Using system and Data partitiobs

scottvsaunders · 19 Nov 2016

Hi,

I am new to splitting the hard drive so please bear with me here.

Currently installing Windows 10 on a HP Pavilion 15 laptop which was purchased preowned. Spoken to various people who have all said this it's recommended you split the hard drive into both system and data presumably to separate OS and data.

Well, the drive (1.25TB) has been partitioned with a C drive at 400GB and the D part for the rest.

That was simple enough however surely I need to do something else to tell the OS to install programs on the D drive and change location address?

Am I on the right track or making this process overly complicated ?

Thanks Scott

dalchina · 19 Nov 2016

Hi, it's a very good idea to separate your data from the OS.

There's normally little value in installing traditional desktop programs to a separate partition or disk- and exception might be where the program is very large. All programs bar portable programs almost inevitably create entries of some sort on the same partition as the OS.
- registry - start menu - working folders in e.g. Documents, Videos... - other folders in Program Files etc & the %appdata% folders.

There is no recommended way to 'tell' the OS to install programs to another partition or disk. Most programs allow you to specify the installation folder, as I expect you know, but that still leaves all the rest as above.

Turning to universal apps, it is posisble to move their location- there's a tutorial which addresses that in the Tutorial section which you are welcome to browse and search. (Many very practical tutorials of high standard).

Data is much more significant.
Whilst it is possible to relocate the typical set of library folders to another partition or disk, some people have encountered difficult issues with this. Again, there's a tutorial.

My personal approach is
a. Leave those on C: They are filled with folders created by programs I've installed, so I regard them as 'their' folders not 'My' folders!
b. I create and use my own on another disk.

NavyLCDR · 19 Nov 2016

I agree with @dalchina, just too lazy to type it all out

The only thing I would move to the data partition are the personal files that I would want to make sure and keep if I had to re-install Windows - not programs and apps. Documents, spreadsheets, music, movies, etc, those would go to the data partition. Also like dalchina stated, I would not worry about redirecting the "library" folders to the data partition, like the Documents and Downloads libraries. When I save a movie or document, I just select "Save As" and point it to my data storage location (for me, instead of a data partition, that would be a network attached storage drive).

Berton · 19 Nov 2016

Small partitions for the boot/system/C: drive can be a problem for installing large programs, an example: I installed 4 programs yesterday on the D: partition and they occupy a bit over 3GB storage.