How to Partition a Computer Disk Properly? How to Best Manage System and Software? Recommended Solutions!
How Should You Partition Your Computer Disk? What’s the Best Way to Manage Your System and Software? Here’s a Recommended Approach!
In 2025, people are still debating online: how should you partition your computer disk? Should you partition it at all? Where should the system and software be installed?
For this age-old question, everyone has their own habits and answers. A long, long time ago, computer repair shop technicians recommended five partitions: system, software, documents, entertainment, and office, each managed separately. But times have changed. Hard drives and operating systems have evolved. Having so many partitions is now unnecessary and wastes space.
Today, I’d like to recommend a more suitable partitioning and software installation scheme that maximizes disk space, minimizes waste, and makes things convenient for users, all while aligning with common sense.
Below, I’ll mainly compare the pros and cons of my recommended partitioning scheme versus using a single partition.
How to Partition Your Disk for Maximum Efficiency?
I recommend dual partitions. Without considering the EFI boot partition, divide your disk into two main partitions: C: drive and D: drive.
Then, install the system on C: drive and software on D: drive.
As we all know, more partitions lead to more wasted space. So, two partitions is a cost-effective scheme.
Why don’t I recommend just one partition? In other words, why not just have a single C: drive?
This comes down to analyzing the pros and cons of one partition versus two partitions from two perspectives: files and software.
From a File Perspective
One Partition (Only C: Drive)
Having one partition does have its conveniences. Installing software is straightforward—just click “Next” all the way through without worrying about installation locations or where to save files. You can use your computer without any restrictions.
However, when your system encounters problems, the downside of a single partition becomes immediately apparent.
If your system has issues, you’ll typically choose to reinstall it. I’ve discussed how to reinstall Windows in detail in previous articles. A necessary step in reinstalling is formatting the C: drive.
All your personal files—office documents, images, videos, etc.—are stored on C: drive. Once formatted, everything disappears. So, before reinstalling, you must back up your data.
You might argue that regardless of the situation, you always need to back up data before reinstalling. Even with two partitions, with data on D: drive, C: drive inevitably contains some personal files that need backing up.
Yes, you’re right. But if you manage your data well, the workload for backing up with two partitions is minimal. Don’t worry—we’ll analyze this later.
With only one partition, you’ll spend a lot of time backing up personal files before reinstalling the system.
Two Partitions (C: Drive and D: Drive)
There are some downsides to two partitions, but not many. Specifically, you’ll need to take a few extra steps when saving files or installing software, choosing where to install or save.
Continuing with the scenario above: if the system fails and needs reinstalling.
We’ve stored almost all personal files on D: drive. C: drive contains only the system. So, we can safely format C: drive directly and reinstall the system without any risk of data loss.
If you think this is too absolute, you might say that C: drive does contain some personal data that can’t be moved to D: drive for some reason… right?
Let me ask you: what personal files absolutely cannot be moved to D: drive?
You might say software leaves traces everywhere, and C: drive is unavoidable? That’s a topic for the “software perspective” we’ll discuss next. Right now, we’re talking about personal file backup.
So, from a personal file perspective, dual partitions are far superior to a single partition. Let’s move on to the software perspective.
From a Software Perspective
One Partition (Only C: Drive)
What’s the advantage here? You can install software without thinking—just click “Next” every time, no need to choose installation paths or worry about where software “dumps” files.
If your computer never fails, this method is great. But…
When the system fails, you need to reinstall it.
Again, you format C: drive. At this point, all installed software is wiped out. After reinstalling, you have to download and reinstall each application one by one.
Anyone who has reinstalled a system knows this is a huge task—time-consuming and exhausting, far more tiring than the reinstallation itself.
Actually, reinstalling the system isn’t hard. If it’s fast, it can be done in minutes.
The hardest part is before and after reinstalling. Before: backing up is tough. After: restoring is tough.
Back to the point. With a single partition, after formatting C: drive, you start from scratch with all software.
Two Partitions (C: Drive and D: Drive)
What’s different with two partitions?
