Partition size for Windows 7

[iron2000]

What is the size of your Windows 7 partition?

Or how much does your Windows 7 occupy now?

Need some reference as I should be installing Windows 7 next month.

Currently my XP is happy occupying 6GB of the 15GB partition and I understand that 7 will need much more.

Thanks :)

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

I would give Windows 7 at least 30GB to sit on.

I think it takes just around 15GB in itself. And then the program files folder... 20GB?

Add more for 64-bit edition.

[Subject Delta]

My partition (X64) is currently at 80GB and I currently have 55.3GB free, with Office, Nero 8, Photoshop CS4, and various other smaller apps installed (and an 8GB page file).

I store all my apps and data on other disks, so I can get away with using very little space on my boot partition, could probably get away with 40GB but I like some extra leeway to keep performance high and fragmentation low

[Jebadiah]

You can install a fresh Win7 on a 8GB partition too, but you won't be able to maintain the fresh performance for very long considering new applications, page file, etc. Some applications won't let you choose where to install it, for example any Google application. So, keep at least 25GB for it, that is, if you are installing applications on a different drive than your System drive.

Mine is on a 75GB drive. I install all my applications on a different drive. I have about 52GB left. (My Windows Media Center uses this space for TV recording.)

I tested Win7 out in a 10GB VM before making it my main OS. That might be something you want to do too.

Edited November 10, 2009 by Jebadiah

[hdood]

There is no "optimal size." There is only a minimum size, and that is 20GB or so. Keeping the boot partition less than 80% full will help prevent problems with fragmentation, so that's really the only issue.

Personally I would just make it as big as possible so you have room to install programs and games (which can be 10GB+ these days), save random files to the desktop, etc. If it's a 500GB drive, maybe at least 100GB for the boot partition and the rest for a data partition.

[MS Bob 11]

At least 30-40 GB and better if you can spare more as more system restore points/shadow copies will be available. Plus the Component Based Servicing (CBS) mechanism upon installing new hotfixes and dozens of logs, crash dumps, additional information collected for error reporting eat up plenty of disk space.

[still1]

I have 60Gb... I would say 30- 40 Gb is enough and it also depends on the application you install. Big application more space....

[Jygoro]

30Gb and saving your Downloads on another partition.

[Omkar]

Since everyone posted opinions, I'll post some facts (which you asked for):

• Win7 Ultimate x86 (32-bit) on a clean install takes ~7GB.
  
• Personal experience: on all Win7 systems I've seen with 1GB+ RAM, the system managed pagefile is more or less the same size as the installed physical memory. Add those GBs.
  
• Hibernation is enabled by default on a clean install. The hyberfile.sys will take up 100% the size of your RAM initially, but you can tweak this to use less than that.
  
• Presently, my system drive occupies 11.3GB of space.
  • ONLY software installed. Not many heavy apps, just Office 2007.
    

And here's some things you might want to add to the equation:

• If you use Microsoft? Office? Outlook, then the insanely large & growing outlook.pst file containing ALL your mail resides, by default, on the system drive. Same applies for any other POP3/IMAP client you might use.
  
  
• Some people recommend not to keep your documents and stuff on the system drive (i.e on its 'windows default' location), but that's more of just a jinx, and these lil' files grow over the years: my accumulated documents amount up to ~3GB (excluding photos).
  
• Like
  • But iisi> a good idea to install games on other drives since they tend to take up a lot of space.
    

On a closing note, if yoarei> going to install a new OS, you might as well tidy up and have that organizational structure you've always dreamed of! True, federated search works, but the human classification is impeccable!

Omkar

[Sir Topham Hatt]

This:

Currently sitting in 75Gb of space using up 23Gb.

My Libraries (music, documents, videos) are all stored on another disk. See the disk names on the bottom right.

[Krpano]

My win7 is on a 80 GB partition.

Im using about 20 GB now......not many apps installed for now.

For the rest, i believe our mates above already explained a lot... (Y)

Just give the partition some room.

If you set up the OS on a 30GB partition, you will run out of space really soon.

