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Windows 10 Benefits of Keeping Separate Partitions for Programs and Data on SSD

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RayJack

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Jan 25, 2017
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Since new my Samsung R540 laptop has had two partitions, C for programs and D for data. I decided to replace the (slow) HDD with a SSD, and in the cloning process somehow everything was put into one partition. Is there any advantage in having separate partitions for programs and data?
 

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patcooke
In one word "Yes!" unless you're one of the many who never back up their data or image their operating system/installed software, then you needn't bother. But if you want to be able to image your system and maintain backups of your data then there is every reason to have separate drives/partitions for system and data. All I keep on my drive C is op sys, installed apps and system files. This keeps the space required to a minimum instead of bloating the drive with terrabytes of text, pics, movies and sounds files all buried deeap amongst system software in my documents, my pics, my this and my that folders! so when you make an image of the system drive it will not be bloated with terrabytes of user data. I use Macrium Reflect to...
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In one word "Yes!" unless you're one of the many who never back up their data or image their operating system/installed software, then you needn't bother. But if you want to be able to image your system and maintain backups of your data then there is every reason to have separate drives/partitions for system and data. All I keep on my drive C is op sys, installed apps and system files. This keeps the space required to a minimum instead of bloating the drive with terrabytes of text, pics, movies and sounds files all buried deeap amongst system software in my documents, my pics, my this and my that folders! so when you make an image of the system drive it will not be bloated with terrabytes of user data. I use Macrium Reflect to image my system drive regularly and I store the latest version of the image on the data drive to enable complete recovery of my system drive in minutes. All of my data drive gets backed up just by running a complete file and folder copy of the entire drive to an external hard drive (including the latest image of the system drive). This means as well as having a backup of all my data I also have a backup of the system drive image in case the entire hard drive fails completely.
 

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Solution
Hi

I'll second what Patcook said.
My PC has an SSD for my C:\ drive, and the only thing I have installed on it is Windows 10 and a few small programs like Malwarebytes.

All my other software, all my photos, music, games and graphics software are on other drives.

The advantage is that if Windows crashes, I get a virus, or have some issue I don't know how to fix, I can restore my Windows install in about 22 minutes, instead of hours messing around.

What ever happens, my data is safe and my software doesn't need to be reinstalled.

I use EaseUS Todo backup, a free easy to use program.
It will make a System Image of my drive in about 20 minutes.

If I had all my stuff on that drive it would take hours.

In addition anything that you don't want to lose should be copied to an external location, DVDs, an external hard drive, or cloud storage.

Don't use backup software just copy and paste the data to safe storage.

You never know what can happen, my computer has been hit by lightning twice!!!

Mike
 

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