separate partition solely for the OS = more speed for the pc, myth or truth?

i have this friend who told me that partitioning a HD and putting only the OS on the main partition and the rest(programs and stuff) on the other will make your pc run faster. is this true??

 

Not really...the PC still runs the programs, has to access the data...

 

Maybe slightly, due to disk fragmentation. But I don't think it would be noticeable.

 

If you keep your disks defragged, it should not make a difference.

 

It can provide a performance boost... but only if the partitions are on separate disks, and those disks are on different IDE channels if your machine uses PATA drives.

Otherwise, it's still not such a bad idea since you can reinstall your OS without backing up your user data. I wouldn't install too many programs in your data partition though... a lot of apps don't behave very well if their registry entries mysteriously vanish.

 

No difference in my experience, as a matter of fact it only made patching games and updating programs more troublesome.

 

I've never found any reason to install applications on a separate drive. In my experience, the best way to keep a PC running fast is to routinely defragment all drives, keep the registry tuned, and keep running processes to a minimum.

 

Here's what I've heard: If you manage to partition your hard drive in such a way so as to place your OS files in the first third of the drive (radial distance from edge), you'll get slightly better performance in OS tasks such as boot up.

 

I use a separate partition for the Windows folder, which makes it fragmenting very slowly, and you defragment it very fast since it's so small. I don't care if my personal data is fragmented.

Using a separate partition for Program Files and Documents and Settings/Users takes some extra work, but that's only if you don't know how to set it when you're installing Windows.

 

Separate partition on the same hard drive will make things slower. The drive is going to thrash a lot because whenever you're requesting reads from separate partitions the heads will have to move long distances with extremely frequently. Separate partitions on separate hard drives will make things faster, because it reduces that same phenomenon, improves overall throughput by spreading across disks and interfaces, and also gives you more cache which can be dedicated more specifically.

 

I agree with Ethyriel.

I used to have atleast 3 partitions:

1) Core System: O/S
2) Programs: All the programs go here
3) Users: All the user data
4) (did not last long) Temp/Transfer: Where I can format it to the way I want if I want to play around with it, or store things here temporarily.

To me, partitioning is about managing your system files. Keeping the O/S on a separate partition can increase security. It also gives you better option when re-installing programs. But I believe it adds overheads and reduces speed as stated by Ethyriel.

I suppose if you have several users on a single computer with 1 hard drive, and no network drives, then it is a good idea to measure out any benefits you may have by implementing multi-partitions.

And I don't like multi-partitioning to install multi O/Ses. Great for learning but in the end a hassle to maintain. I rather have an old system used for linux etc and network them together.

 

That all depends on partition sizes and how full they are. Using multiple partitions can force the heads to move shorter distances. If you put the windows folder in a small partition (< 3 GB for XP, the small size forces all the Windows files to stay very close to each other) in the beginning of the disk, and then the rest + apps in the next one (20 - 50 GB, not the rest of the HDD) the heads don't have to move all over the disks, no matter how fragmented the HDD is or not.

 

hmmm..well i haven't tried doin the separate OS/App partition coz i think it's only a hassle too thanks for all the replies given ^^ this post kinda reminds me of mythbusters in the Discovery Channel XD

 

I have also suffered from self-induced over-partitioning in the past, so don't get carried away. But I still think the use of multiple partitions can be valuable. Here is what I currently suggest:

1) One partition for the OS and programs. There is no sense putting these on separate partitions. You want them close together physically, since they are likely to be accessed in close succession. Putting them on separate partitions would be likely to cause slowdown as noted by Ethyriel. Many apps are going to install stuff on your system partition even if you do tell them different, so resistance is futile. Furthermore, if you reinstall your OS you should reinstall your apps at the same time, so there's no real harm in keeping them together. These are the most important files to defrag, so having them isolated in one place is also helpful in that sense.

2) One partition for user data. This allows you to have all your data in one place. Makes backup easier. Don't need to defrag this partition as much. If you are careful about putting all your data here, then you won't lose data if you wipe out and reinstall your OS/apps. Keeping this partition separate from the OS/apps also results in fewer reads/writes to this partition, so there is less opportunity for your data to get corrupted in case the system crashes in the middle of a write, etc.

If you have a 2nd hard drive (unlikely in a laptop), there are other things you can do to help performance a little. I'd put 2 partitions on that drive also:

3) Dedicated partition for your swap and temp files. This is just for performance reasons. Different disk = faster access.

4) Another partition for user data. Data files here may be accessed more quickly than those on the first disk. You can also back up your data to/from the first hard disk, so if one disk crashes then you don't lose your data. This is the main reason I like to have 2 disks - easy local backups.

I hope this is helpful, and any other comments/critique are welcome.