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[El Guru (Al)]

That is the question. Since I am going to have to reformat the 120 GB drive anyway is there is a benefit to partitioning this here drive? I know back in the early days of Windows it was recommended to partition larger drives. But I have also heard this is no longer needed with Vista. The only benefit that comes to mind for me would be organization. What y'all think?

[OldManDeath]

I used to partition drives for that same reason, but I no longer do and have not partitioned a drive in a long time.  I do not think it is necessary anymore.

[xpgeek]

I only partition when I set up a dual boot, each installed OS having its own partition. Other then that, nope, no partitioning anymore.

[Ryan Wagner]

It really depends. I do it for some people because I use one partition to store their media and documents on, and another for the operating system. That way if their operating system ever fails and needs to be reinstalled I don't have to worry about them complaining that they lost all of their files (you know darn well they never make backups). Personally I don't create multiple partitions because I have another computer performing nightly backups of my important files.

Of course if your hard drive fails all together having a separate partition still won't save you.

[El Guru (Al)]

Of course if your hard drive fails all together having a separate partition still won't save you.

My thoughts exactly.

[leland]

I still recommend keeping your documents, pictures, music, etc... on a separate partition for simplicity sake.  If you keep everything in one place it's very easy to make backups, and in many cases it really can come in handy if windows starts acting up.  It also makes reinstalling Windows that much easier in the long run.  I guess for the most part though it is personal preference.

Leland


PS It can also make it easier to take to another computer to recover your documents if Windows stops working.

[El Guru (Al)]

I still recommend keeping your documents, pictures, music, etc... on a separate partition for simplicity sake.  If you keep everything in one place it's very easy to make backups, and in many cases it really can come in handy if windows starts acting up.  It also makes reinstalling Windows that much easier in the long run.  I guess for the most part though it is personal preference.

Leland


PS It can also make it easier to take to another computer to recover your documents if Windows stops working.

These will all be converted external drives so the portability aspect is covered. I do make back-ups my documents to a 2 GB flash drive.

[spock1982 (Ernie)]

I agree that there is no reason to partition a drive that is used for storage. I do try and separate my media files etc... from my OS, but I use different drives for that purpose. I always install the OS on a smaller say 40 or 80 GIG drive that is as fast as I can afford at the time and use a much larger slower (cheaper) drive for storage. This has always worked well for me over the years.

[El Guru (Al)]

I ended up reformatting the drive into two partitions as I am going to be trying Linux again and don't want to end up allocating an entire drive just to Linux.

[DaComboMan]

Let me know how Linux works out for you Guru!
Are you on a Network? I find it difficult to hook up.
Is Ubuntu the easiest, user friendly?
How much space do you need on a partition for Linux?

Update: i did it!
I found the courage to download and install Ubuntu via Wubi and it works!!!
Now for the testing but i think this is really going to make having that extra partition worth the effort.   

[El Guru (Al)]

Let me know how Linux works out for you Guru!
Are you on a Network? I find it difficult to hook up.
Is Ubuntu the easiest, user friendly?
How much space do you need on a partition for Linux?

Update: i did it!
I found the courage to download and install Ubuntu via Wubi and it works!!!
Now for the testing but i think this is really going to make having that extra partition worth the effort.   

Groovy!  I am going to try that out this weekend.

[DaComboMan]

Yay! Groovy!
That's California style hé?! 

It takes a little over 7Gs of space though.

Was wondering about the advantages of having partitions.
Could you not install "demo" programs to a partition to try before you decide to keep them?

[Ryan Wagner]

If you end up enjoying Ubuntu and using it frequently you may want to consider dedicating a separate partition to it. Here's why:

What is the performance?
The performance is identical to a standard installation, except for hard-disk access which is slightly slower than an installation to a dedicated partition. If your hard disk is very fragmented the performance will degenerate.

Any gotcha?
Hibernation is not supported under Wubi, moreover Wubi filesystem is more vulnerable to hard-reboots (turning off the power) and power outages than a normal filesystem, so try to avoid unplugging the power. An Ubuntu installation to a dedicated partition provides a filesystem that is more robust and can better tolerate such events.