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I'm going to setup my new laptop tonight and I've heard with Windows 7 you have to determine how large of a partition you want for the OS. I've seen recommendations anywhere from 15GB to 20GB to partition the whole HDD. What do you guys think?
The easiest and most common solution is to simply create a single partition that uses the entire hard disk. That way you don't have to worry about Windows outgrowing it or which drive all the bits and pieces of your data live on. I have Windows 7 installed on a separate physical hard disk (for performance reasons) and my Win7 partition is 73GB of which 35GB is actually used. I have all my program files installed to that drive too.
The easiest and most common solution is to simply create a single partition that uses the entire hard disk. That way you don't have to worry about Windows outgrowing it or which drive all the bits and pieces of your data live on. I have Windows 7 installed on a separate physical hard disk (for performance reasons) and my Win7 partition is 73GB of which 35GB is actually used. I have all my program files installed to that drive too.
Why do they even ask you if you want to partition as part of setup? Seems like that should be an option later on if you wish. What's the advantage to partitioning space off on the HD for the OS?
Why do they even ask you if you want to partition as part of setup? Seems like that should be an option later on if you wish. What's the advantage to partitioning space off on the HD for the OS?
When you start with a blank hard drive, you always have to create at least one partition onto which you install the operating system. Think of a partition as a container, not a divider between containers. Its your choice whether you make that partition less than the full size of the disk.
If you were going to install multiple operating systems, you wouldn't want to create one big partition. You'd want to create a separate partition for each operating system and possibly create a partition to contain data that would be accessible by all of the operating systems.
Some people like to create a partition for their operating system and another for their data, all on the same drive. It makes it easier to create backup images of the OS partition since its smaller. Should the OS become completely fubar'ed to the point of needing a reformat, they could reformat just the OS partition, leaving the data partition intact. The downside is that you have to decide when you're setting up the machine how much space to allocate to the OS vs. data. Some people even go so far as to create separate data partitions for different kinds of data (ie one for pictures, one for music, etc).
I find these schemes usually wind up painting the user into a corner at some point so I don't recommend them. For most users, just creating a single partition that takes up the whole disk is the simplest.
I typically create at least two partitions, because I use different backup schedules on the partition containing the OS vs the one containing my data. I typically go with 100GB for the OS and the rest for my data. So far 100GB has been sufficient. On the system I'm using right now the first hard drive has two partitions, one for Win 7 and one for data. The other bootable drive has Win XP, Win 98, data, and the boot manager partition (BootIt NG).
I have 2 HDs in a RAID-0 configuration and I am also one of those who likes 2 partitions. First one for the OS and applications (10% of the total disk space or 50GB, whichever is greater - is my rule of thumb) . If you drive is smaller than 250GB then it makes more sense to stick with a single partition since nowadays every application and file types in use are space consuming.
After installing the OS + service packs & updates, device drivers and 'must have' applications, I also run my own customization scripts. Once done install the imaging program on the other partition and create and image of the OS partition (C). I also keep the Virtual Memory aka Page File on the Data Partition (D) for a slight performance increase which most probably wouldn't even notice compared to RAID-0 performance boost.
If you have 2 physical hard disks/drives and you do not configure them in any kind of RAID, then having the page file on a partition other than the boot partition might make a difference.
Reading how you typically use your computer and the size of the entire hard drive, I have to agree with those who suggested a single partition.
Keeping things simple is often the best way!
So it ends up I didn't even get the option to partition the HDD, looks like with Samsung the initial set-up is performed at the factory. It's bizarre because they partition the HDD with 100GB for OS, and 400GB for data. I'm a little annoyed because I was just going to do a single partition. The other weird thing is that Windows had the whole "My Photos", "My Music", etc... on the C: drive. I'd think that should be on the D: drive given that's where data is supposed to go. Should I move those folders to the D: drive or just create new folders there and leave the C: drive as is? Thanks!
You can always configure the location of your 'My Documents' folder without actually having to create a new folder or manually moving files.
You can change the settings for related directories directly in the registry under:
HK_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENT VERSION\EXPLORER\USER SHELL FOLDERS
So you simply change the data for any of the value's you want to change from "%userprofile%" to "D:\"
but a safer and easier way would be to open Windows Explorer and browse to the user's profile located at C:\Users\" then expand the directory.
- Right-click on 'My Documents' folder
- Click on 'Properties'
- Click on 'Location' tab
- Click on 'Move' button
- Browse to the new desired location to select it.
Note: If you want to place them in a new folder that doesn't exist then click on 'New Folder' button on top to create it on the fly.
- Click Apply (or OK).
- Click YES to confirm.
That is it.
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