First-off let me state that this is not a how-to article: It’s an analytical article designed to prompt discussion, (If anybody can be bothered to comment.) on the subject.

In this Twenty-First Century I’ve tried pretty much everything regarding partitioning; and to be honest, I don’t see much point to it, other than if one is intending to run a dual-boot. (Linux and Windows installed on the same disk in different partitions, for example.) Even then I prefer to use a different physical drive for either operating system.

Partitioning was used primarily back in the early days of personal computers, when Windows and Mac operating systems, as well as at times the hard-disk controller architecture itself, were unable to recognise, and to interact with, a partition greater than 2GB in size. Some hard-drives were around that were larger than 4GB, so it was necessary to partition those. These days most operating systems can handle partitions of 2 terabytes or more. (One day we’ll think of a terabyte as a small disk size no doubt. I have a 760MB hard-drive floating around somewhere: Once upon a time even that was considered a massive-sized disk.)

I’ve tried the method of having many partitions: One for the Windows swap-file, one for the operating system itself, one for active programs, one for storage… Too confusing; and the operating system finds it so too, leading to unnecessary corruption. In addition the hard drive encounters more wear, having to keep changing the arm between partitions, and as a consequence system response time is increased.

Some people think that by keeping the operating system on a separate partition they can just reinstall Windows if the operating system goofs and carry on as normal. They’re forgetting one crucial factor, however: The Windows registry won’t re-register their programs which exist in a different partition on install. In fact the new operating system won’t even see their existing programs on another partition as it installs. The only true way to preserve things as they were is by regularly backing up to a source external to the computer; such as another computer, NAS box, external hard-drive, or online backup.

Putting the swap-file onto a different partition isn’t that good an idea either: Head-travel and hard-drive wear come into play as the arm swings wildly between partitions, causing a reduction in response time too.

Some think that if they put the operating system on a drive other than C: it’ll be safe from malware as malware writers target their wares at the C: drive. Utter crap. Get decent protection and learn how to use a computer while staying safe online is the solution to that; not trying to outwit the malware writers.

I have 2 computers: Both run XP and both currently have a single hard-drive. On the main computer, the one I’m writing this on, the drive is not partitioned. On the other one, the backup computer as well as the computer I’ll be watching TV on from now, having just installed a TV card, the hard-drive is partitioned into two. This is from the days when the drive was in a different (now dismantled) computer and I was playing around with Ubuntu. I use the second partition for storage and for backing up files, and the first one for everything else: Basically the second partition is for inactive files and folders, while the first partition is active.

Windows; at least the versions available within the last ten years, is designed to all be put onto a single partition, and it’s good at managing itself on a single partition. ‘Spread it across multiple partitions and it gets funny, becomes harder to maintain, uses more resources, slows down, corrupts easier, and wastes time. I’m not anywhere near as well experienced with any other operating system as I am with Windows; so I’m mainly referring to Windows in this article. I’d imagine, though, that the situation is the same or similar with other operating systems too.

Your comments are invited.