Recommended partitioning?

I have a new laptop with a 160gb SSD and a 500gb 5400 HDD, and I'm thinking of partitioning these drives, but the subject is new to me. I've been reading user guides from partitioning software manufacturers as well as some online guides, and I'm getting confused. It seems that they leave out info that a newbie would need to complete the puzzle.

My goal is to partition for organization on the SSD and for organization and performance on the HDD. If I understand correctly, it seems that I could create a partition on the SSD for the operating system (vista 64bit) and another partition for my programs. Can I do this? If so, is it wise? If so, how much space should be allocated to the OS? Just enough plus a little for "breathing room" or extra stuff that gets installed along the way?

The HDD would be partitioned for data, photos, music, etc.

Or I could just not partition anything and use the SSD as the OS and program drive and make the HDD the data drive. It would seem to me that I should at least partition the HDD because it's so large that performance might improve if it's divided into smaller chunks.

I haven't installed anything except for imaging software. I've created two separate images of my OS for backup (one on a blu ray disk, and one on an external hard drive).

Any help would be appreciated. Perhaps links to guides that hold a newbie's hand through the process?

 

People normally put both the programs and OS on one partition with user files and storage on another. The logic behind this is that when you reinstall your OS, you need to reinstall your programs anyway. On the other hand, all your saved files and user stuff is safe in the other partition. On these grounds, there isn't much benefit of separating the OS and program files.

You're probably best off doing this, and this is the most common arrangement people seem to be going for with SSD +HDD set ups. You won't see any performance gains from partitioning the hard drive, but performance drops are also pretty much negligible. For the 500Gb drive it comes down to the tidyness of being able to sort stuff into different partitions (500GB means a lot of files to look through ), against the irritation of having to choose where to put stuff and having to shuffle stuff around.

Personally I'd go for OS + programs on the SSD, and storage +user files on the 500GB HDD (maybe on both for important stuff?) with no partitioning.

 

I found this which was very helpful: http://partition.radified.com/

After reading, I'm now thinking of partitioning the SSD into two drives so that I can dual boot Vista and Windows 7 (if I want to mess with Win 7 beta in the near future).

Thanks, aKarma!

 

Number and size of the partitions is nothing more than a personal opinion,
I have 4 HDDs and (ranged from 40Gb - 160Gb) and in all of them have at least 4 partitions,
If youre a dual-boot user with linux or another OS then you'll need at least 4 as well,
and that's not the only reason why to do that, i have a friend have a partition for each type of media (videos, pictures, music, games),

so take a pen and start to draw how do you want your partitions looks like

 

the easiest program i have ever used is paragon partition manager its self explanatory , i would recommend 2 drives in the SSD one for windows about 40 or 50gb and the rest for your data , for the 500gb just adjust it to fit your needs , like u can make 2 or 3 drives 200 200 100 .
just be sure to backup your files before partitioning as there is a very little percentage that you loose your data also be sure when using paragon to turn off stand by and hibernation as they can ruin the whole process

 

Thanks so much! I bought the Paragon Partition Manager, and it is very easy to use.

 

your should of just used Gparted its much simpler and free

is exactly what you should do but partition for multiple OS's on the SSD its what i do

 

I partitioned my hdd on my macbook for osx, ubuntu 9.04, and win7.

I dont see a real need to partition unless its for other OS's. Maybe you could do it to have your things more organized.

I also Partitioned my external for half osx journaling and other half for windows.

 

I was reading that partitioning a 500gb hard drive would increase performance since a smaller area is accessed. Also, defrag time would be less for the same reason.

 

this information is true