While modern storage solutions like SAN/NAS and virtualization have changed best practices, the partitioning strategy you described (10GB C: + larger D:) persists in many enterprise environments. Let's examine the technical rationale behind this approach.

Smaller system partitions offer tangible benefits for NTFS recovery operations. Consider this PowerShell example to check partition health:

# Check NTFS health on system partition
chkdsk C: /scan /perf
# Versus larger data partition
chkdsk D: /scan /perf

The scan time difference becomes significant when dealing with multi-TB volumes. For emergency recovery scenarios, a corrupted 10GB system partition can often be restored from backup 4-5x faster than a monolithic 2TB volume.

Separate partitions enable strategic storage allocation. A common pattern in Azure/AWS deployments:

# PowerShell for Azure VM storage configuration
New-AzDiskConfig -Location 'EastUS' -DiskSizeGB 10 -SkuName Premium_LRS -CreateOption Empty
New-AzDiskConfig -Location 'EastUS' -DiskSizeGB 1000 -SkuName StandardSSD_LRS -CreateOption Empty

This tiered approach places OS files on high-performance storage while keeping bulk data on cost-effective media.

Modern deployment automation tools still enforce partition separation. Here's a Terraform example for AWS:

resource "aws_ebs_volume" "os_volume" {
  size              = 10
  type              = "gp3"
  availability_zone = "us-east-1a"
}

resource "aws_ebs_volume" "data_volume" {
  size              = 1000
  type              = "st1"
  availability_zone = "us-east-1a"
}

For containerized workloads or cloud-native applications, single-partition designs are becoming more common. Kubernetes node provisioning often uses:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
  name: node-storage
spec:
  capacity:
    storage: 2Ti
  volumeMode: Filesystem
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain
  storageClassName: fast-disks

Partition separation enables granular security policies. This Group Policy template restricts system partition writes:

<RegistryPolicy>
  <Name>DenyUserWriteAccessToSystemPartition</Name>
  <Key>Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer</Key>
  <ValueName>NoDrives</ValueName>
  <ValueType>REG_DWORD</ValueType>
  <Enabled>true</Enabled>
  <Value>1</Value> <!-- Maps to C: -->
</RegistryPolicy>

While modern storage solutions like SAN/NAS have reduced some traditional partitioning needs, strategic partitioning remains relevant in Windows Server environments. Let's examine why:

A 10GB C: drive creates a controlled environment for the OS:

# PowerShell script to monitor partition usage
Get-WmiObject Win32_LogicalDisk | 
Where-Object {$_.DriveType -eq 3} | 
Select-Object DeviceID, Size, FreeSpace | 
Sort-Object DeviceID

This approach:

• Contains NTFS corruption to the system partition
• Prevents log/temp file explosions from consuming critical space
• Simplifies bare-metal recovery scenarios

Even with modern storage, partitioning affects performance:

# Disk performance test script
$testFile = "D:\PerfTest.dat"
$fileSize = 1GB
$test = [System.IO.File]::Create($testFile, $fileSize, [System.IO.FileOptions]::None)
$test.Close()
Remove-Item $testFile

Partitioning enables tiered storage strategies:

• OS partition on RAID-1 (mirroring)
• Data partition on RAID-5 (parity)
• TempDB/Swap on RAID-0 (striping)

Combine partitioning with virtualization best practices:

# Hyper-V storage configuration example
New-VHD -Path "D:\VMs\DataDisk.vhdx" -SizeBytes 500GB -Dynamic
Mount-VHD -Path "D:\VMs\DataDisk.vhdx"
Initialize-Disk -Number X -PartitionStyle GPT
New-Partition -DiskNumber X -DriveLetter E -UseMaximumSize
Format-Volume -DriveLetter E -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel "AppData"

Key implementation patterns:

• System partition for core OS (C:)
• Application partition for binaries (D:)
• Virtual disks for data storage (E:)