How to 'efficiently' partition HD's?

[muppet]

System Specs:
Celeron: 1.7G
OS: W2K Pro
RAM: 512 PC2100
HD's: Maxtor 40G, Maxtor 60G

Will need some space for games like civiii, total war etc.
Will need some space for storage of data, about 35G worth.

Been advised that I should create a small partition exclusively for Kazaa, or WinMX Downloads and then cut/paste the files to a data partition as these downloads are very fragmented.

Been advised to create a FAT32 partition to store a Norton Ghost file image of my OS and Applications.

Question:

What would you guys suggests? How many partitions and how big each partition on the two drives, and what goes in which partition?

Kinda of topic... but why a FAT32 for Ghost and everything else NTFS?

 

[Lostman]

I think people make things too complicated. Use the 60 gig for your OS and progs and use your other for storage (and scan the crap out of it daily for viruses).

That's all you need. You can put your Ghost image on it and all is well. I partition if I have multiple os's running on the same h/d. That's it.

Don't forget you can also map a network drive. Good way to keep things segregated.

 

[BlueMonday]

Don't go nuts with the partitions. My freind hs two hard drives partitioned into eight sections and it's just a beast to find anything. Here's how I do it:

I set aside about ten gigs for the primary OS and critical system applications like ZoneAlarm, Nero, Maxmem, Winace, Winrar, WinISO, Ghost, Norton Antivirus, etc. If I had a larger hard drive on the primary then I'd set aside a seperate partition for other applications like Maple, Sibelius, Photoshop, Mathematica, etc; but as it is, I just throw those onto the OS partition. For games I've got another partition (about 15 gigs) and the third partition is for my donwloaded stuff and the things I use to get those downloaded things (like Direct Connect, eDonkey, WS_FTP). I used to keep the p2p apps on a seperate partition, but I learned the the time that it takes for the drives to shuffle info from one partition to the other becomes a big hassle.

Mix and match it as you like, but as I said before, stay away from creating dozens of partitions.

Kinda of topic... but why a FAT32 for Ghost and everything else NTFS?

It really doesn't matter. If you're going to ghost your OS partition and your applications just stick with whatever file format you prefer. If your using NTFS, ghost it in NTFS. The only advantage with FAT is that it'll be reverse compatible with Windows 9x OSs...but if your ghosting 2k, why bother?

Edit: Use Partition Magic to partition your drives. It's the best.

 

[Perfection]

Why would you want to partition your drives anyway?

 

[damunzy]

Reason to have separate partitions for p2p programs from your OS and Games as given by Blue isa good one. Here is my proof:

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

If you really want a good alternative to a partition go to www.infinisource.com and read their article about external HDDs. Clearly a superior alternative.

 

[Perfection]

Get hot swap hard drives, those are fun

 

[damunzy]

I was thinking about that...but they be expensive. The next step was removeable HDD (the machine has to be off before taking them out).
What I really need is at least 2 computers so I can work on Linux while I am using XP.....also makes it easier to test out a server to have a client connect to it.

 

[Perfection]

I'm playing with the company webserver right now so I don't have to pay for the hot swap drives

 

[damunzy]

Hehe, nice...that is always a great thing. I am trying to get friendly with our SysAdmin so maybe he lets me play with some of the hardware.

 

[Perfection]

I'm the beta nerd at my company, the alpha nerd actually being the CEO.

 

[damunzy]

Hehe, cool. At my company I am surrounded by Nerds! (programming company...guess it makes sense)

Don't know what the pecking order is but I am sure I am nowhere near the top.

 

[Perfection]

I work for a small internet company there are only 3 techies. The real reason I get to play with the machine is cuz were running row on office space and my "office" is the walkin closet with the server computer. I also have the firewall the backup server and a windows network server to play with, thank god for KVM switchess