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What's a good size for a system partiton?

Oifish

Oifish

Senior member
I recently got rid of the UACd.sys virus/trojan and now my vista system directory is corrupt. I've tired a ton of different recovery and repair options, none helped. SO I am going to create a new partition just for Vista, so it can easily be reformatted in the future if needed. I have a 320gb drive and just wanted to know what a good size would be for a system only partition? I was thinking somewhere in the 20-30gb range? Thanks.

If anyone has a trusted vista recovery/repair method that would be nice too...
 
Don't be stingy. You don't want to have to re-partition the entire drive a year or two from now. You can always store data on your OS partition if you have extra space. These forums have lots of posts about folks needing to expand their OS partition, and no posts about how to make it smaller.

How about 50 GB? With today's drives, you can restore a backup of a 50 GB partition in an hour or so.
 
I generally go 30-40GB with Vista, but I don't install many huge apps and keep games, docs, etc. on different partitions or drives. I think 20GB would be too small for Vista, IMHO.
 
Originally posted by: Oifish
I was thinking somewhere in the 20-30gb range? Thanks.
Click to expand...
That should be plenty...

I don't normally partition my Windows installs, but I've been running my Linux programs in their own partition (/home) lately - separate from the operating system. I tried a 4GB root ( / ) partition for a while, but that was pushing it, so I'm using 8GB now.

Anyway, 20GB for Vista should work fine, and keep the cruft cleared out...

I use CrapCleaner on my Windows installs - Ubuntu Tweak on my (ubuntu-based) Linux installs.
 
Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Don't be stingy. You don't want to have to re-partition the entire drive a year or two from now.
Click to expand...
That's why they made GParted...

I resize partitions several times a week using it - no big deal!
 
Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Originally posted by: VinDSL
I resize partitions several times a week using it - no big deal!
Click to expand...
Because you made them too small? 😛
Click to expand...
I resize for lots of reasons. Really, it's no big deal!

Thinking back...

On my Netbook, for instance, I've been playing around with different flavors of Linux.

The 160GB HD came from the factory partitioned into two (more or less) equal sized partitions. XP Home resided in one partition, and the other one was empty. There was also a small (32MB) third partition on it too. I *think* Asus uses it for the 'Instant On' feature, so I left it alone.

Since my Netbook came with 1GB of RAM, I decided I didn't need a swap partition for Linux. I used GParted to create an extended Linux partition in the second (empty) partition. Then I created one large ext3 root partition inside that, and installed Ubuntu 9.04.

Everything worked fine, but the next day I felt naked and vulnerable without a swap partition. So, I resized the ext3 root partition and added a 1GB swap partition.

A few days later, I decided to try EeeBuntu 3. I wiped Ubuntu off the drive, resized the partitions, and made a 2GB swap partition - since I now had 2GB RAM installed. Made sense at the time...

LoL! The next day, I started feeling silly and paranoid for running a 2GB swap partition with 2GB of RAM installed, so I resized the partitions and made a 1GB swap partition again.

This week, I decided to try Linux Mint 7. I was in a whimsical mood, and thought it might be fun to run my program files in their own partition. So, I resized everything again and made a 4GB root partition, 63GB home partition, a 1GB swap partition, and installed Linux Mint 7.

The only problem is, I fucked up and made the root partition 66GB and the home partition 4GB, instead of the other way around. So, I had to resize everything again. Grrr...

Don't laugh! You aren't infallible either, I'm sure! 😀

Later, I decided a 4GB root partition was pushing it, so I resized and made root an 8GB partition.

I'm pretty happy with the partitions on my Netty now, but who's to say?!?!? Maybe I'll change my mind tomorrow and dump the swap partition again - I really don't think I need one.

Here's a screenie: http://vindsl.com/images/GParted_Mint-7_EeePC.png (Vin's Custom Mint 7 install - Optimized for 10" Eee PC)

Anyway, that's just one machine (from memory) over about a two week(s) period.

