Best to keep the OS on that first drive I prefer then keep all backups data and other stuff on that bigger one. You using external to keep extra images and backups and that is excellent
Increase your memory to max and forget the swap drive, I don’t see any benefit to doing that with plenty of memory on another drive but that’s me. I have a dell 435MT 64 bit with 6gb and rarely see it using much over 2gb

I’d turn the 80 GB drive into the OS drive (one large partition, C:) and the 500GB drive into a data drive (again, one large partition, D:). Though 80GB for the OS seems small to me, I thought that 128GB would do me but after installing a few games…

Since Windows places memory swap space into a file (the pagefile) instead of in a partition (Linux uses a swap partition), having a partition just for the pagefile doesn’t make that much sense. I would just place the pagefile on the D: drive and let Windows adjust the size. Getting rid of the pagefile, as veegertx suggests, is also a good idea if you have the RAM and never run too many programs that use up the memory. I have 8GB RAM and used to not have a swapfile until I started running multiple VMs and several Java apps all at the same time and ran out of memory. So I set up a pagefile again on my D: drive.

I use 75 GB as my OS partition and have more apps installed than I ever have. Still have over 50 GB free space in the OS partition. The 80 GB should be plenty large enough for the OS, especially if you keep all your data on the 2nd, larger HD. I also got rid of my separate page file partition. Did not see any difference with or without a separate page file partition.

Do not remove the page file, it exists for a reason.
Use the 80GB drive for OS, swap file and programs.
Split the 500GB into 2 and use half for data and the other half for backup. It won’t protect against disk failure, but it is useful if you change a file and want the old copy back.
Copy the backups to the external drive to protect against disk failure.

cheers, Paul

I concur with PT’s suggestions, save for splitting up the 500 gig drive into 2 partitions. I see no gain by doing this, just create a directory off of D:, something like D:Backups. As far as the swap file goes, I’ve done it both ways, on the system drive, and on the 2nd drive. You really don’t gain anything truly noticeable in terms of performance, unless your running something really memory intensive. If you’re running an app that does a lot of writes to your data drive, you might actually take a performance hit by running the page file there.

Yes, using a directory for backups is a good alternative to a separate partition.

cheers, Paul

I did not mean get rid of the swap file, I meant I saw no difference with the swap file on it’s own partition versus residing on the OS partition.

On my machines that have two physical hard drives, I have two partitions on each drive; one primary partition, and one extended partition per drive. The OS is on drive0 primary partition of 20 GB, and a pagefile partition of 4 GB is on drive1 primary partition.

In the extended partitions, I create multiple logical drives of various sizes, depending on the type of data intended for each. On this machine I have 12 “drives”; on another I have 13. I dual boot on one tower machine and one laptop, with the secondary OS installed on a logical drive of 20 GB in the extended partition. Programs installed for drive0 OS are placed in a logical drive on drive1, and the Users folder is also on a logical drive on drive1. The secondary OS on drive1 has its programs installed in a logical drive on drive0.

There is a bit of a performance increase since both drives can be read simultaneously during bootup, program launch, etc.

I’m in the process of preparing this machine to dual boot; the logical drives are setup, ready for the secondary OS and programs to be installed. Hopefully I’ll get around to that soon.

I commend bbearen for his partitioning schemes. They seem to work very well for him. However his schemes seem a little complex for the average user (I would include myself in this group). At one time I did have my page file on a separete partition and had both OS partition and Data partition, and even dabbled in Linux on a separate partition. (I found that Linux was not for me and subsequently deleted it) I have now gone back to a more simple 2 partition schemee with the OS and apps on the main 75 GB partition and data on the remaining partition (total 320 GB HD) I did not notice any change one way or the other in moving the page file back to the main OS partition. I guess in my stage of PC use simpler seems to be better for me. Working full time and family obligations, etc do not leave me the time I would need to use more complex schemes for my PC partitioning.

I’m about to install Win 7 Home Premium onto a new machine having two hard disks. I’d like to use Dick’s option of OS on C: and Data on D: . Is there a way to do the install so that Win 7 conforms to the system I want from the get-go, or do I have to first do the install and then perform one of the “move users” manuvers that I see in the forums?? I gather that a “command-line install” might work… I am comfortable using the command line, but do not know how to do an install using it, though I’d love to learn.

Patrick, Welcome to the Lounge.

I would simply install Win 7 on the C: Drive by choosing this drive during the installation process. After Win 7 is installed you can move all data folders to the D: Drive. (You might have to format the drive in Disk manager: type disk management in the search box then select Create and format hard disk partitions. You should see both drives here although the second may show as unallocated space in need of formating and then being set to Logical) A simple Google searchshows many sites with step by step procedures for moving all data folders. Patrick, even if you do know how, these step by step guides might help the next person wanting to do this who does not know how.