Partitioning S-ATA harddrive

[bri]

i got a Dell 8400 from last week's deal and am deciding whether to use Partition Magic on it to make the hard drive manageable. I don't know how this new fangled S-ATA jazz works, are there any complications or performance hits for partitioning the drive? also does anyone have a good scheme for manageable backups with as few partitions as possible? i figure one for system, one for programs, one for documents. a bunch of programs were already installed with the machine, which i'm not sure are worth uninstalling and installing in the new 'programs' drive.

[LegendKiller]

i got a Dell 8400 from last week's deal and am deciding whether to use Partition Magic on it to make the hard drive manageable. I don't know how this new fangled S-ATA jazz works, are there any complications or performance hits for partitioning the drive? also does anyone have a good scheme for manageable backups with as few partitions as possible? i figure one for system, one for programs, one for documents. a bunch of programs were already installed with the machine, which i'm not sure are worth uninstalling and installing in the new 'programs' drive.

SATA will handle multiple partitions without a problem. There are no visible differences between the two once you get down to using them. Windows handle both the same. As far as partitions, I usually do 1 system to handle both Windows and programs, a 2nd to handle documents and backups.

LK