Best way to partition 1TB drive for windows7

hard drivepartition

Linux admins usually split their hard-drives into partitions for /usr space, os space and whole other kinds of swapness.
I know windows7 requires 20GB at least for the OS to be installed. What is the best way to partition a single 1TB hard-drive (if any) when using a Windows 7 os?

I have 4GB of ram btw. I am running Windows 7 64bit.

My space requirements are approximately:

  • 20-100gb for my documents, programming projects etc…
  • about 40gb for all the software (non-games) i will ever install
  • 50gb for games

A few questions come to mind:

  • Do i need a swap partition? (i.e. 8gb)
  • Should i create a separate partition for backups? Or just dump my backups to external USB?
  • How much space should my main OS take-up and should I account for things like application data that will get stored on that partition?

Thanks!

Best Answer

With a single drive the only benefits you gain from partitioning are in organisation, and in separating out your data from the OS. This in my mind is the main reason for partitioning, as if you need to re-install your OS then you can do so without needing to move you data elsewhere first.

Running applications and games from a separate partition won't give you much benefit, as they would need to be re-installed should you re-install the OS anyway. Moving Applications to a separate partition on another disk may give you some speed benefits, as would moving your swap file to another disk, as they would be using a separate spindle. However on a single disk, there is no such benefit.

Having backups on a separate partition again gives you the benefit of having them separate from your OS, but they are still vulnerable to disk failure, should your 1 disk die you have lost both your OS and your backups.

Applications like to install themselves on the C: drive, along with the OS, so you would make life easier for your self by just having a large c: drive for os and apps and another large d: drive for documents.

As for the swap file, see this question on whether or not a swap file is needed for systems with higher memory.

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