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Is a 32gb SSD enough to hold W7 HP 64bit?

J

jlee1

Member
I have a Thinkpad X220, and I'm planning on getting a mSATA ssd for the primary drive to store my OS on and keeping my 320gb hdd for photos and vids. IF i turn off superfetch, lower my page file and disable hibernation, will 32gb be sufficient?
Oh, I don't know if this helps, but I have 4gb of ram.
 
As you said, you will need to be very aggressive to save space.

It's awkward, and may not be worth the hassle, especially on a laptop, where hibernation is an essential feature,

You will also not be able to install many applications, which negates much of the point of having an SSD.

Give it a hard think, I don't think a 32gb disk is a clear-cut win at all.
 
I have an Intel 120GB SSD in my main box. It's loaded to the nuts with productivity apps. Everything else gets stuck on my platters.

It's at 26.7GB used space and I don't do anything other than run the Intel optimizer programs and put symlinks on the desktop to folders on my platter drives.
 
The question is what have you castrated to only be using 30gb of your 120gb drive?

Given that you've paid so much for a 120gb drive (me too, btw 😀), you ought to be using as much of it as possible... There's no reason to be wasteful, but at the same time, the space gives you the opportunity to not even have to think about nuking the page/hibernation file, or to do any of the other dubious things that the internet often suggests.
When you have 80-90gb free, it's almost a shot in the foot to be symlinking everything in from the spinning disk. It'd be possible to just take the plunge and move almost everything onto the SSD. That would bring a slight speed advantage and less symlink-hassle

More relevant to the original poster, considering you are already sub-32gb, can you list the applications you have managed to install, and what sacrifices that you do now that you didn't do with a spinning disk (killing the pagefile, having to make symlinks, running the optimiser, etc.)? That information would help him make an informed decision
 
tommylommykins said:
The question is what have you castrated to only be using 30gb of your 120gb drive?

Given that you've paid so much for a 120gb drive (me too, btw 😀), you ought to be using as much of it as possible... There's no reason to be wasteful, but at the same time, the space gives you the opportunity to not even have to think about nuking the page/hibernation file, or to do any of the other dubious things that the internet often suggests.
When you have 80-90gb free, it's almost a shot in the foot to be symlinking everything in from the spinning disk. It'd be possible to just take the plunge and move almost everything onto the SSD. That would bring a slight speed advantage and less symlink-hassle

More relevant to the original poster, considering you are already sub-32gb, can you list the applications you have managed to install, and what sacrifices that you do now that you didn't do with a spinning disk (killing the pagefile, having to make symlinks, running the optimiser, etc.)? That information would help him make an informed decision
Click to expand...

As I said, I've done nothing to the install other than running the optimizer Intel provides. I haven't monkeyed around with pagefiles, hibernation files, temp file directories ... or anything at all. I stuck the Windows 7 disc in, installed fresh, ran the optimizer and that's it.

I use symlinks because my 200+GB of boob pics don't need to be on an SSD and my 250+GB Steam folder won't fit and I don't really need to run the majority of my games from an SSD. Also, using symlinks is handy because I don't have to reconfigure my backup program (which would be a MAJOR PITA). Beyond that, setting up a symlink takes seconds.

At any rate, all my apps are on the SSD, as are the temp folders they use, and work folders that I use are on the SSD folder, too. I'm not sacrificing anything because I don't (outside of boob pics and games) make a huge dent in storage space.

I'd rather have the extra drive capacity and not need it than need it and not have it.
 
My win ultimate install is like 29gb before apps. i'd be shocked if you can truly fit your os on a 32gb drive.
 
Tsavo said:
My W7 Home install with all updates and drivers was 17.5 GB.
Click to expand...

Is that 32-bit? 64-bit is quite a bit larger once installed.

Edit: My Win7 HP 64-bit is 23GB. Minus 400MB in my downloads directory.

I have 8GB of RAM, but I have hibernation disabled.
 
32-GB is IMHO too small. Yes it will fit but all apps will have to be installed on the platter drive and hence no benefit from ssd. I bought an x220 (ahsnt arrived yet) and got the intel 310 80 GB. If you don't optimize win 7 and after ton of upgrades it will be over 20 GB pretty quickly.
 
