XP partition size?

Hi

What is a good partition size to install windows XP in without any loss of performance? will my programs run slower if I install them in a seperate partition?

I'm getting a 200gb drive... assume 185gb of useable space.

Should I do
C drive = 15gb, D drive = 20gb, E drive = 150gb?
where C drive is for XP (D is for all my software to work properly even if i have to reinstall the windows partition. and E is for my files, music and movies)

or is it better to keep a 35-40gb partition for both XP and the programs? and use the remaining space for the file/music/movie drive?

I want to understand this from mainly a performance point of view... as I plan to backup my files on an external hd anyway...

Thanks!

 

I would do 28/30/and what ever is left

28 for C since some software WILL NOT RUN if it is not in C partition (example is GTA San andreas)

30 for software since you always end up with more then you need.

And the rest as E

 

Your programs wont run slower from partitions, its literally the same disk

Make C: drive at least 25gb to fully accomodate XP system files, page file and future updates.

 

if you have 200GB, you can give the C partition a little more space.

infact the speed of reading files on a partition starts to slow down when you have more than 50% of the partition filled, and the partition will get fragmented faster.

the 50% would be 7.5GB of your HDD. When you use the hibernation you will need the size of your Ram on the partition, to save all the data from ram to your HDD.

if you have 2 GB of ram there would be 5.5 GB left for your windows installation. i just checked the size of my desktops windows installation and it´s around 3 GB. If you have Adobe Creative Suite installed you will loose another 1 GB for Adobes Common files on your partition C.

let´s count together windows XP ~ 3GB + 1 GB ( adobe) + 2GB hibernation file ( assuming you have 2 GB installed ) makes already 6GB.

and the swap file is not counted in yet. it shoud be around 2- 2.5 times the size of your ram. makes another 4 GB.

thats already 10 GB for a plain installation. but once you start installing a lot of programs will need some space in the documents and settings or somewhere else in drive C:.

i would at "least" do 20 GB for C:,the more the better, and depending on the amount of programs you are going to install i would size the programs drive D: to at least 25 GB.

so i would say c: 25GB , d: 30GB

 

I've heard that when partitioned C drive is closes to the platters and then the D drive and so on towards the outer perimeter of the platter... so since the heads will have to move a greater distance at the outside or to access data near the E drive accessing data from the outer drives is slower... by how much i have no idea. so that's why i was wondering about where to keep my OS, programs and data....

So keeping that in mind do you think it's better to have a big partition for XP + programs and the remaining for the files/pics/music? or make an extra partition for the programs to ensure their safety IF i have to format/reinstall xp on c drive in case of a virus or whatever...

 

thats pretty picky and theoretical.

in practice, its not going to make a difference. you could just put your whole disc as one partition and it would perform the same.

the big advantage to having a separate partition for your data and OS is that if you need to reinstall your OS, you can just use the OS partition, and not worry about having to back up your data.

as far as your programs go, you are most likely going to have to reinstall them anyway if you reinstall the OS.

 

I ran XP Pro like you mentioned in 3 partitions on my older notebook with C drive having only 11GB. It was fine for a while but I found I needed to increase it to just over 13GB because free space decreased to below 1GB. On my newer notebook I decided to give it more space -- about 35GB so I have more room to spare and space for system restore, etc. I recommend you set it to at least 20GB to avoid running out of space in the future.

 

If you reinstall your OS, you'll have to reinstall most of your programs regardless of partitioning. That's because programs store their configuration stuff in the registry, and some may also create files in the Windows directory. There may be a few that won't need to be reinstalled, but most will.

Performance is not a good reason to partition, as there are some benefits and drawbacks. In fact, not partitioning leaves the most flexibility in how to arrange files on the disk. But if you're going to do partition for other reasons, then yes, putting the OS at the beginning of the drive will be best for performance.

Actually... why are you partitioning? The only real benefit is backup and maintenance, if you want to make disk images.