[iron2000]

Hmm, I think I will do a test install on 40GB with personal files, swap file and temp files(browser cache and windows temp) on their own partitions.

Thanks again for the input!

[Avlor]

My system partition is only 20GB (running Win7Pro here). Occupies 15GB right now, and that's with page and hibernate files. However, I don't have many space consuming applications installed, only Office, and PS+LR, the rest are rather small. Worked for me for a long time that way, but maybe I'll have to increase it with the next reinstall.

[soumyasch]

Windows 7 Pro x86 on 75 GB partition. Uses about 33 Gb. Has hibernation, swap file (3 GB RAM installed), Office 2007 Ultimate, VS 2008 SP1, Windows Live, Expression Studio, Adobe Reader, Zune, WinRAR, VLC and whatever is required in a regular install on the same partition. No games.

[Krpano]

  iron2000 said:

Hmm, I think I will do a test install on 40GB with personal files, swap file and temp files(browser cache and windows temp) on their own partitions.

Thanks again for the input!

If you are going to set up a partition just for the pagefile, better use FAT32...As it works better for smaller partitions. Would work even better if this partition was in a separate disk.

[bogas04]

20~25GB will be fine enough :)

[leesmithg]

Just easier to show my set up.

System restore is about 6GB, you can use a lot more though if you so wish.

[bogas04]

BTW it depends on no. of programs u install. If u are deficient of memory then rely on portable applications

I install only MS office 07 + https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?act=announce&f=12&id=11 Code Mega pack , rest all are drivers etc. I use firefox which is somewhat portable , except user files (i have them with me as backup) and as far is a media player is concerned , WMP does gr8 for me. Others all are portable applications

[iron2000]

  Krpano said:

If you are going to set up a partition just for the pagefile, better use FAT32...As it works better for smaller partitions. Would work even better if this partition was in a separate disk.

Yup, its going to be on another HDD (taking over XP's swap partition).

Anyway whats considered small? Is 3.5GB small?

Will probably put the temp files partition on that same HDD too.

[_dandy_]

  Omkar? said:

Since everyone posteopinionsi>, I'll post somfactsi> (which you asked for):

I'm with you on the figures you came up with. I have an Acer netbook with nothing for storage but an 8GB SSD, and a clean install on that still leaves roughly a gig free.

Since I only use that netbook for things like email and internet, I don't need much extra room beyond that, but if I did, I could always move the pagefile to an SD card and/or disable hibernation (since boot time is still not too bad).Of coursei> if you want to install Office, large apps or games this is way inadequate, but ultimately that's the end user's call.

However it's probably safe to assume, based on the original poster's comments, that he's not a terribly heavy user (since he's only using 6GB of his 15GB XP partition). One could probably make the case that his current 15GB partition is still going to meet his needs--which is the crux of the matter as far as answering "I understand that 7 will need much more" goes. Given what little we know, I'd say no, it won't--not for him at least.

[Omkar]

  Mr Spoon said:

This:

Currently sitting in 75Gb of space using up 23Gb.

My Libraries (music, documents, videos) are all stored on another disk. See the disk names on the bottom right.

What's the 'wasted space'? Partially filled clusters? Is 4096B the default for NTFS? Mine's 1024B...

Maybe its just me, but I ain't seeing no disk names on the bottom right!

  iron2000 said:

Hmm, I think I will do a test install on 40GB with personal files, swap file and temp files(browser cache and windows temp) on their own partitions.

Thanks again for the input!

Test install? Really? You can essentially resize the system partition after installing an OS by using various methods, even a third party app. It does take an excruciatingly long time though, thanks to fragmentation as time progresses.

  Krpano said:

If you are going to set up a partition just for the pagefile, better use FAT32...As it works better for smaller partitions. Would work even better if this partition was in a separate disk.

Quick question, if I've plugged in a flash drive & configured it for ReadyBoost?, does the entire swap file jump to it immediately? Or is it even used in priority? Flash storage is really good for random access, and that especially makes sense if you're working with just one physical hard disk. I mean how cool really is this cool feature?