One big C: drive or separate partitions for system and data?

Well as the title said do you just leave the hard disk as a single large C: drive or make different partitions for the OS and user data (and maybe others)? I used to make different partitions, thinking it would help Windows run better. The down side is sometimes a partition gets full and I have to move files around. Now I am about to get a Win 7 laptop, is it still a good practice to partition the drive?

 

what prevents you from making 30GB C drive? My C drive is full on 15-17GBs.

 

C: = 60 GB
D: = 440 GB

That's how I do it

 

It is personal preference. I have done it both ways in the past but now I have one big C: drive. I haven't found Windows to run better or faster on its own partition.

Some prefer to have multiple partitions which makes backup and restore of data or OS only possible. I can't think of any other reason for multiple partitions and really for me its a pain in the *ss.

 

I generally have two partitions in case I ever break the Windows install. It allows me to reinstall Windows or correct errors without worrying about data loss. However, it does not get rid of the need for backups, since both partitions reside on one physical drive. I personally see no need to have a separate partition for temp files and the pagefile. If you have enough RAM, the best thing would be to dedicate some of it to a RAM disk and set that as the location for the temp directories. On my laptop, I've dedicated 2 out of 8GB for a RAM disk and on my wife's netbool, I've dedicated 1 out of 4GB for a RAM disk.

 

Also done it both ways. Right now it is setup as 120/30/350+500, but I think the next time I need to install windows I'll just go with my little linux partition (thats the 30) and the rest will be one big windows partition.

Separate small partitions might protect the rest of my data from a virus (I'd be able to nuke the windows partition and MAYBE leave the rest intact), but let's face it, a real nasty virus could spread beyond partitions. Right now all my smaller partition setup is doing is giving me more bars to stare at when opening 'my computer'... and it makes it potentially more complicated to clone to another drive should anything happen/if I want to upgrade to one of those 1tb drives.

 

50 GB C: for windows & programs, rest D: for files. Am finding it very practical for backups + eventual system restore & fixes.

No ssd's here ftm, so os\programs on it's own partition > the fastest part of the HD & defrag is a quick job for C:, hardly ever need to defrag rest of disk.

 

How do I set up a RAM disk? Do I need additional software or just Windows?

 

RAMDisk - Software - Server Memory Products & Services - Dataram

Without buying a license, you're limited to a max size of 4GB for a RAM disk.

 

I've found it easier to just have one big C: drive and then have a D: drive to back-up all my files to.

 

I voted on leaving the drive as one big partition.

I usually have a dual hdd setup or ssd + hdd, so i would get little benefit in partitioning it into smaller units.

 

I vote for two partitions, and it's NOT for performance reasons!

It's all about convenience, I can reinstall or use a system image whenever I feel like without the need to restore data from backups.
I see no drawback for doing this, given that it takes ten seconds to change, and the risk of making a partition too small is almost impossible with todays HDD's if you know how much space your programs use.
A reminder for how to do it, a lot of people never heard of right-click-drag-and-drop:

 

I'm a gamer and tend to install all of my games on my C:\ drive where I keep my OS. So it's kind of a pain for me to guesstimate how much space those games are going to take up versus how much space to leave for my other files. Some games alone take up 10-15GB. The reason I keep my games on C:\ are that I've run into problems patching or running games when they're not installed on C:\.

So basically, I have a secondary hard drive that back-ups my other files and it's quite easy to restore them upon reinstallation using Windows Backup included in W7. I've already done it more than once and have had no problems restoring files using this method.