Since we have two partitions, when installing software, we try to install everything on D: drive. For some software that stubbornly forces installation to C: drive, we usually can’t do much, but we can solve it by creating symbolic links or junctions on C: drive after installation.
For detailed methods on creating symbolic links and junctions, check my 39th article, “Maximizing C: Drive Space: New Heights with Symbolic Links,” and my 78th article, “Breaking the Curse: Microsoft Office Can Only Be Installed on C: Drive!” in the official account.
Since software is installed on D: drive, when reinstalling, we only format C: drive. So, we can safely format without worrying about losing software.
You might argue: But software requires a full installation process! Except for portable or green software, most software installed via an installer needs a complete installation to work.
You’re not wrong. However, in reality, “green” and “portable” software is far more common than you think.
The installation process is essentially a decompression process. When you run an installer, it extracts compressed files to your chosen installation path. These files include the main executable, DLL libraries, dependencies, etc.
After installation, your installation directory contains all the files the software needs to run. At this point, there’s a high chance the software becomes green or portable.
Let’s take WeChat for PC as an example.
After downloading the WeChat installer from the official website and installing it, the WeChat executable is in your installation folder, named WeChat.exe. Now, copy the entire installation folder to a USB drive. Plug that USB drive into a computer that has never had WeChat installed, open the folder, and run WeChat.exe.
You’ll find that WeChat runs directly on that computer without any prior installation.
So, isn’t a freshly reinstalled system like a computer that has never had WeChat? Isn’t D: drive like the “USB drive” in the example?
Through this example, you might understand: many so-called “installers” are just a way to help novice users “place” software on their computers. Software developers could just release a compressed package containing all dependencies. But directly extracting a package might confuse novices about which file to run and lead to incomplete uninstallation.
In fact, most software on your computer falls into this category. WeChat, browsers, Quark, QQ, Notepad++, DingTalk, Tencent Meeting, Mubu, most PDF tools, music players, video players, and many open-source small tools all work this way.
Sometimes, you can even open an installer with a decompression tool, and its contents are identical to the installation directory after installation.
Fundamentally, these software can do this because they have little or no dependency on the registry. They don’t modify the registry much during installation and rely solely on files in their installation directory to run properly.
However, if you need a right-click menu created by software, you’ll still need to run the installer, because creating a right-click menu requires registry changes.
For large software or software requiring licenses, they generally cannot become portable as described above. They heavily depend on the registry, and sometimes license data is stored there. So, these need to be reinstalled after a system reinstall. Examples include VMWare and various input methods.
In summary, with two partitions, a significant portion of your software doesn’t need reinstallation—it’s ready to use immediately. After reinstalling the system, you just go to D: drive, find their installation folders, create desktop shortcuts for their main executables, and you’re good to go. Only a few applications need to be reinstalled.
Additionally, there’s an extra benefit: Since many software configurations are stored in their installation folders, your personalized settings (like logged-in accounts, passwords, themes, etc.) are likely preserved after a system reinstall, saving you the hassle of reconfiguring everything.
Compared to the brute-force formatting of a single C: drive, this method saves an enormous amount of time and boosts efficiency significantly.
From the arguments above, it’s clear that the advantages of two partitions far outweigh the disadvantages compared to a single partition.
Here’s my recommendation for C: and D: drive sizes:
- 128GB or 256GB disk: Consider upgrading.
- 512GB disk: C: drive 100GB, D: drive 400GB.
- 1TB disk: C: drive 200GB, D: drive 800GB.
Generally, for a 512GB disk running Windows 10, 100GB for C: drive is sufficient. For a 1TB disk running Windows 11, 200GB is enough.
Tips
- The partitioning scheme recommended in this article is my personal opinion. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.
- Whether you install Windows using the standard method or wimboot, I recommend two partitions. Place the WIM file on D: drive. There’s no need to create a separate partition just for the WIM file.
If you find my analysis reasonable, I’d appreciate it if you could follow me and help share this article so more people can see it.