> It's hard to justify a separate partition just for
> that. Recognizing that having a separate partition is more of a

suggestion

> than a requirement, would you still create a separate partition for

this?

> What happens when you are installing on an already running server

that might

> not be able to provide another partition on the fly, but instead

requires

> backing up, re-partitioning the drives and then restoring the server?
>

Dynamic disks make partitioning in this sense much less hassle than it
used to be, but I don't know if I would personally bother going
through the hassle for an existing server.

What is essential is that your databases are not to be treated as
files that can be simply copied block at a time. Such approach will
make those selling corrupt database recovery software rather wealthy.

The idea of a separate partition is a good one, because it is much
easier to tell third party techos to not touch drive E on the threat
of death than to give them 20 different paths to add to excludes.

We tell our customers to explicitly exclude their database(s) from
their backup software, and run either a backup tool or gbak through a
batch file to place the fbk file to a folder that will be backed up.
(Although one backup a day is enough for our requirements.)

Adam