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    XP C drive partition size

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by MY92, Oct 29, 2005.

  1. MY92

    MY92 Notebook Guru

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    What size do you all make your C drive partition?

    Does anyone relocate their pagefile/hibernate file to another partition ?
     
  2. Charles P. Jefferies

    Charles P. Jefferies Lead Moderator Super Moderator

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    How big is the drive?

    I normally have my C:\ partition as the entire drive, because I've got an external hard drive that I can back up my data to.

    If the drive is 80GB, I'd probably make C:\ 60GB, then you have 20GB left to store data and put your page file on, etc.

    Chaz
     
  3. pwillie

    pwillie Notebook Consultant

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    whas a pagefile/hibernate file and why relocate it
     
  4. Charles P. Jefferies

    Charles P. Jefferies Lead Moderator Super Moderator

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    When you hibernate a computer, it writes whatever is in the memory to the hard drive. So, the amount of disk space reserved for the hibernation feature is equal to the amount of RAM you have. For example, I have 1GB of RAM, so 1GB of disk space is reserved for hibernation on my hard drive.

    The page file is used when you run out of physical RAM - the computer then uses the hard drive for RAM (virtual RAM). Windows Defaults it to 1.5 - 2x of how much memory you have... so if I left my pagefile at default, it would take up 1.5GB.

    So, if you stick both on the other partition, then you have an extra few gigabytes of space on your main partition.

    Chaz
     
  5. drumfu

    drumfu super modfu

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    moving your pagefile onto another partition of a single drive is pointless. if you had a second drive that you could move it onto, then it would be worth it. moving it onto a partition of a single drive doesn't give you any performance advantage and, in fact, may actually decrease your performance since your notebook will have to traverse the HD accessing the pagefile.
     
  6. MY92

    MY92 Notebook Guru

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    Ideally you would have your page file on the first partition on your hard drive so that physically it would access it faster. Thats how you do it in 'nix, dunno if windows can do it.
     
  7. Klepzeiker

    Klepzeiker Notebook Consultant

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    I have a 80GB HDD.
    C is 25 GB
    D is 50 GB
    I use D for data storage and C voor programs.
    Why this way?

    I don't have much programs on my laptop, but a big amount of photo's.
     
  8. Charles P. Jefferies

    Charles P. Jefferies Lead Moderator Super Moderator

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    Yeah - keep the page file on your main Windows partition for best performance. I'd most likely use a second partition for data storage if anything.

    Chaz
     
  9. dr_st

    dr_st Notebook Deity

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    I was into partitioning in the past, but now I'm just lazy, so I don't partition.

    It does make sense, though, to use two partitions - Windows, pagefile, drivers and programs on C:, storage, media, games on D:.

    This way if you need to reinstall from scratch, you can just format C: (because you'll need to reinstall most of the programs anyway), and your other stuff will remain untouched.

    Size? Depending on how you use your hard drive. I'd say around 30gigs for C:, the rest for D:...
     
  10. MY92

    MY92 Notebook Guru

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    I've presently got a 10gig C drive and with office, photoshop, pagefile (1gb) hiberfile (1gb) I still have about 3.5gb free.

    Main reason why I partition is so I can ghost (well will be true image 9 soon if it works) the C drive for recovery and rebuilds. data on d and I'm debating making a dedicated partition for my ghosts