Re: How to make a new partition?

Shenan Stanley wrote:

Chuck Davis wrote:
For the life of me, I don't know the perceived advantages of
partioning the drive. I've read a lot of "reasons," but none made
it throught my thick skull. In those computers that arrive from
the manufacturer with the OS in a partition, I have found that
that partition will eventually be too small and cause problems.

Shenan Stanley wrote:
The *only* technical advantage that is hard to argue with is if you
want to store your DATA - nothing else - on the second partition.
The advantage? If you *have* to reinstall the OS and you know what
you are doing - at least your data stays intact - given the reason
for the whole mess is non-hardware related and whatever software
issue that caused your reinstall did not include deleting files
from other drives. *grin*
As far as non-technical reasoning...

Organization. For some people it is simpler to think that all their
applications are installed on D. Their operating system is C. Their
picture files are E. Their word documents are F. Etc... Perception
only - but that goes a long way with human beings -
after all - most things are perception only when you get down to it.

Personally - I make one large partition and install the OS and all
applications.

I buy additional drive(s) and install them as needed - usually in a
RAID fashion.
<last example snipped>

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
Sorry to disagree, but I'll throw in a contrary opinion here, if I
may:
I don't think that's a good reason for separating data on a separate
partition at all. To me, if your data is important to you, it
always needs to be backed up, and if it is backed up and you ever
have to reinstall the operating system, you simply restore the data
from the backup, even if it's not on a separate partition. In fact,
I think that many people who do as you suggest get a false sense of
security from it and have that kind of separation *instead* of a
backup, thinking that it takes away the need for a backup. In fact,
that's not at all true of course, since things like a hard drive
crash (and other events) can easily destroy everything.
To me the best reason for keeping your data on a partition separate
from the operating system system is to facilitate data backup. If
you back up only data, rather than image the entire drive, with
most backup programs, it's easier to do it if the data is on a
separate partition.

I am unsure where we disagreed. You expanded on the only technical
reason I could come up with for partitioning - you did not disagree
with it per se. I never mentioned backup here - but it was not
because I felt it should not be a matter of concern; perhaps I left
too much to assumption there


Well, perhaps I misinterpreted your message, but as I read it, your main
reason for separating operating system and data was to facilitate
reinstallation if necessary. My first point was that the need for backup is
paramount and if a good backup scheme is in place, a separate partition
isn't needed to facilitate reinstallation.

My second point was that I felt that the main good reason for separating
operating system and data had nothing to do with facilitating
reinstallation, but was to facilitate your backup scheme, if that scheme was
a data-only backup, rather than a complete image of the drive.

I'm not sure that I've said anything different from what I did previously,
but perhaps the above will clarify where I thought we differed.


Matter of fact the very reason I added
the last part of the last sentence:
"... given the reason for the whole mess is non-hardware related and
whatever software issue that caused your reinstall did not include
deleting files from other drives. *grin* ..." implies that said
method is *not* foolproof nor should be relied upon.

While I appreciate the additional information you have added (which
may prevent misunderstanding in the future on said topic) - I do not
see as we had any disagreement here. You just took my explanation to
the next level - backing up data - which should always be in place,
partitioning or not.


If I was wrong, and we actually agree, then great, I'm glad to hear it, and
I apologize for suggesting the contrary.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup


.

Relevant Pages

  • Backup strategy
    ... > I have a Windows2000 Pro desktop, and I created a backup job to daily ... Partition one of the drives into 4 partitions. ... in your mirror hard disk as your only hard disk to make sure that it boots ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.general)
  • Re: RAID, SCHMAID.......
    ... And risky to change it later without a full image backup. ... with & in the system images so I know exactly what's where & done when. ... Pity that just saving the OS partition wont do that, ... to what raid or 10K+ drives or other new drives bring to the table. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage)
  • Re: another Time Machine thread - still need SuperDuper?
    ... I was thinking of making the partition the same size as the Mac's boot ... experience with Time Machine, and someone who has a similar usage ... Machine backup looks like a complete copy of your data, ... I have two identical hard drives which I'll be using ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
  • Re: questions on partitions for exchange
    ... If your backup is using the exchange backup API, ... build process that starts with a FAT partition and then converts it to NTFS. ... The second local RAID 1 with the SMTP is fine if this is not a cluster. ... Because of the limitation on the number of physical drives, ...
    (microsoft.public.exchange.setup)
  • Re: How to make a new partition?
    ... that partition will eventually be too small and cause problems. ... from other drives. ... I don't think that's a good reason for separating data on a separate ... from the backup, even if it's not on a separate partition. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)