Windows Partition Help

[Boogiepop]

After experiencing my first hiccup with Traktor I decided to do a clean OS install and partition my HDD into two parts. One for the OS and the second for Traktor, other audio related programs, music storage, etc. I will only be using my notebook for audio, so I'm avoiding the dual boot method.

So I basically have a few questions. 1) Is my plan adequate? 2) Windows 7 64bit Home Premium requires 20GB of disc space. I have a 466GB HDD, how much space would you recommend I allocate for the OS? 3) Which partition do I install drivers on?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

[mSolace]

had a big thing typed out but w/e

if its not a mac which your gonna bootcamp then just keep it as a single partition it doesn't hurt anything and splitting doesn't really offer any advantage

buy a backup external harddrive to protect your data. and roll with that.

don't goto shady sites or install shady software

when in doubt buy a used/old pos pc for surfing shady sites!

this post is making me late to pick up my pizza!

[Boogiepop]

There are definitely benefits to using virtual partitions. I'm feeling a tad lazy so I wont list them, but a quick Google search could provide them for me. l also already own an external along with following the other protocol you suggested. Anyhow, thanks for the reply.

*I found a potentially promising tutorial on lifehacker, but if anyone else could help out that would be boss.

[psylozen]

I've got my drive split into two partitions: 50G for windows, the rest for music. Just keep software and drivers on the default c: drive. You *could* move your 'Program Files' and 'Documents and Settings' folders to the other drive (at least you could under xp, not sure about 7), but you won't really gain anything from it other than headaches. If your windows install screws up, you still have to re-install everything. If you have your data on a separate partition, you can just wipe the windows partition to reinstall, and still have your data intact on the other partition.

You could just keep your music on an external drive, but personally, I prefer to keep it internal for a number of reasons: 1. Too easy to drop. My gf has lost significant amounts of irreplaceable data twice now from butterfingering her enclosure. 2. One more piece of gear to keep track of. True story: a couple of weeks ago I was managing the vj booth at a festival, and one of the vjs who also happens to be a producer/live pa, left behind his external drive containing the *only copy of his live set*. If you do go w/ an external drive, try to get a ssd, or at least a hd with freefall sensor or gforce protection (i'm pretty sure the freefall sensor in my gf's latest drive saved her when she dropped it the third time).

Once you've got your os and software installed, optimize it for audio (lots of guides out there, ask teh googles). Once you've got everything working nicely, use something like acronis true image to create an image of the drive, store it on your data partition. This way if somethign screws up in your os, you can just boot off a cd and restore your system in about 15 mins, rather than reinstalling everything for many hours. Just be sure to redo your image occasionally to keep it up to date.

Hope this helps!

m.

[dbld]

I agree with psylozen - your best bet is one decently sized OS/program partition (50GB should do you well) and the rest of the space for all of your music files/things you want to keep in case you want to rebuild your OS.

Also... backups are important. I use a couple of scheduled backups using a freeware app called Create Synchronicity (http://synchronicity.sourceforge.net/) to back up my iTunes directory, Traktor settings, etc to my external drive on a regular basis. I also use it to back up my entire music library to another computer on my home network every week.. as it does an incremental backup it only includes the changed files so it's only an hour or so of updates (instead of tens/hundreds of gigs each time). Think about all the time you've spent setting everything up again.. downloading/ripping music again.. all time wasted when you should be creating. Think ahead.. back up!

[Boogiepop]

psylozen, dbld, thanks a million! Seriously, words can't describe how much I appreciate the assistance.

Oddly enough I'm relatively noobish with windows despite years of experience using the OS and building my own PC. Anyway, I'll take everything you said into account and hopefully be on the road to productivity again in the near future