Best/Ideal HD partitioning for a new WinXP Pro installation

[retroborg]

I have always wondered what really gives out the best system performance when it comes to HD partitioning.
I have 4 Hard Disks in my rig?:

1TB 32MB Cache 7200RPM
1TB 32MB Cache 7200RPM
512GB 16MB Cache 7200RPM
512GB 16MB Cache 7200RPM

2 x Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 3Gb/s 1-TB Hard Drive (32MB Cache)
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=st31000340as-barracuda-7200-11...&reqPage=Model

1 x Barracuda 7200.10 SATA 3.0Gb/s 500-GB Hard (16MB Cache)
Drivehttp://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=b9df99f4fa74c010VgnVCM100000dd 04090aRCRD

1 x Barracuda 7200.9 SATA 500-GB Hard Drive (16 MB Cache)
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=785e99f4fa74c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD


I’m going to do a fresh WinXP Pro installation and I was thinking of dividing the 1TB HD to 3 partitions:
C: WinXP Pro (20GB), Linux (15GB) (Dual Boot)
D: Games installation / execution (100GB)
E: Backup / Downloads (880GB)

And use the rest 3 HD as they are (Unpartitioned)
1TB, 512GB & 512GB for Backup / Downloads.

Or should I use the entire 1TB HD for WinXP, the 2nd HD 512GB for games installation, and the rest: 1TB & 512GB for Linux & Backup / Downloads.

Any opinions / suggestions will be highly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

[budz]

Use one of the 500gb hd's for your OS...partitioned it to 20gb xp pro, 15gb linux. Then use the rest for game installations. And use the other hard drives unpartitioned for downloads/storage space. Just my 2 cents!

[redwudz]

Just partitioning a hard drive doesn't do much except for speeding up defragging, IMO. Your OS is still going to access that boot drive, slowing access for the other partitions as they are all using the same controller. It's more efficient to use a smaller boot drive with no partitions and use your large drives for storage.

If you must partition the boot drive, use the other partition(s) for static storage, again, JMO.

[lordsmurf]

Partitions are not needed or even suggested anymore. Not for years now.

[creakndale]

My strategy would be as follows for performance and safety:
I would use one of the 500GB partitioned as follows:
C: 250GB for WinXP Pro and all Windows programs and games installed to the default C:\Program Files
D: 250GB for Linux and all the Linux programs

E: 500GB (downloads)

F: 1TB (image files and frequent backups)

Get an external enclosure for the other 1TB disk.

Rationale:
It's best to keep all backups on a separate physical disk and you didn't mention doing any audio/video editing.

Once you have C: and D: and their respective programs loaded, configured and optimized as you like, use a hard disk imager like Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost to make an image file of C: storing it on F. Make an image file of D: also storing it on F: As you continue to tweak and add programs to C: and D: make additional images, storing them on F: This way you can quickly recover to a pristine image if you ever want/need to. Also, if the physical Boot disk (containing C: and D: partitions) ever crashes, you have lots of "image restore" options. I would also turn off Windows System Restore and rely on the disk images if something goes wrong.

Frequently copy My Documents, Bookmarks, Address Book and Emails over to F:. Use the 1TB external enclosure to occasionally duplicate all files contained on F:, maybe on a weekly basis. Place this external enclosure in a waterproof, ziplock ESD bag and store it in a safe or different location, in case your PC is stolen, lightning strikes, flood, fire, etc.