I resize partitions all the time using GParted. It's simple as brushing your teeth or taking a crap!

It's not a life-changing experience, like you make it out to be... 😉

EDIT BTW, just so there are no surprises...

I've resized Windows partitions numerous times, using GParted. It always works, but...

It usually freaks out Windows when you resize its partitions and/or move them around. It almost always triggers a chkdsk when you boot into it (the first time afterwards). If this happens to you, just let Windows do it's thing and check your disk!

Windows won't find anything wrong. GParted does its own disk check routine before resizing/moving partitions. If the disk has errors, and GParted can't fix them, it'll just abort the operation with an error message - no harm done. You won't lose any data!

Windows just gets confused for some reason, on the first reboot, after monkeying around with its partitions... 🙂
 
On desktop got 80gb for windows 7, got about 35GB free... On laptop 40gb vista (soon to be 7) and 40gb osx.

Its a matter of preference and how you work on your computer. I like to use my desktop as a temp folder. So need a lot of free space in C at times. Generally c uses about 40 gb on desktop. though this could easily be reduced turning off stuff. But I dont mind some wasted space.

IF you really wanna squeeze every mb out of your hd. Then use 30gb or so and run your C full.
 
50gb for the OS is what i do, i dont think 30 gb is enough because of stuff like unzipping and temporary files, with 30gb ive had my space drop down well below 1 gb
 
Heh! I should crank up my Toshy - it's sitting within arm's reach.

I'm triple-booting it - and I could swear my entire Vista install, including all my YouTube masters, docs, music, and so forth, is like 28GB total.

Maybe you guys are confused about what the OP is asking - or maybe I am.

Not thread crapping, just saying...
 
After re-reading the thread...

My understanding is, the OP wants to run the Vista core files - the Vista operating system - in a partition all by itself. The program files, data files, videos, music, pictures, et cetera will be in another partition.

If that's the case, 20-30GB will be plenty! 50GB is... well, let's keep it civil...

Are we all on the same page?!?!?
 
I used to get hard over partitioning my drives... now it's just a pain in the ass. My WD6400 is a single 596 GB partition. Fragmentation is not the issue it once was and I do regular full image backups anyway so data loss/corruption is not a concern. I don't dual boot (I virtualize other OS's). Any organizational benefit I gain from partitioning can be done with folders just as easily. I see no practical reason to partition anything... in fact, I'd almost like to create dynamic disks and mount my backup drive as a folder in the root volume and not even see a second hard disk in My Computer...
 
"in fact, I'd almost like to create dynamic disks and mount my backup drive as a folder in the root volume and not even see a second hard disk in My Computer..."


true that.

one partition is the way to go.

you can still use acronis trueimage to selectively backup only the OS on your C partition as well, leaving your huge apps and games out of the image file.
 
Originally posted by: nova2
"in fact, I'd almost like to create dynamic disks and mount my backup drive as a folder in the root volume and not even see a second hard disk in My Computer..."


true that.

one partition is the way to go.

you can still use acronis trueimage to selectively backup only the OS on your C partition as well, leaving your huge apps and games out of the image file.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't Acronis recovery destroy all the other data on the partition?
 
"Wouldn't Acronis recovery destroy all the other data on the partition?"

iirc, it does not by default. If it were a full partition image, it would then overwrite everything of course.

you're able to restore/overwrite the specific data you backed up on the partition while leaving all the other files/data intact.
 
Originally posted by: nova2
"Wouldn't Acronis recovery destroy all the other data on the partition?"

iirc, it does not by default. If it were a full partition image, it would then overwrite everything of course.

you're able to restore/overwrite the specific data you backed up on the partition while leaving all the other files/data intact.
Click to expand...

I only use Acronis for full partition backup since the file backup feature is very slow.

Also I don't think the file recovery will fix a non-booting OS with a file recovery but since I have not messed with that feature or have True Image 12 (still using version 11), I can't say for sure.
 
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