Do You Separate Your Programs from the OS Drive?

[Sir Topham Hatt]

A few years ago it was almost recommended to have a separate partition for games, a separate one for programs leaving the OS on a single partition of it's own.

Now with the advent of SSD and such, is it really worth it any more?

 

I personally separate games, documents and programs but I'm starting to think it isn't really worth it any more.

 

The person who explained it to me said if your Windows system got infected with a virus or you messed it up, then you could wipe the partition and re-install without losing games or documents.  However in the six or seven years I have had this set up, I have needed that "protection" zero times.  But then I am not someone who has any sort of RAID protection, I simply back up once a year to DVDs and an external HDD whenever I make major changes to a document or music collection.

It may have made sense if you had three or four different drives as to spread the load, thus saving work on the one hard drive.  However I only have two so the work is still pressured on either of them.

 

Discuss :)

[Dick Montage]

A few years ago it was almost recommended to have a separate partition for games, a separate one for programs leaving the OS on a single partition of it's own.

 

It was a practice that people got into under the delusion that it somehow aided organisation, backup, speed...

 

Utter nonsense and anyone that did this on HDDs was fooling themselves.  Not sure who recommended it...

[MikeChipshop Member]

Nah not any more. Since SSD'ing my setup i much prefer things to run straight from that.

Cloud backup does most of the hard work now for getting stuff on to the drives.

[REM2000]

never have bothered with apps as i have to reinstall these when i reformat windows. I do however keep my steam folder on a seperate drive as these games don't need to be reinstalled. 

[Kami-]

I don't partition my drives but I do have separate drives for music & movies/tv...

[Max Norris]

The "protection" idea doesn't sound too solid.. sure the executables are safe, but there's (usually) more to it.. registry, global and user data, common files, assemblies or components that get installed into Windows, etc. Certainly no performance benefits. There's exceptions of course but mostly going to wind up with a drive full of programs that aren't going to run on a fresh install. Kind of like backing up your /usr/bin directory in Linux but not getting the rest of it.. not going to do much good in a disaster.

The only thing I store on a different drive is games, and that's only due to capacity reasons, my currently installed set is about 800GB and on this system my drives are 1TB each. Same with my server running Plex.. videos are stored on a separate drive due to capacity. That one I would probably keep separate anyway as I'd just want to back up the OS hosting it, not the videos.

[TPreston]

Music and videos are stored on a network server. Applications are sysprep'd into the os image

[The Dark Knight]

Only the Steam folder.

[tsupersonic]

4 drives in my desktop:

Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB: OS + Programs

Intel 330 80 GB: Steam games

WD Black 500 GB: Documents, programs/games

WD Black 1 TB: Video/Pictures/Music 

 

I used to separate it before I had my NAS, and I continue to do so. No reason to, but I really have no reason to have HDD's in my desktop system in anymore, since everything is on my NAS. 

[FiB3R]

Why would you separate programs from the OS drive/partition, apart from space constraints?

Programs will still write to the registry, ect., and will still need reinstalling when you reformat/replace that drive/partition.

Data/Media, yep.

Programs, nope.

[tsupersonic]

Why would you separate programs from the OS drive/partition, apart from space constraints? Programs will still write to the registry, ect., and will still need reinstalling when you reformat/replace that drive/partition.

Not all programs require reinstallation. Steam is an excellent example - rather than download ~80 GB of games all over again, I just launch Steam from my other SSD and it just works, without having to redownload all the games. 

[Tomoko]

It was a practice that people got into under the delusion that it somehow aided organisation, backup, speed...

 

Utter nonsense and anyone that did this on HDDs was fooling themselves.  Not sure who recommended it...

 

By having my games like Steam and WoW on a separate partition I can format the system partition and reinstall Windows any time without having to reinstall all my games, among other things that can be saved as is like downloads, media files, etc. Granted reinstalling Windows is not something I do much anymore but in the past it was a very good idea to have stuff on separate partitions and I still do. It also allows you to defragment partitions individually, not to mention that I'm a bit ocd about organizing my stuff.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

I don't bother with separating programs from the system drive on Windows, because in most cases if you lose the OS, it's highly unlikely that your applications will work after re-installing the OS (registry settings missing, etc). Not so much the case with Linux, but I still don't bother.

