PC World was, like us, slightly amazed at how long a Windows 7 upgrade can take on a Vista system crammed with data. They recommend a good overall geek tip as a fix: creating a separate “data” partition.

Gina ran down the benefits and how-to steps of separating your data from Windows on a standalone partition back in May, but with Windows 7 just a little over a month away, it’s worth re-considering, especially if you’re on a lower-end system and have a whole lot of media stored away. As PC World points out, once your music, movies, and other stuff is stashed away on a separate partition, you can still make it easy to access with Libraries, one of Windows 7′s best underhyped features.