OS partition size for Windows 10/11

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Pimpom

Forerunner
How big is your Windows 10/11 partition? Do you feel it's too small or needlessly big? Would you change the size if/when you get a new drive?

I know how much C: space I need for my own use. I don't play games any more and I don't install huge programs in my computer. The 90GB partition I've been using for the past several years has always been less than 60% full. I'll probably allocate 100GB or more for the OS partition in my new computer which I'll put together within the next few days.

On the other hand, I sometimes assemble computers for other people, mostly for word processing, browsing, light gaming, etc. In most cases, I set the OS partition size to 150GB. I always disable hibernation and move the Documents and Downloads directories to other partitions.

Occasionally, the computers are for things like serious gaming, architectural designing and video editing. So it will be nice to know how much C: space people in various fields of activity feel comfortable with.
 
On windows I prefer 256GB SSD as minimum for C drive, out of which actual usable is around 238GB. I don't move my downloads and documents to other drives. With windows and software, that takes around 70-80 GB. I get left with around 150GB of free space, which fills up overtime, but I never run out.
 
Thanks for the replies. Using a dedicated 256GB SSD for the OS drive leaves plenty of headroom for other things. And yes, leaving lots of empty space helps with caching and the SSD's self-maintenance activity.

OTOH, having a dedicated drive for OS and programs is not always practicable, either for reasons of economy or because the motherboard has only one M.2 slot, or because a small drive is slower than a bigger drive in the same series. In such cases, one must decide how big the C: partition should be.

I've heard of some people who prefer not to partition even a large drive. They use, for example, a 1TB drive as a single partition, install Windows and programs on it and place all other data in folders on that same partition. Bad idea IMO.
 
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Pimpom said:
Thanks for the replies. Using a dedicated 256GB SSD for the OS drive leaves plenty of headroom for other things. And yes, leaving lots of empty space helps with caching and the SSD's self-maintenance activity.

OTOH, having a dedicated drive for OS and programs is not always practicable, either for reasons of economy or because the motherboard has only one M.2 slot, or because a small drive is slower than a bigger drive in the same series. In such cases, one must decide how big the C: partition should be.

I've heard of some people who prefer not to partition even a large drive. They use, for example, a 1TB drive as a single partition, install Windows and programs on it and place all other data in folders on that same partition. Bad idea IMO.
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Why bad idea? I don’t think there’s any advantage in partitioning a SSD.
 
My OS SSD for my two work machines are 128Gb each - dedicated for windows 10.
Secondary HDD in one machine is 500gb and in another 1Tb.

Movies/TV Series etc are all on the HDD's. The SSD has the OS + Work programs with around 30Gb free approximately free.

The hobbyist/tinkering machines have 480Gb SSD's as the primary OS drive - with 1 machine running windows 11 and the other on windows 10. Windows 10 machine has a 2Tb HDD for data. Windows 11 Machine has 2Tb+4Tb for data. HDD's are almost full on both machines. 480 Gb SSD's have around 40 Gb free each.

Have multiple backups of all data on external hdd's - 3 copies - no NAS/Raid setup as of now - but may consider a dedicated box in the future.

No games on any machines :)
 
I have 3 NVMes (1 gen 3, 2 gen 4), 1 SATA SSD, and one HDD.

1 NVMe (1 TB, gen 3) is used as my primary OS drive. That's just for Windows and programs, I don't let it get too full because it's DRAM-less. Enough capacity as an OS drive and not really bother about space management. 2 NVMes are used as game install drives, SATA SSD used for older games, and HDD is used for misc, such as media.
 
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