 

I was a big advocate of using multiple partitions on a hard drive until I discovered something. It doesn't really make a whole hill of beans if you go multiple partitions or single.

If you go the route of one OS well guess what happens when you install programs to a different partition. It will still use c:\program files\ and use the registry of your primary OS when you install any new programs. I also found out some programs or games would not work correctly if you installed them on a extended partition even if you installed another copy of the OS. The best scenario for a multi partition enviroment is if you stored data such as pics, music or data files and put them on a different partition but as someone else mentioned it's still all on the same drive.

The only time I go multi boot is if i'm using different drives and run the partitions in primary mode and install an OS onto it.

My gaming rig has three drives and has a copy of XP on each drive but they are all primary partitioned drives.

I do that because one drive is full of racing sims, another one is strictly for flight sims and the last one is for FPS shooters, adventure games etc.

 

C: 15 - 25 (depends on how many programs you need)

D: 40 - 60

E: the rest

For D and E, that's just an example, you should see how you want to separate your storage.

 

Thanks a lot for all the help guys... I've decided I'm going to make only 1 partition that is keep C and D drives... C for the OS and programs and D for all the files, music and so on... I think I'll do about 25gb for C... that should be good enough right? I don't really plan to game or anything... just install photoshop and alias studio tools and the basic browsers/messengers/media players etc....

 

I agree, I think that two partitions (C for Windows and apps, D for data and media files) for your situation is best. I might bump the system partition up a little higher than 25 GB though. 40 seems a safer bet, though you'd know more than us about how much you intend to install.

 

after the OS and including hibernation space and the page file space, how much free space is safe to have apart from the software that I plan to install in there?

 

...soz...but not my feelings...i have four partitions...C:\ is for operating system and drivers only...D:\ is manually set as 'My Documents'...E:\ is my program directory...and F:\ is strictly for Temporary Internet Files, TMP, and TEMP files...these have to be manually set also...takes about 5 seconds to defrag my F:\ drive...the way my pc is set up F:\ partition gets fragged the most...C:\ never sees the Temporary Internet, TMP, and TEMP files...if i have to reformat...D:\ My Documents never get written over...

 

...soz...but not my feelings...i have four partitions...C:\ is for operating system and drivers only...D:\ is manually set as 'My Documents'...E:\ is my program directory...and F:\ is strictly for Temporary Internet Files, TMP, and TEMP files...these have to be manually set also...takes about 5 seconds to defrag my F:\ drive...the way my pc is set up F:\ partition gets fragged the most...C:\ never sees the Temporary Internet, TMP, and TEMP files...if i have to reformat...D:\ My Documents never get written over...

 

Yeah 25 GB should be more than enough for those programs. On my test machine, my XP partition is only 13 GB, I have PS, Lightroom, full Office 2007 Enterprise, and many other programs, and I still have like 4 GB free space. Although my 3 GB pagefile is located on another partition, but even with that 3-4 GB pagefile, your 25 GB should be more than enough for PS and alias studio tools and the basic browsers/messengers/media players etc. If you're worried, you can always bump it a little higher, but a lot of times it will ended become too much wasted space in my experience. I'd go 30 GB the highest in your case, but of course you will know more than any of us like Fountainhead said.

 

Man, you guys really like to run it close. Not sure I see the point of running a system partition down to a couple of GB free, as cheap as hard drives are.

One thing for the OP to keep in mind is that XP needs (I think) 15% free hard drive space to defrag, at least with the XP utility. So that'd be a bit over 4 GB on a 25 GB partition. Of course, there may be 3rd party utilities with different requirements.

 

Well, mine is for testing purpose and it's only 13 GB, for non-testing, I'd probably put it at 20-25 in my case, which will be far from run it close.

Also, the 15-17% requirement is relative to the partition size, the larger the partition, the larger that 15-17% space will be.

 

alrite guys, thanks a lot for all the help! I think I'll do 25-30 depending on how much useable space there will be left.