pros and cons about putting the OS on a separate partition

[scrivener07]

Best to get a SSD that's large enough for the OS and all the updates..current and future. I think probably a 60GB ish SSD would be enough.

 

I'd also suggest getting Windows 7 Professional over Home Premium.

 

Yes and Yes Grab a 60-80gb + Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate. Do some research on how to properly setup your system for an ssd to get the most out of it.

* Windows 7 Ultimate Tweaks & Utilities *

Black Viper’s Windows 7 Super Tweaks

Just some cool stuff to read over.

[LHammonds]

just curious about the pros and cons about putting your OS on a separate partition.

I have been using the separated drives trick for a LONG time and it is standard procedure for servers because you NEVER want your OS drive to become full...because it stops working which is generally a bad thing.

 

I setup my system like this:

 

C: 50 GB (Boot OS)

D: 100 GB (Apps and Games)

E: Rest of the GB (Data and more Games)

 

I also configure my OS so that all temp variables point to D:\Temp so the C: does not grow with usage. I also move the swapfile from C: to D: and set it to be the same minimum and maximum size to prevent fragmentation from paging. For servers, I also point the log files to D: too. The point is to configure the system so that it does not write to C: any more than it has to. When you defrag it (assuming it is NOT an SSD drive), you likely never have to defrag C: again.

 

Another performance boost (or really it should be bogginess preventer) is the use of portable apps for as much as I can use. Using portable apps prevents the need to "install" files on your OS and registry which tend to bog down your PC the more you install / uninstall / upgrade. Here are some well-used ones: OpenOffice, Firefox, Notepad++, GIMP, VLC Media Player, Spybot and Synkron to name a few.

 

I currently have a 120 GB SSD drive where 50 GB is C: and D: has the rest. My OS and apps start up very quick and no need to defrag. My Oblivion load screens are extremely fast (including the CS).

 

The advantage is optimum configuration for performance and backup. It really isn't meant to be "if a drive dies, it is easier to replace" but I do recommend setting everything up so that all your valuable "data" is stored under a single location such as E:\MyData and use a backup utility (like Synkron) to keep your data in sync with other internal physical drives as well as external drives on a normal basis. Make sure everything that you want restored that cannot be re-created (e.g. your "data") is somewhere in that centralized data folder. Here is an article I wrote about this: Backup your data files.

 

The obvious disadvantage is that you have to "know" how your system is setup and continue to maintain your configuration. It would be silly if I took the time to setup this elaborate system, hand it over to Joe Blow and they have no idea how to maintain it and thus install programs to C:, create data files all over the place and never backup anything.

 

Even us "pros" can forget to keep our data inside our backup plan and when crap hits the fan, you'll be happy that your data is safely tucked away on an external drive that you can easily put back onto a new computer and/or drive. Consequently, all my Blender files, source textures live under "MyData" folder and are copied to Oblivion's data folder. And using TES4Files, I make quick version backups of my plugins and related files and copy them back to the MyData folder for safe archiving.

 

For more info on SSD, read through our pinned topic. However, keep in mind the dates of the posts as you read through.

 

LHammonds

[hoofhearted4]

wow thanks! hopefully i learn more and more when i go back to school. i wont be building my PC till next summer im guessing, so knowing this fast isnt important, learning it is. by the time i go along with this stuff i hope to know what im doing!

 

thanks for all your help!

[Vagrant0]

Generally, you won't get much of a speed increase between having your OS on a partition or not. The only time it will really make much of a difference is in sorting your programs or in reformatting. It will still have relatively the same startup time and seek time because you are still checking the same hard drive and drive speeds these days are fast enough on their own to get around the slight increase from your OS being in a partition.

 

Your best bet is to have more than one HDD. You don't need to go as far as a SSD (and you're still probably better off not since those have limited write limit and need to have various components directed to another location), you can instead just get yourself a nice 200gb drive for your OS and common programs, and a 1tb drive for temp files, pagefile, your games and other files.

