How small can my WinXP partition be?

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shockwave85

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I want to give my WinXP partition as much space as it needs, but no more than that. How small can I go?
 
1.5 gigs is the size of my current Win Xp install. That is fully updated, with a number of typical utilities installed. It's on a 5 gig partition. I have not had a problem with that size. I install all games on another partition. I suppose I could probably get away with having it installed on a 2 gig partition. I have a gig of ram so I don't have many swapfile hits. Of course every install is different. You could install XP, and then use partition magic to resize your partitions after you get it setup the way you want it. I guess for the typical person, you would want 3 to 4 gigs at least. Hope it helps
 
What's the size of your current install of XP? To that add half , to a full gig for your swapfile and updates etc. you will likely be fine.
 
shockwave85 said:
I want to give my WinXP partition as much space as it needs, but no more than that. How small can I go?
Click to expand...
Why?

I know people tend to want to partition their OS' main drive, but 95% of the reasons are not good. I understand the idea that you could wipe the OS and save the rest of the drive, but what about programs? See your seperating programs from the OS like you would user data (docs, music, movies, etc.)

See most people partition this way.
Part1 OS
Part2 Progs/data or data on a 3rd partition seperate of the programs.

*IF* you really want to partition, I would suggest doing things this way.
Part1 OS/progs
Part2 Data

Consider the programs married to the OS, it's much easier that way. When you want to reformat, you will have to reinstall the applications anyways if you blow away just an OS only partition because of the registry, so why seperate them? It's also not a 'clean' load since your using programs from your old load, so if your trying to trouble shoot, reinstalls don't "buy" you the same thing as a clean format.
 
Phoenix86 said:
Why?

I know people tend to want to partition their OS' main drive, but 95% of the reasons are not good. I understand the idea that you could wipe the OS and save the rest of the drive, but what about programs? See your seperating programs from the OS like you would user data (docs, music, movies, etc.)

See most people partition this way.
Part1 OS
Part2 Progs/data or data on a 3rd partition seperate of the programs.

*IF* you really want to partition, I would suggest doing things this way.
Part1 OS/progs
Part2 Data

Consider the programs married to the OS, it's much easier that way. When you want to reformat, you will have to reinstall the applications anyways if you blow away just an OS only partition because of the registry, so why seperate them? It's also not a 'clean' load since your using programs from your old load, so if your trying to trouble shoot, reinstalls don't "buy" you the same thing as a clean format.
Click to expand...

I definetely agree, it will be more efficient if you get a small fast drive ... around 20GB for OS and Programs, then have a second large drive for data ....
 
primea said:
I definetely agree, it will be more efficient if you get a small fast drive ... around 20GB for OS and Programs, then have a second large drive for data ....
Click to expand...

I third that.
 
chinoquezada said:
I third that.
Click to expand...

I fourth that.

I would never put WinXP on 15 GB or lower. WinXP stores a lot of temp files and I belive there are over 5 GB's worth of updates. Definantly not a good idea to have your OS on 15 GB's. I seperate my drive into 1 20 GB partition just for that.
 
So perhaps I'll divide my 120Gb drive into two partitions, 80Gb for misc. files and 40Gb for Windows and programs.
 
shockwave85 said:
So perhaps I'll divide my 120Gb drive into two partitions, 80Gb for misc. files and 40Gb for Windows and programs.
Click to expand...
I would look at your data storage needs, then use the rest for the OS/apps. What are you going to do when you hit 40+gb in OS and apps? Game can be several GBs alone, esp when you start DLing maps, like with UT2K4.
 
I have a 40GB drive for Windows and progs, and an 80GB drive for my data/music/videos. Hasn't been too long and I don't have a lot of crap installed, but I've already had to start shifting stuff around because the 40GB is full. A few Games, Office, a few large things dumped on your desktop while you mess with them, etc. I still think 40GB is fine, but even that size you need to stay on top of to not let it get cluttered. If I didn't have two drives, I wouldn't partition at all. I have an external USB for backup. :D
 
OK, I'll stop beating around the bush... Do not partition your primary OS drive.

Why have a partition for just data? Isn't a folder just as good? Hell, mount the folder as a drive you just want a explorer drive...

The only (general) benefit to keeping data on a seperate partition is for, again (same reason most people partition OS/Programs+data) reinstall. OK, lets follow this logic out.

Situation: it's time to reload.

Scenario1: Partitioned.
part1 OS+progs.
part2 data

OK, you format the OS+progs partition and you keep the data partition. You reinstall the OS and apps. You redirect your data paths to the data partition. You done, not bad, pretty painless.

Scenario2: Unpartitioned.

Copy data to the network/another PC/burn it to a CD/DVD. Format, reinstall, copy data back from temp. storage.

OK, a little longer process, however, this system is NEVER going to hit a storage limit until its time to get another drive. Then you just move the data from the old drive to the new one, voilla, plenty of space available on the main OS drive.

Also, you take performance hits when you partition, although I expect these are minimal.
 
Well everytime I hear the answer to this question I think of all the upgrade "Bitching" I will get with the next version of windows, when windows demands more space, and people will bitch since they only gave it xGB they thought it was all it needed.

Set it as big as you want, even the whole disk is fine. ;)
 
The official minimum specs Windows XP will run on:
650MB free space on a 1.5GB hard drive.
 
Save yourself the headache and just have one partition, or if you want a partition just for windows make it like 6 gigs or so. Why so big? Today i was downloading the isos for Mandrake 10. I had windows on its own partition, 5 gigs in size. I ran out of disk space on it trying to download more than one of the isos at a time because my temp directory was ballooning up to make room for the files. This killed like 2 hours of my time, because the network i was on was able to get each file at 222kbps, but the server wouldn't allow more. Basically i had to dl the three files seperately at 222kbps each instead of all at once at 666kbps (heh) total. Took three times as long. Keep that in mind if you're ever going to put Windows on its own drive, leave room for your temp directory.

or do what i did and switch to Mandrake lol
 
Alright-- question. 80 GB drive. I use this PC mainly for two purposes, gaming and music/video studio development. Would it be wise to have three partitions or two (for organizational reasons) or just leave it as a whole?

-J.
 
No, just leave it one large partition. There are few good reasons to partition a drive where the OS resides. Now a secondary drive, sure, lots of good reason there...
 
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