Benefits of multiple partitions?

Wise folks,

What are the pros & cons of having a number of separate partitions? The idea comes more or less from Unix. I am tempted to split up a 20 or 40 GB hd as follows:

- 3 GB operating system

- 3 GB Program Files

- 0.5 - 1 GB for swap

- 0.5 GB for all the little junk, like tiny Internet cache files, etc. etc. and possibly also the Windows temp folder

- a separate 6 GB partition for pristine images of OS and applications, stored for quick recovery (via a Ghost or Linux boot disk)

- the rest allocated to user data, split again into current and cold files.

This would make defragmentation much faster, and backing up data and apps simpler and more reliable.

Any comments?

Any comments?

Any comments?


TIA

 

... as usual, I forgot to mention...

- I realize one may need to do a few well designed hacks to move system-defined folders around

- I need all the help I can get in knowing what said hacks should be

- and also re. what can and can't be assigned to chosen partitons


TIA again...

 

I would go with the idea that "Less is Best ". I had the same thought process as you when I carved up my HDD at work. I have 6 partitions and all it does is confuse the hell outta me. I am constantly trying to remember where I stuck a file.
If I was to start over with a single OS (my systems are dual boot, but I think I could get away with using Win2k only) I would carve my HDD like this (assuming 40 MB HDD):

c: 3 GB for Win 2k (WINNT directory is >1GB)
d: 15 GB for program and temp files
e: 20 GB Data files (excel, access, mp3s, etc)
f: 2 GB for image of the OS partition

Keep the swap file on C. And do further separation using folders, not partitions

thats my $0.02

Hex92