Windows 10 Home has created an extra partition (Local disk 'F'), for why?

[Tommygunn]

I recently built a new computer and installed Windows 10 Home and ideally I would have had the following:
Operating System (C), Games (D) and Everything Else (G) - C and D on my SSD and G on my HDD.

However, after the install, a disk 'F' appeared on my SSD and has the same or similar folders as my 'C' drive, and I don't know why. From some searching this would appear to be normal and unavoidable, however, other people's 'F' disk only seems to take up a few hundred Mb's while mine has a capacity of nearly 20Gb.

Why is this file here, why are certain programs e.g. Movavi Video Suite defaulting to it for photo/video saves and can I get rid of it and return the 20Gb back to C or D disk?

Thanks,
Tom.

 

[Flaky]

Show the partition layout (diskmgmt.msc).

 

[Tommygunn]

Certainly.



I've just realised that this is part of my HDD not my SSD.
I don't understand this because when I installed W10 I formatted both disks, the SSD has two partitions for the OS and games while the HDD is one whole, contiguous disk. This HDD is to hold my slow stuff, e.g. photos, videos, docs etc and, as mentioned, was reformatted from it's previous XP configuration which then had my files copied over to it from my back up HDD.

Tom.

 

[newtekie1]

It looks to me like F is a left over partition from the HDD's previous life. F is the primary partition and G is only a logical partition. F could have also been a hidden system partition that Win 10 is just now giving a drive letter.

If there is nothing on the HDD yet, then I'd use diskpart to clean it to get rid of both the partitions and then use disk management to create a single partition.

Also, 50GB is really too small for a Windows 10 C drive.

 

[jaggerwild]

50GB is really too small for a Windows 10 C drive.

That is his "F" drive, I think windows created it.

 

[Jetster]

Windows did not create that 20 Gb partition on Disk 1

Definitely not normal

Also its a bad idea to partition Windows with 50 Gb. Dont separate your OS and games. (unless you have to because of space) You can separate your data folder is you want. Just move them after the install

Another tip: when formatting and installing Windows. Disconnect all other drives. After install is complete you can reattach them. Windows will ad the HDD to the windows boot record if it is connected

 

[jboydgolfer]

Disconnect all other drives. After install is complete you can reattach them

+1 EXTREMELY good advice.

 

[newtekie1]

That is his "F" drive, I think windows created it.

His F drive is 20GB, his C Drive is only 50GB. I assume he picked that size when he partitioned the drive when installing Windows, and it is too small.

 

[Flaky]

OP will sooner or later realize that

F: looks like a remainder after XP system partition.
Repartitioning whole HDD just to get 20GB makes no sense to me, especially if the drive is filled with data. The easiest way is to... just remove the letter and forget about it

 

[RejZoR]

Windows did not create that 20 Gb partition on Disk 1

Definitely not normal

Also its a bad idea to partition Windows with 50 Gb. Dont separate your OS and games. (unless you have to because of space) You can separate your data folder is you want. Just move them after the install

Another tip: when formatting and installing Windows. Disconnect all other drives. After install is complete you can reattach them. Windows will ad the HDD to the windows boot record if it is connected

Nonsense. I've been running such configuration since beginning of time. Windows and programs on C: everything else on D: On WinXP we even had pagefile on its own partition to decrease fragmentation. Currently I use 100 GB partition for OS and programs and 1800 GB partition for everyathing else. Works like a charm. Not to mention total system reinstalls are so much faster and easier.

 

[SnakeDoctor]

Maybe the drive was always there and windows did not assign a drive letter thus not seeing the partition .Maybe after a update is decided to give it a drive letter?
What is on the new partition?

 

[Jetster]

Nonsense. I've been running such configuration since beginning of time. Windows and programs on C: everything else on D: On WinXP we even had pagefile on its own partition to decrease fragmentation. Currently I use 100 GB partition for OS and programs and 1800 GB partition for everyathing else. Works like a charm. Not to mention total system reinstalls are so much faster and easier.

So move past XP. 100Gb is fine but 50 is a little small but really there is no benefit to have a program that has install files on a separate partition unless its a lack of drive space. If that's what your referring to.

 

[RejZoR]

I used to have 50GB for WinXP, but for Win 7 and beyond I used 100GB, mostly because I had a lot of RAM (18GB on LGA1366 when most people only had max 8GB) and that translated into huge pagefile and hibernation file (both together over 25GB). Then there was also System Restore which took its own chunk so I was forced to go with 100GB and it still works today.

 

[Vayra86]

I just use actual physical disks (SSDs) to organize and allocate space. Creating your file system/organization through partitioning is past history, you did that because 'what if the virus came' and its old news. Let it go. Todays' ransomware doesn't discriminate anyway.

 

[Tommygunn]

Ok. I have resolved this and completely blanked the drive and now I only have three drives, no doubt an oversight when I attempted to format the HDD prior to the Windows 10.

Concerning the other points people have bought up, I'll keep those in mind.

Cheers,
Tom.

 

[Vya Domus]

Another tip: when formatting and installing Windows. Disconnect all other drives. After install is complete you can reattach them. Windows will ad the HDD to the windows boot record if it is connected

Or if it's a clean install with new drivers you can just leave them as unallocated space.

 

[RejZoR]

I just use actual physical disks (SSDs) to organize and allocate space. Creating your file system/organization through partitioning is past history, you did that because 'what if the virus came' and its old news. Let it go. Todays' ransomware doesn't discriminate anyway.

Lol? Using partitions is not "last year" thing. It's a standard feature of any OS. Also, having physically split drives means a lot of things will actually operate slower. Like for example, if you extract something to drive D, it'll have to go through a chipset because most tools internally extract into TEMP (C drive) and then copy to an actual destination. Where on partitioned drive, it'll still go through the same internal drive link. Which is infinitely faster than going through chipset and SATA3.

 

[Vayra86]

Lol? Using partitions is not "last year" thing. It's a standard feature of any OS. Also, having physically split drives means a lot of things will actually operate slower. Like for example, if you extract something to drive D, it'll have to go through a chipset because most tools internally extract into TEMP (C drive) and then copy to an actual destination. Where on partitioned drive, it'll still go through the same internal drive link. Which is infinitely faster than going through chipset and SATA3.

Its an available feature, but what is the actual advantage of multiple partitions nowadays, over just keeping the whole drive as a single partition?

 

[RejZoR]

Its an available feature, but what is the actual advantage of multiple partitions nowadays, over just keeping the whole drive as a single partition?

Total system reinstall in minutes. Opposed to copying EVERYTHING somewhere else, formatting, reinstalling and copying everything back... You just format the C partition, install windows and everything from data remains on D: . I even have documents redirected to D: drive so that I don't even lose any of my documents when formatting. I just link back the folders which takes me 1 minute of calm work.

Windows 10 does have Refresh function, but I've just recently noticed it keeps ALL the drivers from last install which can be a problem, so I avoid using it now.

 

[Vayra86]

Total system reinstall in minutes. Opposed to copying EVERYTHING somewhere else, formatting, reinstalling and copying everything back... You just format the C partition, install windows and everything from data remains on D: . I even have documents redirected to D: drive so that I don't even lose any of my documents when formatting. I just link back the folders which takes me 1 minute of calm work.

Windows 10 does have Refresh function, but I've just recently noticed it keeps ALL the drivers from last install which can be a problem, so I avoid using it now.

Ah yes I see the point. This is what I do with actual disks; OS and applications all sit on one SSD. I wipe it, clean install, done. I also redirect my other maps Thing is, with SSDs, Im not a big fan of partitions because that and overprovisioning can make you end up with pretty limited partitions in size, it can be a hassle.

 

[RejZoR]

It makes no difference if it's SSD or not. Then again I'm using a 2TB SSD where most of you use crappy little boot drives, so I can see why you have issues with it I've learned that splitting things into two physical drives isn't a good idea. I've had 2 HDD's back in the day, one for OS and programs, other for everything else. It was a lot slower than I expected. I thought having two independently spinning drives would speed things up, but it all got nerfed by the fact it had to transport all the data via chipset and SATA. Where with single partitioned drive, it just uses internal HDD buffer which is lightning fast compared to SATA or chipset. Same applies to SSD's. M.2 NVMe brings them even closer, bridging the gap even further.

We'll reach best situation when data storage will tap directly into CPU bus. Meaning it won't even be using PCIe anymore, we're talking on having storage on same level as CPU and memory. Basically DMI for Intel and InfinityFabric for AMD level of access. I know NAND is not quite up there to fully utilize it, but I think this is really the most critical and beneficial thing we can hope for to dramatically boost performance. Only next step is erasing the line between RAM and disk storage. Which, Intel's Optane is basically trying to achieve.

 

[micropage7]

looks like you missed something or the ssd itself has another partition so after you install it F appear
since the F is too small for OS, win avoid it and leave it as is

 

[newtekie1]

Lol? Using partitions is not "last year" thing. It's a standard feature of any OS. Also, having physically split drives means a lot of things will actually operate slower. Like for example, if you extract something to drive D, it'll have to go through a chipset because most tools internally extract into TEMP (C drive) and then copy to an actual destination. Where on partitioned drive, it'll still go through the same internal drive link. Which is infinitely faster than going through chipset and SATA3.

Regardless of if you use partitions or different disks, the data still moves off the drive when copying. And in fact, using separate drives can actually be faster. Whenever you copy from one drive letter to another, regardless of if on the same drive or different drives, the data is pulled from the source drive into memory, then written from memory onto the source drive. If the read and write commands are happening on the same drive, it can be slower than if the read command and write command are happening on different drives because Windows(other OSes) perform read commands and write commands at the same time. So if you are using the same drive, a queue starts to form because Windows is issuing more commands than the drive can handle. This queue is one of the major things NVMe seeks to help fix.

The only time this isn't the case is in a move command when the data is moving from one location to another on the same partition. In this case, the data isn't actually moved, just the pointers to the data in the file table are changed, so the operation is much faster. But if you move from one partition to another on the same drive, all of the data must be moved, so the read to memor/ write from memory still happens just like if it was moving between different physical drives.

I'm not saying, don't partition. It does have some advantages, namely the easier re-installation of Windows like you mention. So if you have one drive, partition it into a smaller OS drive and a larger data drive(I usually go with 120GB OS drive). However, if you can get multiple drives instead, then that is the better option. In that case, get a 120 or 240GB SSD for the OS, and then another drive for the rest. It is a better option, especially if you are using SATA.

 

[RejZoR]

Practical usage doesn't agree with you. The entire time I have a single drive operations are way faster than when I had two. Especially when extracting data that gets thrown into TEMP and then copied to destination. Opposed to doing that on same drive. Separate partitions don't seem to affect this, separate drives however do.

 

[newtekie1]

Practical usage doesn't agree with you. The entire time I have a single drive operations are way faster than when I had two. Especially when extracting data that gets thrown into TEMP and then copied to destination. Opposed to doing that on same drive. Separate partitions don't seem to affect this, separate drives however do.

It does in fact seem to agree with me.

Copying data from one SSD to another SSD: 3:25@297MB/s


Copying data from one partition to another on the same SSD: 6:00@168.9MB/s


Moving data from one SSD to another SSD: Consistantly around 439MB/s


Moving data from one partition to another on the same SSD: Pretty inconsistently around 230MB/s


The drives used were an MX200 system drive and a brand new MX300 fresh out of the package partitioned and formatted just for this with nothing else on it. Obviously the copy/move from SSD to SSD also had the disadvantage of being the system drive of the computer, so it was dealing with the occasional access from Windows and other programs running on the computer.

Here is my disk management for reference: