Show your Disk Structure and explain your logic...

Hello community!

As with some of my other posts, like this one, it would be interesting to see how users set up their disks so we can try and improve our own.

Please post a screenshot of your Disk Structure (right click Start Menu and choose Disk Management) and This PC section in File Explorer. If there is a reason why you structured your disk in a specific way, please post the reasons for the same.

Here is mine:

DISK MANAGEMENT



FILE EXPLORER



DETAILS

My laptop has 2 internal disks:

1. 1TB SSD: Crucial MX500

1. Microsoft System Reserved (MSR): 100 MB
2. EFI: 327 MB
3. Recovery: 1 GB
4. Windows 10: 120 GB
5. Windows 11: 120 GB
6. Data: used primarily to save system installation files, backups of VMs, etc.: 300 GB
7. Virtual Machines: 300 GB
8. Unallocated Space (Over Provisioning): 90 GB

2. 1 TB HDD: Seagate

1. Files: For all my files as explained here
2. Cloud: From where I can access/ download files in my cloud

EXPLANATION

I wanted to setup the disk in a manner that is completely self-sufficient in multiple ways, i.e. I can get my laptop up and running without a backup disk, recovery disk or an installation disk. I have a dual-boot setup, a working recovery and access to ISOs and other files that may be required to repair, reset or restore a boot partition.

The dual-boot setup is primarily to have an OS to fall back to in case one of them crashes. That way I can continue to have access to all my files with zero downtime. Although one is not a mirror image of the other (I don't have such a requirement), people can consider setting it up that way if they have a need.

The Data partition primarily holds ISO files of various OS and also a backup copy of the Virtual Machines that I play around with. On one occasion, the macOS VM grew from 30 GB to 80 GB in a day and I couldn't figure out why that happened. So I simply deleted the .vmdk file and replaced it from the backup.

The Virtual Machines are in a separate partition of their own. I can access these from any of the OSes. Keeping them in a separate partition of their own allows me to keep an eye on their size and helps me manage my disk space better. I can play around with macOS, Linux distros and also access files in my external disks that are partitioned in a format that Windows cannot read.

If this was my Desktop, I would have a similar structure, although instead of partitions, I would have installed separate disks that do the same. But this privilege is not available for laptops.

So, overall an advanced and completely self-sufficient system (for personal use) that can do a lot more than a normal system, and can also repair itself without relying on external disks.

I like to keep things simple. All my laptops settings are the same. Single disks with dual booting. Don't use the Cloud and all backups are kept off the laptops on external drives for obvious reasons. Err... that's it Not very exiting....

@Fabler2 Where can I get those great looking purple icons.

glasskuter said:

@Fabler2 Where can I get those great looking purple icons.

Click to expand...

I bought IconPackager for under a tenner (£10) and it 's installed on all of my laptops (same key).

Well many laptops allow two drives now, which adds significant flexibility. I use second drive as my main data drive and as a repository for Reflect Image backups bit I copy them to an offline drive now and then, pragmatically accepting if the second drive failed aling with first, or laptop was stolen, I can recover to a new pc without too much fuss.

I cannot see why you would say not to use cloud services. They are great for backing up crtical data, cherished photos etc.

Although I dual boot now and then, I use virtual hard drives as they do not mean you need to have rigid partitioning.

Most of time, I run the secondary OSs inside Hyper-V. There is a modest performance reduction doing this but unless CPU intensive, not usually an issue.

I would never even buy a laptop for main use with only one drive. I would always have two, so of one fails, I can very quickly switch to other without having to wait to buy new drives.

I do have a very light emmc 32GB drive travel laptop just si I can use office, use internet and watch videos when away. Its drive is small enough that I can backup to a 64 GB usb flash drive but tbh, if 32GB drive fails, laptop is dead, so I only do thar now and then. I only really back up data to onedrive most of the time.

Key point is use and backup strategies vary for individuals and type of pc, and primary use.

I could not possible run my laptops like you do as I would find it too inflexible.

cereberus said:

Well many laptops allow two drives now, which adds significant flexibility. I use second drive as my main data drive and as a repository for Reflect Image backups bit I copy them to an offline drive now and then, pragmatically accepting if the second drive failed aling with first, or laptop was stolen, I can recover to a new pc without too much fuss.

I cannot see why you would say not to use cloud services. They are great for backing up crtical data, cherished photos etc.

Although I dual boot now and then, I use virtual hard drives as they do not mean you need to have rigid partitioning.

Most of time, I run the secondary OSs inside Hyper-V. There is a modest performance reduction doing this but unless CPU intensive, not usually an issue.

