How big should I make the Windows 10 partition?

[kjammer]

I'm doing a clean installation of Windows 10 on a 2 TB hard drive. I plan on partitioning my disk into 3 partitions. C: would be where I would install the OS and keep all Windows related files, D: would contain all multimedia files (pictures, videos, music, audio, etc.), and E: would be where I would install all my games and programs.

On my Windows 7 (formerly Vista) machine I partitioned a 1 TB drive into quarters because 2009 me thought 1 TB was too big to be a disk on it's own. It was useful in 2 situations: 1) When I had to reinstall windows, I only needed to format the C part and kept my other files on the disk undisturbed. 2) When running other OSes (like Linux) from another disk, I could mount my music without all the other (unreadable) files.

With 2TB to play with, how should I distribute the partitions? It's a 64-bit system with 8 GB of RAM.

The minimum requirement says 20 GB. Plus some free space for memory dumps and page files, so 28-30GB? plus some space for documents and save files (lots of games save to user's document folder, there's no way around this), right now on my current machine, my users directory is using 40GB, so maybe allow 100GB for that?

With that last paragraph in mind that gives me about 150GB, is that too much or too little?

This is roughly what I plan to do, the numbers won't be exact, because of the way computers handle disk space. For simplicity's sake lets assume 2 TB = 2000 GB)
C: (150 GB) for the OS, save files, and some programs
D: (750 GB) for all multimedia
E: (~1100 GB) for all programs and games

What would you do?

 

[wpgwpg]

I'd say that's pretty good, but I think I'd go with 200 GB for C: just so you know you won't run out of space there. There are good free programs for repartitioning in case you need to in the future, but with 2 GB, that future shouldn't be any time soon I wouldn't think. The repartioning program I use is the free version of Easeus Partition Master but there are others.

 

[nobspls]

90GB for the C: drive dedicated to windows only is more than 3x the amount windows should need. I usually install windows 10 on old 60GB SSDs used at boot drives and they do not run out of space. Nowadays the smallest SSDs are all 120GB, and cheap at $40. And creating a backup image. clone of the boot drive is quick and easy.

I wouldn't bother partitioning the the 2TB just to separate out media from apps. One D: drive for everything else. Creating that partition will only cause hassles for yourself. BTW I also redirect all the windows user directory (save files, appdata/local,roaming, etc.) to the D: drive.

The whole point of separating this out, is that when windows gets infested, corrupted, you do not need to reinstall everything, just re-image the C: drive and then you are good to go in less than 10 minutes.

 

[InvalidError]

I'd make the Windows partition at least 120GB since many programs will end up installing stuff in the Windows system tree and boot drive Programs folders regardless of where you want to install the rest of your applications.

I used to make my system partition only 60GB until 4-5 years ago where I wanted to install Visual Studio on my PC and it needed 3-4GB of extra space on C: to install all of the extra debug, SDK, runtimes, etc. and I had to spend a few hours moving stuff around to free up that much space.

When I got my 480GB SSD two years ago, I simply went full size for the boot partition.

 

[gasaraki]

100GB is good. You'll need ATLEAST 45GB.

 

[ko888]

The Windows 10 installer will also create a 450MB Recovery Partition and a 100MB EFI System Partition for its own use.

 

[geofelt]

What is your objective?

With just a windows and related partition, you might think that would make it easy to reinstall windows. Not so, the programs and apps will be using the windows registry. Steam games might have a solution.

On a hard drive, separating the functions will have a negative impact on performance.
It will make the access arm move over a much wider range increasing latency.

Space management will be harder. 120gb will fill up quickly with just windows. With another adjacent partition already mapped, you have nowhere else to go.

My suggestion is to keep it simple.
Install everything in a single large C partition.

And... if you are of a mind to reinstall everything, consider installing windows on a SSD.
240gb is reasonable, 500gb is better.
Use the hard drive for large sequential files such as videos and backups.

 

[USAFRet]

This is roughly what I plan to do, the numbers won't be exact, because of the way computers handle disk space. For simplicity's sake lets assume 2 TB = 2000 GB)
C: (150 GB) for the OS, save files, and some programs
D: (750 GB) for all multimedia
E: (~1100 GB) for all programs and games

What would you do?

Not really a good setup.
The E partition with programs is of no real use, because you need to reinstall the applications anyway if you reinstall the OS.

What would *I* do?
250GB SSD for OS and applications.
The 2TB as a single partition for games and everything else.

But if you must, with that single drive...
250+GB for the OS and applications
The rest of it for games and multimedia.

 

[Colif]

I assume its a new PC and the Ex vista PC was just used as an example as putting Win 10 on an Ex Vista PC won't work real well - mainly due to no drivers.

1. your partition scheme for 1 drive won't work on Win 10 due to it wanting to use GPT format for the hdd if it recognises your PC has a UEFI bios (and all new motherboards in last 8 years have). Due to way GPT drives boot, 1 partition has to be formatted as FAT so that the PC can boot. All the other partitions have to be formatted as NTFS for windows to work. You don't need to know all this if you just let win 10 install itself as it will make the 4 partitions it needs.

typical win 10 partition scheme

Partition 1 - Recovery
Partition 2 - System - The EFI System partition that contains the NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and other files that are needed to boot the system, such as drivers.
Partition 3 - MSR - The Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition that reserves space on each disk drive for subsequent use by operating system software.
Partition 4 - Primary - Where Windows is to be installed to.

