Help with a new build, Win 7 Pro, w/1st time use of an SSD?

[oregonxfile]

Can you tell me if there is a partition size limit with Win7 64? I have a 3TB WD drive that I will use as a backup in my system, and perhaps I'd like to split it in half, partition-wise, unless there might be a performance hit doing so. Thee is a possibility I might put a few programs on the drive. Perhaps programs I do not use very often, or not requiring the speed the SSDs afford me.

Is there a good in partitioning scheme for a drive used as backup/storage?

Thanks,

Dave

[washu]

For any drive over 2 TB you need to use GPT partitioning instead of MBR, but otherwise there is no practical limit.

For storage drive 1 big partition is fine. No point in having to juggle space between two partitions.

[doveman]

It can be useful to partition the drive if for example, you have your games on one partition and all your other junk on the other partition. This will reduce fragmentation on the games partition, so you won't need to defrag it as often and it won't take as long when you do.

Likewise, if you make a partition for projects (music creation, art design, etc) then when you start a new project you can start with a clean unfragmented partition just by deleting all the previous project files.

The tricky thing with partitioning is deciding what size partition to make and I currently have both my HDDs with a single partition (for data at least. I have a couple of small partitions for Windows as well, as backup for my SSD).

[oregonxfile]

Hi all....again....

Well, I'm pretty sure I've got all of my hardware issues sorted out...

And, I think everyone for their help...

I have a software question, now, specifically a Win7 64 question...

I want to change the default install location for my programs....the ones that do not give me the option during install to manually change them...

I understand I can make a registry change, to default the installs to another drive...

Do I have to do that after my Win7 install, but before I begin to reinstall my other programs? Can I do it at any time, and then let Windows keep the changes straight, even after I've done a few program installs?

Thanks,

Dave

[washu]

I want to change the default install location for my programs....the ones that do not give me the option during install to manually change them...

This is possible, but I'd suggest you don't change this setting.

First off, how many programs that don't allow you to chose their install directory are big enough to matter?

If you really are worried about space on your main drive there are two better options.

1. Try compressing the application's folder using NTFS compression. Programs usually compress well and the fragmentation that compression often causes is pretty much irrelevant on an SSD. In many cases this can make things faster as fewer bits need to be read from the media.

2. If you are really short of space, install the program as normal, then move it to another drive and make a symlink in the original location. This leaves a pointer in your program files directory that points to the real location. There are command line tools for this included in Win 7 (mklink), or you can use this for a nice GUI: http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshel ... nsion.html