To hardware techs - System partition size best practice

[ABOzIT]

G'day everyone.

I configure all systems here with a System partition (Currently 10Gb) and the remainder of the disc goes into a "Data" (D drive) partition.

With all the critical updates these days and other programs that are installed to C drive I'm tempted to go up to 20Gb for the system partition. The hard drive sizes these days will allow larger system partitions but I'm trying to strike a balance with the size.

I'm interested to find out what other hardware techs are using for the System Partition size these days.

Thanks!

 

[cdogg]

5-6 years ago, I was usually going with 10GB. But like you've pointed out, over the years the requirements have changed once you factor in OS updates, larger application footprints, etc.

20GB is fine for the way I manage my system, though I usually go higher if I'm setting it up for someone else.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[CobolKid]

ABOzIT,

10 gig is a bit small these days. Here the primary partition size depends on the overall hd size, and the intended usage of the pc. Nevertheless, 16 gig is the smallest.



Steve

 

[kmcferrin]

10 GB was the norm back in the days of Windows NT4. Since Windows 2000 I've been using 15-20 GB system partitions, and with Windows XP or 2003 using 20 GB or more.

By way of example, on my Windows XP machine with 1 GB of RAM, the Windows installation is currently at about 4.5 GB. That includes current patches and such. I have another 1.5 GB taken up by the swap file. Then I want to have enough space available for a memory dump if my system crashes hard. That needs to be the size of the physical memory plus the size of the virtual memory. That puts me at 8 GB used already. Plus I usually allocate 3-4 GB of disk space for the recycle bin. That puts me at 11-12 GB total. Of course, Internet Explorer puts its cached files on the C: drive too, and those can get pretty big. Plus some applications won't install anywhere but the C: drive. Even applications that will install on other drives often times write temporary or other files to the C: drive. On top of that you'll want a couple gigs of free space "just in case". Sometimes the swap file has to grow or something like that, and restore points take up some space too. I've had a system crash before because the system partition ran out of space, so you definitely want to err on the side of caution.

So yeah, 20 GB isn't unreasonable at all for a modern Windows-based system. If you're running Vista you may need even more space on top of that.

 

[LWComputingMVP]

10 GB was NOT the norm in NT4 days - in NT4 days, the largest partition you could create through setup was 4 GB.

As for how large your C: drive should be, that depends on the machine's purpose. A server should RARELY need a C: drive larger than 12-15 GB. Even an SBS server with Exchange and SQL installed on the C: drive (data on another partition) should be more than fine on a drive of that size.

If you're talking about your desktop system running XP or Vista, for example, then you need more space. I believe vista Ultimate requires 20 GB (That's REQUIRES) for the C: drive, more recommended. For XP, the requirement is far less, but how big it should be depends on what you plan to install. I install EVERYTHING. (I have MSDN and TechNet for example, plus several other major software packages). I like to leave my C: drive at least 80 GB.

And a terminal server is an exception to the server rule because of the need to install programs locally. I would say add up the total space you think you will need to install all your programs, then quadruple it. That should be a good starting point. And move the pagefile off the C: drive.

 

[ceh4702]

I have run out of room with 10 GB on a desktop.

The average entry-level size of hard drives today is somewhere around 80 to 120 GB. Then there are those people who have a 250 - 300 GB hard drive, or several. Then there is talk of a new TB hard drive coming out soon. It is not too rediculous to have a 20-40 GB partition on a Hard Drive. In fact my choice would be to use all 80 GB and take an older PC and use it like a backup server. Games take up more room, and so do many newer versions of software. So you may want to think for the future, expecting to need twice 4 times or 10 times the storage compared to what you have now for the OS.

If you are running a server, then backing up the OS may be what is most important. So you have to consider what effect the size has to do with a backup and try to make a best guess.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[wahnula]

10 GB was NOT the norm in NT4 days - in NT4 days, the largest partition you could create through setup was 4 GB.

Had to laugh at this one, as the ENTIRE HDD in my dual-Pentium Pro NT4.0 server was 10GB! And, the funniest of all is it lasted until 2005...if I could have bought a MB that supported NT 4.0 I would still be running it!

Now that you will need to look ahead to Vista, I believe 40 GB is more appropriate. Better to have a too-large system partition than too small, enormous drives are cheap these days.

Tony

 

[LWComputingMVP]

I would suggest you double check that - NT4 could not create a C: drive larger than 4 GB because it formats it as FAT16 using 64K Clusters and then converts it to NTFS. The largest FAT16 partition you can create is 4GB.

