OS position advice

sutom

sutom

sutom

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Hi, I'm looking to build a new system with a Samsung F1 1TB. I've read many threads on here about OS/games/apps installs and partitions etc but am still undecided how to set up a system. I have a WD MyBook 500Gb external as a backup. Which would be better, speed- and organisation-wise of the following?:

1x F1 1TB - OS and data all on one partition - simple but have to back everything up for OS reinstall

1x F1 1TB - two partitions for OS + data - easier for OS reinstall but might run out of OS partition space, so messier

1x F1 320GB - OS + 1x F1 1TB - Data - simple OS reinstall but more expensive (maybe unecessary storage space...)

Any advice would be really helpful. Maybe it doesn't really matter, I've just had data scattered all over smaller drives for ages and I'm getting obsessed about cleaning it up :(

Thanks
 
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I have a 640GB drive with my OS on it, and I have split it so I have 96.1GB as the OS/Apps/games partition, and 500GB as storage. I've had this install for about 5 months and have 25GB free, and thats including a lot of games that I dont play and could quite easilly uninstall if needed.
 
I would create a small partition at the start of the TB drive to install your OS and apps onto, this way it is on the fastest part of the disk.
 
Thanks, a partition seems a good idea. I'm just worried I'll run out of space as I plan to have quite a few games installed on Steam, along with Office and Adobe CS3 and all the other apps. Do you think 250GB would be enough or too much for an OS partition?

Also, if I managed to get a 320GB F1 for the OS/apps and an F1 1TB purely for data, would there be any problems if I moved a few of the Vista Documents folders (pictures, music, video) over to the data drive? Is it safe to do so?

thanks for the help guys

edit: actually I might just put everything on the 1TB drive (single partition) then backup the Documents folder to my external drive, so it's really simple. As long as I defrag often everything should run quite fast, correct? Sorry for being so indecisive!
 
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What if you need to format though? You will need to find room for a hell of a lot of data! 250GB seems a hell of a lot of room for an OS partition but it will easilly be more than enough to put your mind at rest.

Like I said earlier, I only have 96GB and thats with office, CS3, load of small apps, 6 steam games (all the half lifes/CSS and max payne 1+2), COD4, COJ, CNC3 + kanes wrath and indiana jones with 25GB free space.
 
This is my current partition Setup

300G ( primary drive )
20G - Xp O.S. and other apps
20G - Xp O.S. number 2 ( backup O.S. incase primary fails)
250G - Storage 1

300G ( second drive ) - Games / storage <- Faster gaming due to being on its own drive
20G - Ubuntu 8.4
100G - Games partition
100G - Storage 2( My docs mapped here / backups / installers / acronis images )
80G - Video storage1

300G ( third drive) - Storage
150G - Video storage 2
150G - Video storage 3

I try to keep my data and my apps seperate ( makes it easier to fix problems when apps get screwed up )
 
fobose said:
What if you need to format though? You will need to find room for a hell of a lot of data! 250GB seems a hell of a lot of room for an OS partition but it will easilly be more than enough to put your mind at rest.
Like I said earlier, I only have 96GB and thats with office, CS3, load of small apps, 6 steam games (all the half lifes/CSS and max payne 1+2), COD4, COJ, CNC3 + kanes wrath and indiana jones with 25GB free space.
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Hmmm if I have a mirror of my documents on the external drive I can just wipe the OS drive then copy everything back into documents. I was planning to install quite a few games (with mods) and rip all my CDs so thought it would be faster if it was all on the same drive. I wouldn't need to move the Documents folder then..

Major_Disaster said:
How much space do you need for documents?
Easiest would probably be OS on the 320GB drive and documents on the 1TB.
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Not sure but I figure about 500GB for documents/music/pictures/videos so I can back it up externally. If that overflows I'll leave off non-essential stuff or find another external drive. I could get the 320Gb drive but might save money for a better GPU or something, since I'm gonna build a new PC base unit for this but don't have a lot of money :)
 
Tom* said:
1x F1 320GB - OS + 1x F1 1TB - Data - simple OS reinstall but more expensive (maybe unecessary storage space...)
Click to expand...

That's been my setup (in one form or another) for the past 8 years and it works very well.
 
Imy said:
That's been my setup (in one form or another) for the past 8 years and it works very well.
Click to expand...

Ok cool, well I might try and do that then, budget allowing. Did you move the Vista Documents location to the data drive, and if so were there any problems from doing that?
 
I have a RAID 0 array with Vista on and a RAID 5 array with data on. All the data directories in Vista are mapped onto folders which reside on the RAID 5 array. From the top of my head that's: My Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, Saved Games, Favourites and possibly a couple others.

So if the worst happens, I just re-install Vista and programs and re-create the mappings to the data directories.

EDIT: This one is quite important: I also store my Outlook .pst files on the RAID 5 array. The same goes for any other program which allows me to specify where to store configuration settings and data.
 
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Will definitely look into that Imy. I've never really done much with HDDs and installs, usually just keep everything on a single drive etc.

Thanks again :)
 
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