I would never even buy a laptop for main use with only one drive. I would always have two, so of one fails, I can very quickly switch to other without having to wait to buy new drives.

I do have a very light emmc 32GB drive travel laptop just si I can use office, use internet and watch videos when away. Its drive is small enough that I can backup to a 64 GB usb flash drive but tbh, if 32GB drive fails, laptop is dead, so I only do thar now and then. I only really back up data to onedrive most of the time.

Key point is use and backup strategies vary for individuals and type of pc, and primary use.

I could not possible run my laptops like you do as I would find it too inflexible.

Click to expand...

@cereberus , Although I have the options of having two drives in two of my laptops I don't like the idea of having too many eggs in one basket. Being infected with Ransomware is highly unlikely as a home user, I know, but I'm a bit paranoid about it.
As for the Cloud my upload speed is dire and would not trust my privacy there anyway.
Sometimes I do upload the occasional files to OneDrive but via a browser and encrypted with 7-zip.
A bit over the top for security thinking, maybe, but it keeps me happy.

Mine as it stands today ...


Mostly self explanatory ...

Data is general data and specific data types Including the standard Windows folders relocated via the built in "location" tab in properties, except for Images, Music and Video, which are in their own partitions or drives
Fast storage is a dedicated SSD for databases used by my image processing software packages.
Scratch is a temporary work area and The spare partitions are for temporary copies of other data when being managed/organised, they are also used to hold temporary work for clients

Fabler2 said:

@cereberus , Although I have the options of having two drives in two of my laptops I don't like the idea of having too many eggs in one basket. Being infected with Ransomware is highly unlikely as a home user, I know, but I'm a bit paranoid about it.
As for the Cloud my upload speed is dire and would not trust my privacy there anyway.
Sometimes I do upload the occasional files to OneDrive but via a browser and encrypted with 7-zip.
A bit over the top for security thinking, maybe, but it keeps me happy.

Click to expand...

My point is every user is different, and may have different strategies depending on device.

We seem to be getting a lot of posts on this forum asking a question like this, and there is never a "one size fits all" answer, and most are not actually related to Windows 11.

My 2-month-old 14" Notebook with Win11 came set up and I left it alone, works fine. The only changes I make with my Desktops is when adding a second internal drive and wiping the partitions off then creating a single partition for storage.

Plain and simple, easy to use and navigate C: OS, AV and stuff that will only install in the C drive. D all programs and data. E external drive for my project

Fabler2 said:

I bought IconPackager for under a tenner (£10) and it 's installed on all of my laptops (same key).

Official site. Stardock is a cutting-edge innovator specializing in desktop utility software and PC entertainment.

Official site. Stardock is a cutting-edge innovator specializing in desktop utility software and PC entertainment.

www.stardock.com

View attachment 16573

Click to expand...

Perfect! Purple is my favorite color. So, I went ahead and bought IconPackager so I, too, could have cool, purple icons!

jvickers said:

Perfect! Purple is my favorite color. So, I went ahead and bought IconPackager so I, too, could have cool, purple icons!

Click to expand...

Then I guess it's a good thing you're a "Power User"

jvickers said:

Perfect! Purple is my favorite color. So, I went ahead and bought IconPackager so I, too, could have cool, purple icons!

Click to expand...

It's a nice little program. On the recent Dev channel, though, have to restart Windows Explorer for it to work ok.

Will ya look at all the disk pics!

Just games, pics, disk images and backups.

C as small as possible to keep system backups small, unfortunately 11 forces me to use 66GB, so 40GB wasted.
D is used for backups, documents, onedrive, steam and other system folders to keep them safe from reinstall.
RAMdisk (changes size as needed) for browser's cache, temp and desktop, which is also used for downloads.
D has also limited permissions for Users and SYSTEM to avoid possible ransomware. Writes require admin.

Hi folks

On a laptop I have one 512 GB SSD (actually a NVMe2 drive) drive - partitioned as follows : - one EFI partition, one MSR partition and the rest formatted as NTFS and Linux XFS -- consisting of 5 VHDX physical partitions of around 50 GB each for various Windows systems and the rest for a Linux system- one / (root) XFS system, one /HOME xfs system and one Linux swap partition.

All my user data etc is on external drives or the cloud.

Cheers
jimbo

Currently booted in Windows 10, but here are mine. C and D (the os drives) and E (vmware) is my 1TB SSD. F, G, and H are all mechanical data drives. Games go on the os drive for speed.

Logic.. there has to be logic? LOL

I just have 3 drives.. one for the OS/apps
One for my photo work and one for everything else