 

Having your pagefile and temp files somewhere other than your OS can significantly increase load times in and of itself. You could even just have a tiny 20gb drive for pagefile and notice a significant speed increase if the drive is fairly quick, making it a great use for old drives provided there is room in your case and it's still working.

 

Other than that, pretty much everything LHammonds said.

[hoofhearted4]

i plan on getting a 500gb Seagate Momentous hybrid.

[lostone1993]

I may be wrong on this but anyway separating os and programs etc is a good idea but wouldent the registry get stuffed up when you reinstall/reformat the os drive, I mean some programs and games will stop working, ive had it happen, but that may have been just something i did wrong

[Vagrant0]

I may be wrong on this but anyway separating os and programs etc is a good idea but wouldent the registry get stuffed up when you reinstall/reformat the os drive, I mean some programs and games will stop working, ive had it happen, but that may have been just something i did wrong

Yep, you still have to reinstall the programs. The point is not to forego the need to reinstall, but rather so that if you retain most of the files related to that program instead of having to go through and backup all files manually. This is useful because most backups only preserve system files, and most of the times you really need to reformat are times when you don't have the luxury of time to backup documents and the like.

[cavveman]

For instance, these games support the idea of being independent from the registry:

Far Cry 2(installed it like 2 years ago, just backup your save games and you are fine)

Fallout 3(Just backup the folder in my documents\my games)

Sid Meier's Civilization 4 with expansions, just backup the folder inside my documents

GTA 3, GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas. Just backup the folders inside my documents

 

Just about all games I have do not use the registry that much, almost nothing. As long you back up the game folder inside My documents you will be fine. If you use other drive for My Documents, you are even more safe, no need to think about fixing a backup of files, everything will be intact.

 

All steamgames I have bought can be installed in other drives. The only thing that happens is that Steam reinstalls some settings like shortcuts, but the games will be 100% intact.

[nosisab]

Just to add a commentary over CommanderCrazy post:

One thing that could be considered a con, is that the desktop files take up space in C drive. You'll need to make shortcuts if you store things in folders on your desktop.

 

Please don't do it, avoid having anything in the Desktop other than the icons (shortcuts), actually you should clean the excess icons when possible. Above all avoid having installations or applications running from it.

 

For the first case, just for performance reasons, the Desktop is a very special folder which is constantly polled. For the second, I'm not really sure if the security mechanism has some special care about it but to be on the secure side "avoid installing games or any application which rely on mods/plugins on ANY Windows special folders, which includes the /Documents and any folder under /Users".

 

On the other hand, there is no disadvantage I know about leaving the OS (as so as drivers and special applications) in it's own partition and keeping it the smaller possible. It's advisable keeping the /Users structure intact, just avoid using the Documents folder to actually store documents and you should be good :)

 

Documents, multimedia content and alike do feel good (and way more secure) being stored in another partition or disc.

 

PS: Almost forgot, if Vista or Windows 7 ... the C:\Program Files (x86) should be avoided to install games at all cost... it's just perverse it being the "default" install path. Almost all problems/issues involving file permissions, "disappearing" folders (why this made me recall Jskar?) originate from applications running from these specially protected folders. Many times confused with "user rights" the problem is in fact "application rights", mainly when the code trying to access determined resource is not the main application (like plugins/mods), which can lead the security system to see it as third party invasion attempt.

Edited July 18, 2011 by nosisab

[DarkeWolf]

I was going to post something very similar to Lon's post in #12, but he and Vagrant have both done a terrific job (as always) of it. I will go ahead and second it, that adding your virtual memory to a different partion or HDD than the OS is also a good thing.

 

I also have to second what Osisab said about windows vista and especially windows 7 with that gd'd C:\Program Files (x86) folder. Win7 sometimes has some serious admin privelages issues with that folder. Sometimes it's easy to overcome by creating a second admin acccount. But still. :mad: