Partition or not to partition?

[MyShpoonIsTooBig]

First off, I apologize for the length of post. I want to give you as much information as possible to not only better answer my question but also catch me where I'm wrong.


While researching how to do a complete reinstall of Windows 10, I learned about partitioning. Upon further research into partitioning, it started to feel like something that would be beneficial for me. However, because I'm new to this, I'd like to get some feedback from others experienced in partitioning before I wipe my hard drive and reinstall Windows.
Basically, my question is will it be worth it to partition my hard drive based on my computer usage and if so, what's the best arrangement that will increase performance? (not FPS, in gaming, I know)

I read something someone posted about partitioning their hard drive into three different partitions, OS, DATA and CACHE. I learned about "short stroking" and how putting only the programs you use most frequently and, obviously, windows OS in the smallest possible partition while making the next largest partition for data I don't use often and the last for cache (I don't get the cache partition, yet). I'm putting two partition arrangements below and why I would do it like that so someone can call me on a bad idea and inform me on why.

I have a 1 Terabyte HDD.


My Usage Overall:

I mainly use my computer for gaming, light photo and video editing, old rom-hacking programs and other newer creative gaming software like RPG Maker MV. Internet usage stays mainly in youtube and netflix, branching out elsewhere for research.


Partition Arrangement 1:

Partition 1 - OS (150 Gb)
Partition 2 - Data (Big portion of total HD)
Partition 3 - Cache (?? Gb)

Reasoning for arrangement 1:
I want my Steam games and editing programs in the first partition so that it will be accessed faster. I will only put two games on this partition at a time (to force myself to finish each game completely) and will uninstall a game when I'm finished and download the next. Any extra data I accumulate will go into partition 2, including music. If I need something from partition 1, I'll just copy and paste from 2 onto 1 and delete when I'm done (do I really need to do this?).
I really don't get the reasoning for putting cache into a separate partition or what caches we're putting in there, but maybe it'll help in some way?


Partition Arrangement 2:

Partition 1 - Steam (100 Gb)
Partition 2 - OS (100 Gb)
Partition 3 - Data (800 Gb)

Reasoning for arrangement 2:
I read this in an article and it seems like something that might work for me. Since I'll only be installing 2 games at a time on my computer, having them in the first partition should increase my gaming performance (again, I know not FPS). OS and other programs go in the second because I don't need that big of a boost in performance with editing programs (or do I?) and maybe windows will boost faster. Data in the third obviously because I won't be accessing them often.


I'm sure you all can tell by now, I don't really know what I'm talking about when it comes to partitions. Please feel free to correct any information or ideas I put forth you see that's wrong. I've never done a partition before so I've never seen how it works in real time... I'm bound to make a few wrong guesses. The more I know, the better off my computer will be.


- If you can, I would love to have some partition suggestions based off of my computer usage.
- If you understand why you would have a separate partition for cache and what cache you put in it, I'm really curious to know that, too. ( I can save that for another thread if need be)


All suggestions, feedback, and information are greatly welcome and appreciated!

Thank you for slogging through all this. I'd give you a digital cookie if I could, but I'm about to wipe my hard drive.

[Omega]

The partitioning of your drive will have little to no effect on the performance of the drive.

The main reason people manually partition is for redunancy. If you are serious about redundancy you will have multiple drives or even off-site backups.

No idea what that person wants his cache partition for, he might wanted to move the swap file there. Which I don't see the use off. Windows uses a hidden file in the root of the C: drive for swapping unlike other OSs such as Linux which use a swap partition.


Just let Windows partition the disk for you, no need to make it overcomplicated. Windows will make a single large partition for all your data next to a few small system reserved partitions.

[StickyPawz]

Unless you *already* have a specific real reason to partition, don't bother.

Better to grab an SSD for OS and programs. Use your 1TB HDD for everything else.

... Keep it simple, etc

[Null_User]

I'm against partitions too. I used to partition long ago just so I could tidy up things.

First, partitioning will take a bit of space off your drives, because it has to store information of each partition and reserve space for them as if they were separate drives.

Second. I don't think partitioning will have any effect in loading times on your programs or games. It's accessing the exact same physical drive in the end. Same for cache and swap file.

IF you want something that works better, get a 256GB SSD (because 128 would be too small) and put Windows and your most essential applications there, and then use the 1TB HDD as storage drive.

SSDs are pretty cheap and reliable right now, and offer a speed advantage over HDDs. If you will play only two games at a time, you can install them on the SSD as well. You could also install games that do not require fast drives (like old classics) on your HDD to keep your SSD for the more demanding stuff.

Or you could buy a larger SSD. I paid like 225$ the other day for a 1TB SanDisk SSD for my laptop.

[Kaihekoa]

People used to partition for performance gains because data on the outside of the disk could be accessed faster, but it's not necessary with modern hard drives.

[Viper]

Partitioning really gains you nothing and in my opinion actually loses you performance. . The read head is a mechanical arm moved by a stepper motor. It takes a certain amount of time for it to move form where it is to the portion it has to read or write data Basically the more you put on your HDD the longer it takes for each time it has to do this operation. Its more efficient to have all your data at the beginning of the disk (closer together) that to divide it up into different sections because of this.

[Omega]

Originally posted by ㅇㅅㅇ:

partition so you can dual boot linux and win

Linux deserves its own personal drive. One which is faster and offers more storage then the one Windows will be installed on. ;P

[meheezen]

i would recommend using a different drive for linux, simply because Windows has a horrible boot manager and doesnt play well with Linux. if you ever need to re-install Windows, it will overwrite the MBR and you will need to do a "boot rescue" to boot into Linux again. if you use UEFI, Windows likes to re-write the UEFI boot options and sometimes guesses the wrong efi image for your Linux install, so you need to create a new entry pointing to your efi image...

if you are using a spinning hard disk, it is known that the begining of the drive performs better (look into any benchmark and you will see the performance getting lower as it uses the end of the drives), so folks started making an "OS" partition at the begining of the drive (which would improve load times and swap paging times) and a second partition for "miscellaneous" data(were performance really didin't matter).
with most drives now having a "large" cache or being hybrid (with a SSD cache), the performance gains from having your OS and swap at the beginning of the drive is dim and often disregarded.

with that being said. i usually partition my windows machines with 60GB at the beginning of the disk for the OS+swap, and the rest for "data" (old habits die hard, i know).

now with a SSD, there would be little to no performance impact, the only performance impact on SSD's that i have noticed are heavily fragmented drives, which is rare these days due to larger block sizes and Windows "defrag" running on the background.

[MyShpoonIsTooBig]

Thank you all for your input! I tried partitioning this morning but windows wouldn't let me partition more than half my drive, so, ♥♥♥♥ it. I don't have the patience to over ride this and it seems the general consensus is "it's not really worth it". At this moment, I agree. I'll fork over the money for an SSD if I want better performance.

Thank you all again for this learning experience!