Win7 default partitions?

I've copied this quote over from a different thread, to present here, which I think is a more appropriate place for my question.

It's my understanding that the more partitions you have on a HDD, the more it slows the drive down b/c the speed of the drive gets "split" every time you have to read partitions concurrently...hope I'm explaining that right. I'm about to buy a notebook on which I plan to dual-boot Win7 and Linux on separate HDDs. As for the Windows drive, my plan was to have 2 partitions, 1 for OS, and 1 for Programs, for the sole reason that Windows gets cranky about what it's going to let you do to programs that are on the C: drive -- not to mention in the sacred Program Files folder. I've also seen it affect rates of file copying, among other things. I want to avoid all of that business by partitioning the drive and getting my programs out of Windows reach, so to speak.

The fact that apparently I must have a minimum of 3 partitions on the drive concerns me a bit, as I was only planning on having 2. How much will this partitioning decrease the performance of the drive -- especially multitasking different programs and gaming? I cannot afford to put in dual SSD drives, as I wouldn't feel comfortable with either drive being less than 250GB, considering my current HDD has about 190GB (room for growth is good). Also, note that I do not need a recovery partition, either, as I will be making image backups periodically to a networked external HD. Data will be stored on a different external HD and backed up to the network drive, as well.

Hope someone can comment! Thanks

 

My first thought is that the Recovery and Restore partitions are not actively used during day-to-day life. So, they actually wouldn't have the effect you just described.

 

That's a good point; seems like it shouldn't affect performance, then. Still hate that I won't be able allocate the space to a partition of my choosing, though!

 

I can confirm this.

 

The 100mb partition has zero effect on performance. And it can be very useful, since it stores the Windows Recovery Environment. It is accessible from the Windows boot menu (press F8 during booting). It has proved to be very useful to me, and loads at least 5 times faster than using the Win7 installation DVD.

About your partition theory, of course it's going to be slow if you copy from one partition to another on the same HDD.
Also keep in mind that a partition that is closer to the start of the platter is faster than the one near the end.

Since you have dual HDDs, you may be interested in this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...asus-g73sw-owners-lounge-148.html#post7618276
You CAN move the Program Files, Program Files (x86), ProgramData and Users folders to another drive. You just need the right tools and the right procedure to do it. I'll post a guide around Monday.