As a further point of reference, my new Thinkpad with only the same apps installed as my main PC (and a few Lenovo apps) is using 33GB on a fresh Win 7 Pro install. System Restore is turned off on all of my PC's.
 
Ok, main PC with 120GB SSD has:
Win 7 Home installed. Hibernation turned off, page folder set to 2048. Crap load of apps + SP1 (backup of SP1 removed), 5GB of personal work folder on my desktop (well, on my SSD). The only symlinks I’ve created are to my personal folders, not to temp folders or other W7 stuff.

Fresh Win 7 Home (upgrade) install with SP1 & Drivers: 17.5 GB used. I thought before this was before turning off hibernation and setting page folder to 2048. Now, I’m not so sure. I need to take notes on this stuff next time I secure erase and reinstall W7 on my SSD.

At any, rate, SSD with W7 Home +SP1+Lots of Apps+5GB personal work folder –hibernation and + 2048 page folder = 26.7GB used.

My new ThinkPad with W7 Pro+SP1+Lots of Apps +3GB hibernation folder +4GB page folder and no personal folders = 33.7GB used. If I subtract the hibernation and page folders that my main PC doesn’t have that it has, then the used space is 26.6 GB, but that’s without the 5GB personal work folder that my SSD PC has, so the ThinkPad would be using 31.6 GB with my personal work folder dropped on it which ultimately leaves me with a 4.9GB delta between the ThinkPad (31.6 GB) and my main PC (26.7 GB). Browser caches, and temp folders flushed on both machines prior to comparison.
Basically what we’ve learned here is that I need to take notes…and beyond that, there may be a variance between full version and upgrade version installs of the same OS…maybe.

To the OP, you can use a tool like 7Customizer http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/139077-7customizer-a-windows-7-customization-and-deployment-tool/ to shrink your install down to size. I haven’t used it, so beware and all that.
 
Wow you guys are making me so wishy washy.. lol ok I planned on using the 32gb mSATA sdd for just a boot drive(speedier startup,) but now I'm thinking of just buying a 120gb mSATA SSD as my primary drive and using my existing 320gb hdd as a second back up drive or just uninstalling it to save some weight lol. Would this be a better idea? My hdd isn't slow by any means, 7200rpm, but I want in on the life after SSD.
 
My personal rule is to never fill a drive to more than 75% of total capacity. So the criterion for me would be only if the OS used 24GB or less. Does not seem workable.
 
Is there a reference for this I can read so I understand it better?

Like 75% of my capacity before or after it already takes off a chunk on its own? I'm not a power user so how much will it actually hurt the lifespan?
 
while 32 gigs is definately on the small side.. I did it without issue on my laptop using a Vertex 30GB drive with W7 x64. Even had the full MS Office 2010 and Adobe CS installed as well.

To really free up space you'd need to lopp off sys restore, hibernate, and reduce the pagefile(I disabled it altogether) to get back as much free space as possible. Most of my installs were less than 15 gigs and left more than sufficient room to keep the drive fast and allow plenty of worktime before the drive reached a full dirty state.

With a 64 gig drive it would be very easy to do.
 
boozie said:
Is there a reference for this I can read so I understand it better?

Like 75% of my capacity before or after it already takes off a chunk on its own? I'm not a power user so how much will it actually hurt the lifespan?
Click to expand...

What many fail to realize is that there are underlying requirements for an SSD to keep fresh available blocks for future write loads and wear leveling.

These things still have firmware limitations and can very much be looked at like a coffee maker. Not good to buy too small of a pot or you'll find yourself running out and waiting for more to be made.

TRIM is not the end-all for reductions in slowed SSD performance and not all controllers are created equel in that regard. If dedicated garbage collection idle-time is leveraged more ofetn?(many don't even do it because they don't understand the added benefits on some controllers).. then the 75% capacity limitation can be pushed a bit further. Also consider that it's entirely relevant to the capacity of the drive. Leaving 25% of a 240GB drive would be far less of a requirement than say a 32GB SSD would need to still have some breathing room and enough space left over to maintain adequate speed/stamina.

As for the lifespan concerns?.. pretty laughable these days as these things have been proven to write WELL into the terabytes worth of data before it becomes a concern. You'll probably have a newer system and possibly an SSD that's twice as fast and twice as large by then. 🙂
 
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