Further, The largest C: drive you can create - if you "cheat" and preformat the disk in another computer - is 7.8 GB. Want proof?

Windows NT Partitioning Rules During Setup

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/138364

Windows NT 4.0 Supports Maximum of 7.8-GB System Partition

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/224526/EN-US/

Boot Partition Created During Setup Limited to 4 Gigabytes

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/119497/EN-US/

Now, maybe you pulled a trick like the one posted here:

http://www.nu2.nu/fixnt4/

But even that trick wasn't apparently known until 4 years ago and NT4 is over 10 years old. At least, it couldn't have been done unless you used a Windows 2000 boot loader and never ended up patching over your existing boot loader when updates came out.

Keep laughing funny boy

 

[wolluf]

lwcomputing - there was another trick you could use, which is certainly more than 4 years old, involving supplying an updated atapi.sys file to the NT installation via pressing F6 (after pre-creating larger partition of course), but I don't suppose tek tips is really supposed to be the history channel!

Just make a point regarding Vista (Ultimate - haven't tested other flavours yet) - from short acquaintance, I suspect a system partition of 60GB+ will be required. I was (postponed till better support for my apps available) setting up a Vista machine to use as my main machine. Gave system partition 100GB - and it had used 30GB within a few days, with just a few apps installed (System Volume Information - ie, system restore storage are - was taking up half that - and you can't limit its size in Vista, just turn it on or off, and as, afaik, all the recovery processes depend on it, not a good idea)

 

[wolluf]

lwcomputing - there was another trick you could use, which is certainly more than 4 years old, involving supplying an updated atapi.sys file to the NT installation via pressing F6 (after pre-creating larger partition of course), but I don't suppose tek tips is really supposed to be the history channel!

Just make a point regarding Vista (Ultimate - haven't tested other flavours yet) - from short acquaintance, I suspect a system partition of 60GB+ will be required. I was (postponed till better support for my apps available) setting up a Vista machine to use as my main machine. Gave system partition 100GB - and it had used 30GB within a few days, with just a few apps installed (System Volume Information - ie, system restore storage are - was taking up half that - and you can't limit its size in Vista, just turn it on or off, and as, afaik, all the recovery processes depend on it, off is not a good idea)

 

[wahnula]

lwcomputing,

Sorry if I wasn't clear...we had a 1-2 GB OS Partition (I think) and an 8 GB data partition...just made me laugh to think of the difference 8 years makes. I still have the rig "just in case"...

Tony

 

[kmcferrin]

Just make a point regarding Vista (Ultimate - haven't tested other flavours yet) - from short acquaintance, I suspect a system partition of 60GB+ will be required. I was (postponed till better support for my apps available) setting up a Vista machine to use as my main machine. Gave system partition 100GB - and it had used 30GB within a few days, with just a few apps installed (System Volume Information - ie, system restore storage are - was taking up half that - and you can't limit its size in Vista, just turn it on or off, and as, afaik, all the recovery processes depend on it, off is not a good idea)

I'm wondering what's going on there. I have Vista Business installed on my laptop (and have had it installed since November) and it is only using about 10GB of disk space at the moment. And that is with third-party applications installed as well.

 

[JimInKS]

At work where pc's are networked and we have relatively few programs installed I use a system partition of 20G for Windows XP (on a 40 or 80G hard drive).

At home where I have "many" more apps installed. System partition is 40G.

 

[LWComputingMVP]

My apologies - I misinterpreted your comment. As for thinking about differences, I go back to thinking about that 720K floppy (and I know, even the 160 K or 8 inch floppies - but I'm not THAT old) and compare it to a MICRO SD Card today - 2GB. Something about the size of my finger nail now has enough space to store roughly 6500 full length novels. Or a 6 hours of movies (DIVX/XVID). Or a map of every road... possibly on the planet... certainly in North America. Compared to that floppy that held TWO novels and enough space to maybe cover the major highways of the country ONLY.

 

[wolluf]

kmcferrin - some reasons may be its 64 bit version, I've got 4GB RAM, which means 4GB hibernation file (I have moved the pagefile off the system drive) and as I said, 15GB System volume info folder.

But I've been in the beta testing, and all my installations - 32 and 64 bit (on machine with 1GB RAM) have taken up nearly 10GB, BEFORE I added anything - so you're doing well.