Shoutbox

It wouldn't be much faster (if any) as all data is still on the same physical drive, the harddisk head still has to make roughly the same amount of movement. You might have some benefit though, as your system files are less fragmented over the entire drive.

I would do 2 partitions, but mianly for a different reason: Should your OS get messed up you can format that partition without loosing your media.

Edit: I'm slow.