What I do separate though is my OS/Programs from my user directory. That way if I lose the OS or my programs, I won't lose my documents/configs.

[HoochieMamma]

OS and programs on SSD, everything else spans over 2 separate 2TB drives. Anything important goes to 1TB synology NAS set up in a RAID for protection.

[Jose_49]

I remember that I used to partition because OSes previously tend to fail constantly by viruses and etc (or so I was told). Meaning that only the OS would remain at C: and programs, videos, music, etc. would remain at D: or other drive. This was done because if the OS failed to load and needed to be formatted, I could safely format C and have my files intact at D.

 

Today, I don't do it anymore since I keep making sporadic backups between the week to external hard drives and I"m more conscious on which sites I shall visit and which not.

[cork1958]

Poll is setup very stupidly. I voted no, I don't separate on the first and third question, so the second question is moot, but the poll made me vote for something, so I put "other" which still means no, I don't separate anything!

 

Never have, even with IDE hard drives, never will! Doesn't make squat for a difference anyway. Also, don't save squat onto a computer. I also NEVER have to reformat, like so many of you who think this type setup is worth the effort and are always reformatting!  :wacko:

[The Evil Overlord]

Yes, because ME was terrible, and it's a habit I kept right through to current (win7)

And if there's nothing but os on C drive, nothing is lost after a reformat

[Pupik]

No. I only install games on separated partition, which isn't an SSD.

[FiB3R]

Not all programs require reinstallation. Steam is an excellent example - rather than download ~80 GB of games all over again, I just launch Steam from my other SSD and it just works, without having to redownload all the games.

*sigh*, I obviously left my ****tard hat on again lol.

OK apaaaaaart from steam, which has already been mentioned, is pretty unique in that respect, and is catagorised as Games, rather than Programs.

So yeah, the vast majority of programs would need to be reinstalled.

[spikey_richie]

I have a 60GB SSD for a boot disk (WinSXS takes up about 20GB of that), then my User folders are on a 500GB drive and, my games are on a seperate 500GB drive and then I have another 500GB drive for backups, as well as 2x 500GB drives in my NAS for additional backup and file shares.

[cooky560 Veteran]

I keep all my data on a seperate drive so I can re-install an OS without fear of losing data I've made between my monthly backups. Also my OS drive is an SSD with limited space (256gb) so I only use it for apps and the OS.

[Phouchg]

Everything is separated from OS, including programs. Both Program Files folders have become a dump, but Programs folder contains only what I use and need. Same goes for Documents where every tard developer puts their stuff under names chosen according to moon phase and tea prices in China. I'm major-league OCD about organizing stuff according to my own ideas. And whether that is or isn't utter nonsense, isn't really up for a healthy discussion, just like presence (or lack thereof) of Start Menu in Windows 8.

[ILikeTobacco]

I do depending on the program. Saved games, music, documents, and anything that I really don't want to lose goes on a separate drive so I can format and reinstall Windows if things go south but not have to worry about losing those during the format.

[iron2000]

I do separate.

I have my OS + programs on the SSD and my other files (pictures, movies etc) on a separate HDD.

 

Why?

One reason is that the SSD's capacity is only 120GB.

Before that I had an 80GB OS HDD.

The WinSxS folder is very very greedy, though that say its some symbolic links but I don't want to find out what happens if it eats up all my space.

Another reason is that I can safely upgrade or reinstall the OS as my other files are on another HDD.

I need to reinstall the programs though.

 

I used to put my swap file and temporary files to their own partition on a separate drive from the OS when all 3 of my storage drives are HDD.

Read it it may be more efficient and reduce fragmentation on the OS drive.

Now I leave my swap file and Windows temporary files on the SSD.

[Nagisan]

Yes.

 

I run a SSD that is only 120GB as my system drive, it can't handle the 150 GB of Steam games I have installed, that's before adding in the non-Steam games.

 

I also separate out my browser profiles to another drive. My SSD is a Gen1 (still going strong so far), so it has stuttering issues when small amounts of data are manipulated constantly, a la how most browsers cache systems work.