I was just reading the thread about multiple hard drives. (If I knew how to attach the link to the other thread I would. I figured my question was a little different so I created a new thread.) I am definately in favor of having more than one hard drive. I like having my data separate. But I am wondering why people install their programs to a separate drive or partition? I have seen a lot of responses where people like to have a small partition with just the OS. Why? I did that once thinking it sounded like a good idea, but I found that it filled up even though I installed all the "programs" to a separate drive/partition. (Causing me to have to reformat and fdisk before I normally would. I never used a small partition for my OS again.) Plus, it is annoying to have to always select a location when installing. It's just easier to install to the default C: drive location. And, when you have to do a clean format/re-install of windows you have to re-install all your programs anyway because they all write information to the registry. So what is the benefit of installing programs to a separate drive when you have to reinstall them anyway? Besides, when you have your OS and programs on the same drive, when you do a format, clean install, you end up getting rid of all the crap you that accumulates over time. And if you are anything like our family it is a lot! I am also a pretty firm believer in doing a clean install every year, two years at the most. There is nothing like a nice clean system. Things start running faster and smoother. Though I have to admit, it used to be a whole day affair, until I finally got Norton Ghost, and that is awesome. Five minutes and my system is like new! Since I keep all my data on a separate drive, and Ghost is so quick and easy I no longer try to fidget with things when the computer starts to act "wierd" I just re-ghost it and poof all better! I know how you set up a computer is very personal for everyone. But I was wondering if I was missing something about the benefits of having your OS on a separate drive? Just thought I'd get a little discussion going.....

I agree. I would install software, including the OS, on one partition and document storage on another. When you install software, files go all over the place including in Windows system folders and in the registry. I don't see the point of having installed software files in two different partitions... Perhaps someone has a good explanation. Best Wishes, Bob

There are any number of reasons to partition and separate OS, programs, music, Etc. With FAT32 the partition size determines the cluster size. Partitions that are 512-8191 will format using 4K clusters. 8192-16383 8k, 16384-32767 16k, and over 32768 32k. What this means to you is this. Any software that has many small files will use substancially less disk space if installed on a pertition with small clusters. On the other hand, large files lend themselves to larger cluster sizes. The main reasons to partition into smaller sizes is to have lower seek times(don't have to hunt thru entire drive), Gives more managable sizes to perform backups on, and allows you to repair paart of a disk instead of the whole thing. If you have 10GB of MP3 files on, say drive F: and you need to re-install your OS, you simply format the C: drive and your MP3s or any other files remain intact. If you need to re-install the OS, any files that require DLLs will need to be re-installed. To avoid that pain, you can create a pertition at the end of your disk to store a ghost image of your OS partition. When you need to, you can copy that image back to the C: drive and everything should work. Another reason is that most disk fragmentation occurs on the OS partition. If you have only a small percentage of the total drive alloted to the C: partition you will perform disk maintenance much faster and with much less wear and tear on your harddisk. With harddrives so affordable, the utimate setup is to have two or more drives with either RAID mirroring or at least the previously described ghost image on the second drive. Also run a dual boot with one OS on esch drive. That way you are less apt to be totally down. Go to Radified.com partitioning stratagies for even more indepth coverage of this topic. Hope this helps.

Thank you for your responses. I had forgotten about the advantages of reducing cluster size. (Though with the size of hard drives these days I don't see larger cluster sizes being a huge problem. It definately wastes space, but with all that space...) Faster seek time makes sence on a smaller drive. I agree that partitions or separate drives are important for keeping data intact when you need to reformat. I have three hard drives on my main system. :) And keeping an OS on an aditional drive is something I've never done, but that sounds interesting as an added saftey feature.....