Downside in having 2 or more partitions

[Bonehead]

If you ask me there is more waering of the hd with every partition you have. For every partition the heads have to jump to another track -- so extra waering. So what are the pro and cons in having multiple partitions anyway?

[Bazango]

I always imagined that since all the files for a program would typically be on one partition, then all the head activity would be restricted to that track and so reduce the work the head had to do. My thinking was that this increased the speed of traffic of data across the head, but you would think this would reduce wear too. The only reason the head would cross to another partition's track would be if you had stored the data for a program on one partition on another partition and this would defeat the purpose of partitioning in the first place.

But perhaps somebody has some real experience in this matter ...?

[Bonehead]

BTW please don't mention you have to reduce your partitions if you use FAT 16, because nearly no human being is using it anymore. And furthermore it's familiar with most people now. (...) How big may a partion be with FAT32 before the cluster size becomes bigger than 4K?

[Ed_S]

I've always ran multiple partitions, and have never had a problem with premature drive wear. And frankly if it did cause this I would consider it a plus, since I'd rather they blow before the drive's 3 yr warranty is up!

Pros:
Allows you to organize your programs, data, or whatever in more managable setup. For example, OS on C: , data on D: , apps on E:, etc.
If things go wrong in one partition, you can reformat it w/o losing what's on the others.
Utils run faster. Defrag 1 partition instead of the whole thing. After Windows crash, Scandisk checks only those partitions that were in use at the time of crash.

Cons:
Takes getting used to. You must remember to change the destination of every software installation or you'll fill up C: FAST! Some install routines refuse to cooperate & have to be fought - worst is Office! But it can be beaten. Also learning to deal with all the drive letters seems tough for some.
Not real friendly setup for multiple users. A friend likes his partitioned, but his kid keeps installing games using default settings - fills C: regularly!
Whole system maintenance takes longer. Defragging 10 partitions takes awhile! (but can be automated)
Explorer opens slower on each initial use since it must read all partitions. This may just be my system, since it must read 6 CD's as well. Not nearly as bad on my other machines which are also partitioned.

Overall the good outweighs the bad for me. Most of the "cons" are learning issues, while the "pros" are real usage advantages.

[KillerBug]

A few goodies more: you can use a CD-ROM emulator (like fakecd) to emulate a CD-ROM for the entire drive as a cd. Also, before I got into my 2 hard drive routine, I useualy had a partion from 200 to 500mb where I kept drivers and DOS games, so when I re-formated, all I had to re-install was the windows stuff, the DOS games don't care about the other drives.