On 5/26/15 8:42 AM, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2015 00:26:27 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:
FWIW, MS has acknowledged partitioning and relocating the folders can be
a good thing.
snip
We agree on everything I just snipped. I want to shorten this reply, as
I agree with your perspective 99+% of the time. G
1. A partition for just Windows
Most people who create such a partition do so because they believe
that if they ever have to reinstall Windows cleanly, at least they
won’t lose their data and won’t have to reinstall their applications,
because both are safe on other partitions.
In fact the first of those thoughts is a false comfort, and the second
is downright wrong. See the discussion of partition types 2 and 4
below to find out why.
Also note that as time passes, many people find that their Windows
partition that started out to be the right size turns out to be too
small. For example, if you have such a Windows partition, and later
upgrade to a newer version of Windows, you may find that your Windows
partition is too small.
Windows was the 3rd OS I was exposed to, and I discovered this too as I
learned how Windows worked. But not so much from updating to a newer
version of Windows, but because of the existing installation kept
getting larger from MS updates, and program installation.
On these old systems I fix up now and again, I try to leave 25% free
space after everything is installed, including all updates and the
supplied software. The impediment for the 25% is usually the small hard
drive.
snip
Agreed on the snipped text.
4. A partition for backup of other partitions.
Some people make a separate partition to store backups of their other
partition(s). People who rely on such a "backup" are just kidding
themselves. It's only very slightly better than no backup at all,
because it leaves you susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original
and backup to many of the most common dangers: head crashes and other
kinds of drive failure, severe power glitches, nearby lightning
strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer. In my view,
secure backup needs to be on removable media, and not kept in the
computer.
This I've never done. Always on a separate physical drive. The minor
difference is, on my Win7/8 machine, I only have one separate drive for
the backups, but it has 2 partitions, one for the Win 7 install, one for
the Win 8 install. It's turning into a special use machine, so there
will not be a lot of data on it.
5. A partition for data files
snip
Agreed on snipped text.
However for some people it can be a good idea to separate Windows and
programs on the one hand from data on the other, putting each of the
two types into separate partitions. I think that most people’s
partitioning scheme should be based on their backup scheme, and backup
schemes generally fall into two types: imaging the entire hard drive
or backup of data only. If you backup data only, that backup is
usually facilitated by having a separate partition with data only;
that permits backing up just that partition easily, without having to
collect bits and pieces from here and there. On the other hand, for
those who backup by creating an image of the entire drive, there is
usually little, if any, benefit to separating data in a partition of
its own.
What about user ignorance? G More on this later.
By the way, in all fairness, I should point out that there are many
well-respected people who recommend a separate partition for Windows,
regardless of your backup scheme. Their arguments haven’t convinced
me, but there are clearly two different views here.
Ignorance can come into play here also.
6. A partition for picture files
Some people like to treat pictures and videos as something separate
from other data files, and create a separate partition for them. To my
mind, a picture is simply another kind of data, and there is no
advantage in doing this.
7. A partition for music files.
The comments above pertaining to picture files apply equally to music
files. They are just another kind of data and should be treated the
same way as other data.
With all the audio and video files you can acquire these days, the
quantity can come into play for some users. More of an organizational
thing, I think, that thinking the data files are somehow different. I
have a brother-in-law who has separate drives for video and audio files.
He's go so many external drives for his data that he really needs an
NAS, but so far no luck in getting him to buy one.
snip
*Performance*
Some people have multiple partitions because they believe that it
somehow improves performance. That’s not correct. The effect is
probably small on modern computers with modern hard drives, but if
anything, the opposite is true: more partitions mean poorer
performance. That’s because normally no partition is full and there
are therefore gaps between them. It takes time for the drive’s
read/write heads to traverse those gaps. The closer together files
are, the faster access to them will be.
This is where I have some disagreement. :-)
For the systems belonging to my friends that I reinstalled the OS and
such on, with one partition for OS and programs, and one for data, they
all said the computer ran faster than when it was new.
Being cynical by nature, I thought they were nuts. But recently I read
a post somewhere about "short stroking" your hard drive. This is one
article you can find on the web:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/25522...o rmance.html
If this article and others are correct, then I think I accidentally
accomplished this on those systems. I also think this would be more
noticeable to the human brain on older and slower equipment.
Thoughts?
*Organization*
I think many people overpartition because they use partitions as an
organizational structure. They have a strong sense of order and want
to separate apples from oranges on their drives.
Yes, separating different kinds of files on partitions is an
organizational technique, but so is separating different kinds of
files in folders. The difference is that partitions are static and
fixed in size, while folders are dynamic, changing size automatically
as necessary to meet your changing needs. That generally makes folders
a much better way to organize, in my view.
True, partitions can be resized when necessary, but except with recent
versions of Windows, doing so requires third-party software (and the
ability to do it in Windows is primitive, compared to the third-party
solutions). Such third-party software normally costs money, and, no
matter how good and how stable it is, affects the entire drive,
entailing a risk of losing everything. Plan your partitions well in
the first place, and no repartitioning should be necessary. The need
to repartition usually comes about as a result of overpartitioning in
the first place.
What frequently happens when people organize with partitions instead
of folders is that they miscalculate how much room they need on each
such partition, and then when they run out of room on the partition
where a file logically belongs, while still having lots of space left
on the other, they simply store the file in the "wrong" partition.
Paradoxically, therefore, that kind of partition structure results in
less organization rather than more.
Other than the rare exception, I use folders. The exceptions would be
files so rarely accessed I simply want them somewhere that I'm not
accessing on any kind of regular basis. An analogy would be a mechanic
who has a group of specialized tools he may have to read the
instructions for each time he uses one. So he puts those tools in a
different drawer in the tool box so he doesn't have dig through them
each time he looks for a tool. So I would put those files on a
different partition that is rarely accessed, and the computer doesn't
have to "dig through" that part of the hard drive to find the more often
used data.
Again, more likely noticeable by the brain on slower equipment.
*So How Should I Partition My Drive*
If you've read what came before, my conclusions won't come as a
surprise:
1. if your backup scheme is to image the entire drive, have just a
single partition (usually C
;
2. if you just backup data, have two partitions–one for Windows and
installed application programs (usually C, the other for data
(usually D.
Except for those running multiple operating systems, there is seldom
any benefit to having more than two partitions.
One aspect we haven't discussed is the user. Basically, there's two
types, one who wants to know how the computer works even if just the
very basics, and the one that doesn't.
Your article would more likely be read and taken to heart by the first
type. The ones I bump into are generally the 2nd type, notably two of
my sisters. LOL
With the systems I donate, I assume the new owner is of the 2nd type.
Based on my experiences with those uses, I think partitioning and then
relocating the personal folders may offer some protection for those
users against their own ignorance. I've a friend that actually wrote
data to the restore partition and the Windows Program Files folder.
This was challenge to find and separate/recover/copy all his data before
reinstalling the OS.
Maybe this works for those new owners, maybe not. But, at least I can
say I tried. LOL
--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 36.0.4
Thunderbird 31.5
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"