Storage Solutions OS Partition Size - Suggestions Required

L

lastguyonthenet

Disciple
I am planning to build a new system with a 1 TB HDD. I would like to install the OS in a separate partition. Could you suggest what should be the size of this partition?

The larger software this partition will contain are:
OS: Windows 7
Microsoft Office
Visual Studio
Games: Eventually about 5-10 along the lines of Need For Speed/Dirt/Call of Duty/Bioshock/Crysis/Far Cry

Is 150 GB more than enough or should I make it 200 GB. I don't want to unnecessarily waste disk capacity nor do I want to fall short of it.
 
I prefer atleast two partitions, just in case OS goes kaput, I can format it easily without loosing everything. Otherwise I would have to use live CDs/another HDD to recover imp data.
@OP: As it is good practice to have atleast 30% of free space on each partition, so I would go with 200GB partition
 
What do you hope to gain by partitioning?

I stopped partitioning disks on single user machine long ago.


EDIT: If you are going to store critical data on your comp, you need a proper backup plan.
 
put your program installations and OS on single partition (quite obviously 'C:\') as they are replaceable.

put your "User" directory on another partition. this is where by default all of your settings and desktop data reside.

you can put your data anywhere apart from the "OS installation" and "User data" partition. it could be a separate partition on the same drive or an external one.

according to my PC usage, my hard disk crashes every 2.5 years and i've never lost any data. i get back to a working system in 20 mins, with all the user settings intact.
 
go for 200 GB for C:
Rest for all the data.
If you find yourself running out of space later, you can use EaseUS Partition magic which is free for home use to to resize the partitions
 
My personal suggestion is to create 4-5 partitions. It helps a lot during crisis When C goes bad or corrupt or with any other partition. 150gb C:, rest you can decide as per your quota of data..music, movies, games, softwares etc... Having multi partitions always help.
 
And I use just 40gb as C drive. Why waste precious space to C drive unless you are going to install huge big sized softwares!
 
2 partitions C & D
C= OS (70GB)
D= Data (rest of 1TB)
Capture.png
 
You can create two partitions, one with 300GB and other with remaining space. I'm sure that would be all you need to install all the stuff above. :p
 
I like to keep it simple with max two partitions on the bootable drive, one partition for the OS and the other for the data. A separate partition for the OS is preferable just for the ease of formatting it and reinstalling/installing the OS without the hassle of juggling your data.

Some of the HDD space requirements I found from the net are:
Windows 7 (64 bit) – 20 GB
MS Office 2013 (64 bit) – 3 GB
Visual Studio 2013 – 20 GB
Misc Applications – 7 GB
Games – An average FPS game requires 10 GB

You can easily fill up 150 GB with the above.

I am also exploring the idea of installing just the OS and applications on a 100 GB partition and installing the games on the other partition. If 120 GB SSDs were available for less than 2000 I would have snapped one up. But for now it’s a bit expensive for me.

Criminal said:
put your program installations and OS on single partition (quite obviously 'C:\') as they are replaceable.

put your "User" directory on another partition. this is where by default all of your settings and desktop data reside.
Click to expand...

How do you put your "User" directory on another partition?
 
lastguyonthenet said:
How do you put your "User" directory on another partition?
Click to expand...
It's bit time consuming but as it's a one time job, it's worth spending time on it. You need to use junctions to link system folders on your C drive to the ones on a different partition. And then replicate the path change in registry as well. Alongwith "Users", I also keep "ProgramData" folder on non-OS partition.

Idea is that if all of a sudden PC doesn't boot-up because of OS issues, you don't have to run around to salvage data from C drive. Mostly, what people lose during OS re-install are the open work files (MS Office etc), browser bookmarks, files on desktop, shortcuts added to quick launch bar and "send to" menu. If all of these folders are on a non-OS partition then you won't lose any work or program/game settings (temp/cache etc).

Windows allows you to move few system/user folders "after" the OS installation. There must be some utility for it on windows. I chose the manual option and moved folders during OS install in Audit mode, because I wanted to save the installation image for recovery. I reload OS using recovery as it takes few mins only. You can explore more about audio Audit mode if you have the time and energy.
 
Last edited:
@Criminal, if we relocate the "user" and "programdata" folders then any problems in updating windows?
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/949977
Caution Using the ProgramData setting to redirect folders to a drive other than the system volume will block your ability to upgrade to future versions of Windows.

By changing the default location of the user profile directories or program data folders to a volume other than the system volume, you cannot service your Windows installation. Any updates, fixes, or service packs cannot be applied to the installation. We recommend that you do not change the location of the user profile directories or program data folders.
Click to expand...
 
paarkhi said:
@Criminal, if we relocate the "user" and "programdata" folders then any problems in updating windows?
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/949977
Click to expand...

Programdata, program files and windows directory should always stay in C: no matter even if you are able to move it to another partition.
Have already experimented with them and mind you it creates a lot of problems further for many programs/application/software to be installed out there.
Programs will simply refuse to install, while installing i'll give abnormal errors and warnings and installations doesnt go successfully. After installing, the program wont run the way it should be or worst it wont run at all. Deploying/applying patches/updates/plugins etc.. becomes painful as the installer simply reads the default path for these 3 folders.

So these 3 should always sit where they are meant for.

Rest you can safely play with user account data and its documents etc.
 
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