separate drives for installing multiple operating systems.

I think its main useful purpose generally now is to ease drive maintenance or maintain performance by containing file locations to specific areas of the drive, which is not achieved by the use of folders.

It is still good to have a smaller system partition if you backup to an image, and defragmenting just the system partition is a quick process.

It's also useful if you want partitions for specific purposes, maybe with varying file systems. My music recording system, which has to make do with a 40G PATA drive until I can justify getting a Raptor, has a 7.2GB NTFS partition with large clusters appearing as D: but located at the start of the drive where the transfer rate is highest. Then comes the 6GB C: system partition and the remainder as E:, both FAT32 for easy access from standard DOS or in a Win9x machine if anything goes awry with XP.

[ClickHere2Surf.com]

About that Raptor you want to justify buying, I was considering a raid of raptors, until I realized a raid of 4 Sata drives is much cheaper and much faster for the same capacity compared to a raid of 2 raptors, if you were considering a single non-raided raptor, a raid 0 of two sata will be faster and cheaper for the same capacity.

[Ruslan]

Everyone decides whatever is better... Personally I prefer to have at least 2 partitions (depends also on drive's size) just only because I like to keep files in order and according to theirs importance...

[InTheWayBoy]

I go with partitions still...I feel just a little more safe knowing my data is not on the system partition. That way when I go to reinstall, I don't have to worry about anything and can just format the mofo and get started. Can't do that so easily if the folders lay on the system partition.

[rgharper]

Everyone decides whatever is better... Personally I prefer to have at least 2 partitions (depends also on drive's size) just only because I like to keep files in order and according to theirs importance...

For me, it makes backups easier. Having Windows on one partition means that I back up that partition fairly frequently. Having documents and (most) programs on a second partition means that one gets backed up less frequently. My MP3s and video files are on a third partition that rarely gets backed up since that data rarely changes.

[Platypus]

About that Raptor you want to justify buying

The Raptor would be the simplest way to get a significant jump in performance with the (Non-RAID SATA motherboard) system I have at the moment.

There's more to consider than just the raw drive speed (transfer rate).

The onboard SATA will separate the HDD data stream (direct to ICH5) from the soundcard data stream on the PCI bus. If I got two 7200RPM SATA drives and a RAID card, it would all have to go through the struggling PCI.

CPU overhead is also significant for running soft synths & effects, and even though overhead is particularly modest with hardware SATA RAID, there's likely to be a little more headroom with a single drive than running RAID.

For multi-track recording, rotational latency and head seek time is also important, and the Raptor certainly has the edge there. Add in 5 year warranty and the dropping price and it becomes more attractive.

If I changed my system completely prior to getting a Raptor, the equation might then work out different.

[TechZ]

Definately partitions, Large volumes Data like Media files, need their own space, its just easier to access, sort, keeps the place clean,
on my 120gb i have 4 partitions, on my ext 120, i got 4 too.
Do a reinstall, dont think twice about losing important files. You wouldnt keep monopoly money and real money together would you?

[gazzak]

If you want your operating system to work efficiently then partitions is the way to go. Having your swap file and/or applications & data on another partition will definately make windows work more efficiently. Keep the C: drive for the O.S. only and you will have a far happier PC.

(and the temp folders pointing to another partition helps also)

[craigmodius]

I have 2 partitions setup in windows. One for OS one for docs. Some advantages that might not have been mentioned so far include...

I can quickly see how much harddrive space I am using as opposed to how much space Windows is using.

I dual boot windows and fedora linux, so in fedora I only have to have it mount one partition if I want my docs.

I've recently started video editing and am considering getting a larger harddrive, if I need to move my docs to that new drive it's a simple procedure or moving one partition as opposed to going thru tons of files and moving things.

I can see where it becomes far easier to manage ntfs and file sharing permissions when you have all of "your stuff" one one partition.

and I can have my C: drive be fat32 and accessable to alot more disk fixing utilities and my D: drive be ntfs and better able to be secured.

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I think overall it forces you to actually pay attention and know what you're doing with your files. If you install a new game or program that accesses a database, you're going to tell that program to put your game saves or database on the docs partition, as opposed to letting it put it wherever.

that may seem like a repeat of the backup reasoning, but knowing what to backup is the key, and a second partition forces that.

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Plus as we all know, Real Men Dual-Boot

[Outcoded]

I normally go with two drives, one with system files and one with my files. There's a few reasons for this, and they are can be used to justify partitions too I guess:

if I need to reformat (or give it it's annual clear out, I can just format that drive without thinking "Did I get all the important stuff off?"

Backing up, just click the drive and go, rather than messing around.

My work drive is shared on the LAN, sharing a drive feels "more right" to me than sharing folders.

If I replace the system, I just move the drive (doesn't really apply to partitions).

The other reason is it makes setting permissions easier, and dedicating areas to different members of the family.

[confus-ed]

Cor blimey Guv ! .. there's some crumby answers here on what partitions are for & 'about'

Partitions are 'logical containers' .. typically used to segregate data used for different purposes, such as operating systems, applications, and data, or different operating systems. Not all operating systems can access all types of partition formats, so different partitions may be required to segregate the various formats required by the operating systems in use.(dual boot etc)

& sure they are just a 'theorectical distinction' .. but so are domains & such & they prove most useful

So some 'whys' on when partitions are useful ...

Average windows install is some 20,000+ odd files - would I like to look through that list each time I want a data file ? No I bloody well wouldn't - I put that in a partition ..

I want to backup my windows installation - how do I do that 'efficiently' ? - well I use partitions (already covered)

I want to use more than one o/s (covered)

I want to minimise fragmentation of files - so I use partitions to help me with having to defrag every two minutes as my machine without partitions keeps writing data files in all the gaps as thats the way both FAT & NTFS work.

So yeah partitions are handy & better than files (as xp don't know nothing 'really' about folders as they are just another 'logical container' of files {which explains many of xp/w2k oddities on the subject}) but you need to be generally logical yourself to take advantage of the benefits ..

btw despite what my mate Platypus has to say , the main reason why partitioning as a practice is so widespread is down to how FAT16 worked & its inability to address larger volumes (than 2gig, due to some techo-waffle about cluster limits, that I shan't bore you with ) ..

[Ya_know]

I create a partition for pagfiling, usually a 4 gig partition (plenty of elbo room), another for data, and depending on how many OS's I wish to install, one partition for each of those.

The Pagefile one is great for eliminating fragmentation of the pagefile itself. It is no faster being on a separate partition then being on the system partition, simply because it all resides on the same disk volume. However by preventing fragmentation, It minimizes maintenance on the pagefile (i.e. deleting and recreating every time you defrag). Having all the data in one partition is great, because if the OS does tank, you can move any minimal crucial profile data to that partition, wipe the system and reinstall, while never effecting the data partition.

[CeeBee]

The Pagefile one is great for eliminating fragmentation of the pagefile itself. It is no faster being on a separate partition then being on the system partition...

So then why not keep the pagefile with a fixed size on the Windowze partition and defragment it using the page defragmenter from Sysinternals ???