How large should a Visita OS partition be?

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oneils

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 18, 2005
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Hey guys, how large should the os partition be for Vista? A quick google says the OS needs 15gb of free hard drive space. Should the partition then be about 20-25gb to be safe?
 
Cool, thanks. Is there really an advantage to installing the OS to its own partition? You didin't, is that because it doesn't really provide an advantage?
 
oneils said:
Cool, thanks. Is there really an advantage to installing the OS to its own partition? You didin't, is that because it doesn't really provide an advantage?
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This is like the most personally objective question you'll ask when it comes to installing an OS: should I make separate partitions or shouldn't I?

There's two sides: those that say screw it, use the entire drive as one big partition; and there's those that say yes it's more efficient and reliable to split the drivespace into partitions with each one having a specific purpose.

I personally have always split my drives into seperate partitions, leaving a relatively small system partition compared to the rest of the drive and the data/storage partitions.

It's up to you, really. Only you can decide what's best for you. There are some advantages to creating multiple partitions; one common one is that if you have a small C: or system partition, if you need to start over again and reinstall, obviously it wouldn't require a great deal of time to get back up and running since you're not talking about hundreds of gigs of data that might necessarily need to be backed up or restored before the system is redone.

Another reason: if you have an entire hard drive as C: and you get infected with a typical virus it'll most likely attack anything on the C: drive - that's the most common target for malware of most any kind.

But again, it's your call. You'll probably end up getting an even split among people that respond to this question in this thread. A poll would probably be an even split also, based on what I've seen around here over the years. For every person that says "Don't split it" you'll get a "Split it" response.

Another benefit to having a relatively small system partition: if you use imaging software to make a "perfect" backup of your system drive once you get everything running just "perfect" and the way you want it, obviously the resulting image will be much smaller.

Consider a 25GB system partition and typical imaging software with a 2:1 compression ration for most compressible material (mp3 files, video files, etc should be stored someplace else in this case), you'll have a smaller image file to work with in case you need to start over again.

If you've got a 500GB partition with 350GB of data on it - an all too often occurrence in today's computer community with people ripping DVDs to the hard drive for "home theater" jukebox style playback or other purposes - making a "simple" system backup is going to be a lot tougher to do and require a lot more space.

There are pros and cons for both sides; I happen to lean more to the small system partition/the rest for data/storage myself.

Hope this helps...

ps
I'd say 30GB is a nice size for a new Vista installation, and that's how large mine is when I install Vista, regardless of how large the physical hard drive is totally.
 
Great, thanks bbz_Ghost.

One noob question though, you mentioned that having a separate partition helps when re-installing. If you re-format before you re-install, can you limit the re-format to the os partition, or do you have to re-format the whole drive?

Again, thanks.

sorry if my question is ridiculous...just not sure if re-install basically necessitates re-format.
 
Just a thought from an old man. I use a partition of 62 gig for the OS and another one of 80 gig for programs all the rest for whatever storage you need. That is normaly with a raid array of at least 4 hd's . My game computer uses a 10 disk array very quick.

Have a good day.:eek:
 
crewzen said:
Just a thought from an old man. I use a partition of 62 gig for the OS and another one of 80 gig for programs all the rest for whatever storage you need. That is normaly with a raid array of at least 4 hd's . My game computer uses a 10 disk array very quick.

Have a good day.:eek:
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What's that 10 disk array made of though, 4GB 10 year old IDE drives? :p

I'm curious though, if you can give up some details. Not meaning to derail this thread but...
 
OP, remember tho when your setting up the partitions when installing from disk that 1 GB = 1024 MB.

Some people (like me) like to see whole, rounded numbers when looking at drives and what have you.

30 GB = 30720 MB
 
bbz_Ghost said:
What's that 10 disk array made of though, 4GB 10 year old IDE drives? :p

I'm curious though, if you can give up some details. Not meaning to derail this thread but...
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Lol Riiight...10 disk array, sure.... Really makes sense for your gaming rig. :rolleyes:
 
I put my Programs and OS on the same partition, and my Data on all the other drives.
My current system drive is WD RE250 split into 100gigs for OS & Programs and 150gigs for DATA and the other 7 drives are movies, music, images, and other crap.
 
Jinxplayer said:
Lol Riiight...10 disk array, sure.... Really makes sense for your gaming rig. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I think you quoted the wrong person. Anywho, what would be so wrong about a RAID5 array on a gaming rig, aside from the cost?
 
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