I am using 10 GB drive for cold storage of install files and non essential data. My structure is C:60 GB OS and installed programs F: 5 GB Internet and windows temp files, and email. G: 10 GB Storage
what I am trying to get at is, if you run out of storage in one partition, you have to re-partition your drives, right? I know your software can do it dynamically. Is this what you plan on doing?
I agree. Considering that we're trying to provide some sort of recoverability in the event of HD failure or software corruption... I like the idea of a separate hard drive or two and just make backup clones with Acronis True Image or Casper XP 3.0 There is even a new USB to ATA connector (from Vantec) which will allow you to hot-swap backup drives. No more need for expensive "external" hard drives or "external hard drive enclosures".
On a side note: I put a switch on the front of my computer so that I can choose which hard drive is the master and which is the slave, so that I can boot from either one. I am running Ubuntu Linux and XP each on their own disk. With a different type of switch, you could completely turn off the power to the slave drive in addition to switching master/slave, so that you have essentially two independant and isolated computers in one case. You could run two types of os's, or have a trading system and a warez/porn system (if yer into that sort of thing, I'm not of course!) All the keyloggers and spyware won't be able to penetrate your 'real' system. http://www.dvhardware.net/modules.php?name=Sections&sop=viewarticle&artid=4
Why not make your life a lot easier and just buy a second hard drive. They are so cheap these days, and will simplify things a lot more than all of these multiple partitions. Simply install the second drive and use it as a backup/download/crap collector/etc. You can even partition the hell out of it if you want. This way you can keep your primary drive simple and your backups will be on the second drive, providing you protection against failure of the first drive. You can even set up automatic scripts to do backups on a regular basis. If you ever have to reload your system due to virus/crap/etc, then all of your data is on the other drive and you can do a clean install very easily. This is what I do. I even go one step further and actually install the operating system on the second drive as well so that if I ever need to I can boot to the second drive simply by changing the BIOS settings for the boot drive. Echo
Don't know what the thinking is in wanting to do all of this work but it's a moot point to all of it if you logon with administrator or power user level privileges which most users do. If the box gets hacked the hacker owns the whole physical drive. What is the main reason for splitting up the drive into all of these paritions? Just curious. Bsulli
I used one of those flat switches on the back of an old computer that switches the voltage. That way it is less likely there would be an "accident". I don't know what would happen if it were switched "hot", but it might not be pretty.
I have a laptop, having separate partitions allows me to a re install of OS on C: , when I have all my back exe on a separate drive say F: