ah yes, i know the term virtual machine -- but never tried working with it.

and yeah, i was thinking of doing raid, but just felt like sticking to this method for now.

in any case, any confirmations on whether my strategy is sound?

So again, my 250 GB will be split into two partitions of 50 and 200 GB. The 50 will be for the OS and pagefile; the 200 will be for apps.

Then the 500GB drive will be used ONLY for data.

How does that sound?

You may want to re-think 50gb if you are planning on Vista + Office 2007 and want to continue with that setup for another 4-5 years.

I don't think you need to split the 250, just leave it whole and use it for OS and Apps. Once it's split it's a PITA in the put back together, and then you have all of your apps sitting on a drive letter other than C which *some* might not like very much (default is always the best way to go in most cases, let the app sit where it wants so that i can find itself and it's components etc. You're not gaining any IO performance by splitting it, the heads are still seeking on the same platters whether it's split or not.

Also leave the 500 whole, no need to split that one either.

yeah, i really didn't want to split it, so i'm glad to hear some advice discouraging it.

i used to split way back in the day lol but really got sick of it.

anyway, i usually reinstall my systems every year or two depending on new tech and/or how messed up the system is :)

that's another reason to not split it at all....

that's fine.... I don't see any benefit to splitting in your situation.