separate partition for only OS, and other OS programs alone better?

[gokuss4]

Is it more optimal to do that? Or it doesn't make much of a difference?

 

[t0rek]

Dunno, I always have the OS and all the programs that it needs in the primary partition. However games are considered programs as well, and I always have them in another partition, mainly because they are getting heavier these days, and I haven't seen any special boost in them. Just be sure that you OS partition and the one that keeps the programs has a moderate free space and defragment it frequently, with that, you'll be fine. Defragment all the other partitions as well.

 

[Toasty]

I prefer to have my documents and everything that you don't 'install' on one partition (or completely separate hard drive if possible) and have the OS and installed programs on another one. That makes it easy to wipe the OS and reformat without having to backup all my stuff somewhere else. Having a separate partition for rarely modified files (such as OS files, runtimes, libraries, etc.) and then having another one for frequently modified files that you defragment regularly might help decrease wear on the drive. The less fragmented the drive is, the quicker you can access files, so only having part of the drive get fragmented can help speed up the defragmenting process. It just depends on your hard drive usage though.

 

[Doomulation]

OS & Apps on one and the same, is what I recommend, so you can easily wipe them all out. Games on a different HD or partition because you'll likely want to keep the save files at least... and games do tend to work even though you've reinstalled Windows. Then again, it might not... but nevertheless, games often needs to write/read much to the HD which is why it might benefit from being on a seperate drive. My documents should also not be on your main drive since you'll likely want to keep everything there.

 

[BlueFalcon7]

I did that once, I installed my OS on one partition, and all the apps on another. It is a cool idea, but its a real pain to have to change the directory of an install for a program.

 

[Clements]

I have my OS on one hard drive, everything else on the other. Getting my system fully up and running after a format takes a few hours and I effectively lose nothing but certain OS updates, registry and config settings. I don't use the My Documents folder on my primary system for anything important.

 

[Doomulation]

I did that once, I installed my OS on one partition, and all the apps on another. It is a cool idea, but its a real pain to have to change the directory of an install for a program.

You can change the "program directory" which which is where installers install by default. Only downside is that all your existing "Windows" apps shortcuts in the start menu will also point to your new directory, which of course, is wrong.