How big of a partition for OS & programs?

jmw1137 · Post by **jmw1137** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:06 am

I'm thinking 60GB would be plenty but don't want to have too little. Any thoughts? I'll have a 500GB HD so I'm thinking partition 60GB for OS & programs and the rest for files.

Norm · Post by **Norm** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:17 am

It really depends on the programs you're going to eventually install. Some games and programs take up a lot of space. For most people 60 gig would be overkill, but for others it could be far too small.

I'm presently using 9 gig of 20, but some of my large programs like Visual Studio, and MS Office were installed to another drive to save space on my system drive. My page file is on another drive as well, so are my temp files.
Plus, I don't make restore points using system restore.

As you can see it depends on the way you config your system, and what you intend to install on it.

jmw1137 · Post by **jmw1137** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:20 am

No games...I'll have Photoshop, Dreamweaver, MS Office, Nero, Audition, and probably a bunch of smaller files.

Even with my page file on that drive and doing restores on that drive it seems I was way overshooting. Maybe 30GB? That's probably still way overkill but it will give me room to expand if I want to.

Norm · Post by **Norm** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:35 am

Better to be safe than sorry.
Go with 60 now to avoid resizing the partition in the future.

30 gig may get a bit cramped over time, plus if 60 turns out to be way too big you can always use the space to dump large test files temporarily etc.

zooner · Post by **zooner** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 3:31 am

my OS drive is only 18gig. At most, I have 2 games installed on it. Plus, I have almost every app you have listed and more.

it's never more then half full.

however, I do agree with norm. It really depends on how often you reformat/reinstall.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 7:00 am

Yeah it depends what you run on it for programs. Do you install lots of games...many of them are getting over a gig in size now. I really don't need more than 20, use the rest as D for my storage.

Of course with todays gargantuan sized hard drives....doesn't matter as much, can make it quite large and never worry.

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 9:14 am

How big are the partitions you guys use for the page file/temp files ?...are they seperate little ones or just lumped in on another partition?

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 11:19 am

Izzo wrote:How big are the partitions you guys use for the page file/temp files ?...are they seperate little ones or just lumped in on another partition?

Usually 3-5GB for a pagefile, Temp folders goto a different drive that I throw my crap on, G:\Junk\ right now.

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 12:28 pm

4 partitions per hard drive max right ?

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 12:39 pm

Izzo wrote:How big are the partitions you guys use for the page file/temp files ?...are they seperate little ones or just lumped in on another partition?

I don't bother anymore...with 2K/XP, and today drives, don't really see much of a performance boost. Pagefile, to get any gain in performance, should really be on an entirely different spindle.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:55 pm

Izzo wrote:4 partitions per hard drive max right ?

4 Logical drives.

EDIT: You can get away with more at windows installl I guess? I have 1 primary and 5 logical on disk1, dunno.

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:58 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:4 Logical drives.

Right ..ok ... plus if I moved the page file to a second hard drive which turns slower how could that improve performance?

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:59 pm

Izzo wrote:Right ..ok ... plus if I moved the page file to a second hard drive which turns slower how could that improve performance?

Thats a bad Idea. I have a spare 37GB Raptor, now that would make a good pagefile drive!

jmw1137 · Post by **jmw1137** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:06 pm

I ended up deciding to go with 40GB. I don't play any games so it's just OS and programs. I checked my program files folder and my windows folder on my current computer (which has a lot of crap I won't be installing on the new one) and it's a combined 9GB. So, 40GB should be plenty for page file, OS and tons of programs.

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:12 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:Thats a bad Idea. I have a spare 37GB Raptor, now that would make a good pagefile drive!

Not going to but just thought I'd clarify

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:33 pm

Izzo wrote:Not going to but just thought I'd clarify

The only reason I make a partition on the same drive or array is for defragging and I think it might make for a cleaner drive image, unless the imaging software knows to avoid it.