2. DO it as above, use an SSD for windows + applications, use 2tb drive for everything else. That way you only lose windows + applications that need to be installed again if you have to later reinstall windows.

 

[Rocky Bennett]

I agree, I would buy a separate 250 GB SSD for the C: drive.

 

[kjammer]

Thank you for your replies, after further research, I find that Windows 10 is indeed another animal. Looks like I came here asking the wrong questions. I was looking for clarification on a small part of my grand plan, which is dual booting Windows and Linux, only to find the whole scheme was flawed. The old MBR partition method that we all grew up with is obsolete, as is its way of thinking. Looks like it's back to the drawing board to drum up a new plan. I'll have to do further research to find the best way to implement it, but that's a different topic entirely should be discussed in another thread. For now here is my tentative revised plan:

SATA0: 240/250 GB SSD (ESP table; Windows 10 "drive C" and all things that come with it; linux boot partition)
SATA1: 2 TB HDD (750 GB media files "drive D"; rest of disk "drive E" all other files)
SATA2: 1 TB HDD (2-4 GB Linux swap; rest of disk for Linux root)

 

[Colif]

If you change the boot method in BIOS and force it to boot in legacy mode, it will set up drives in MBR if you really need it. Win 10 just prefers GPT as it allows you to have more than 4 partitions on a hdd and drives can be much bigger than MBR's limit of 2gb

The drive idea still looks good.

 

[geofelt]

How much space do you need for your Linux setup?
Why not just have one drive(preferably a ssd) for Linux and a separate set of drives for windows.
Use the usual F12 key to tell the bios which drive to boot from.
You will need to disable the windows 10 capability that restricts booting from a drive that windows 10 was not installed on.

 

[Rocky Bennett]

Do you really need a Linux swap partition? I have been running Linux for years and I never create a swap partition.

 

[Rexer]

100GB is good. You'll need ATLEAST 45GB.

Yeah, I'd say that's a good, safe ball park. 100gb. Windows just keeps growing and applications keep coming. Heck, I wouldn't be surprise if Windows 10 suddenly morphed into a virtual reality wismo like the movie 'Minority Report' with Tom Cruise.

 

[informskumar]

I'm doing a clean installation of Windows 10 on a 2 TB hard drive. I plan on partitioning my disk into 3 partitions. C: would be where I would install the OS and keep all Windows related files, D: would contain all multimedia files (pictures, videos, music, audio, etc.), and E: would be where I would install all my games and programs.

On my Windows 7 (formerly Vista) machine I partitioned a 1 TB drive into quarters because 2009 me thought 1 TB was too big to be a disk on it's own. It was useful in 2 situations: 1) When I had to reinstall windows, I only needed to format the C part and kept my other files on the disk undisturbed. 2) When running other OSes (like Linux) from another disk, I could mount my music without all the other (unreadable) files.

With 2TB to play with, how should I distribute the partitions? It's a 64-bit system with 8 GB of RAM.

The minimum requirement says 20 GB. Plus some free space for memory dumps and page files, so 28-30GB? plus some space for documents and save files (lots of games save to user's document folder, there's no way around this), right now on my current machine, my users directory is using 40GB, so maybe allow 100GB for that?

With that last paragraph in mind that gives me about 150GB, is that too much or too little?

This is roughly what I plan to do, the numbers won't be exact, because of the way computers handle disk space. For simplicity's sake lets assume 2 TB = 2000 GB)
C: (150 GB) for the OS, save files, and some programs
D: (750 GB) for all multimedia
E: (~1100 GB) for all programs and games

What would you do?

Actually, your plan appears good, but unfortunately, it is not practical because of the following reasons.

Windows 10 is not like Windows 7 or Windows 8. Windows 10 will not allow you to perform a clean instal if any other Disk with or without partitions in it is kept connected to the system. Windows10 will proceed installing only if you delete all the other partitions (with or without Data in it) present in the Drive. If you have a separate Disk Drive connected, Windows 10 requires you to physically disconnect the Drive and proceed after deleting all the existing partitions (with or without Data). This is why, it is suggested to instal Windows 10 on a physically separate SSD (SSD - Solid State Drive -which is much faster than our conventional Hard Drive with rotating disk). Even in the SSD, Windows 10 will require you to delete partitions existing, if any to proceed with installation. If you use an SSD, always do convert the Partitioning System (need not be confused with File System) from MBR partition to GPT partition, which is the most ideal partitioning system for Windows 10 64 Bit. This being the reason, you won't be able to instal Windows 10 on a partition which is already created by you for installing Windows 10 with other previously made partitions (with or without Data). So, it is always wise to instal Windows 10 on a physically separate SSD with an ideal size of 240 or 250 GB, so that there will arise no need to partition the Drive or store your valuable Data in it. One thing you need to remember is you must physically disconnect your 2 TB HDD (with or without Data partitions in it) before proceeding to instal Windows 10 on a physically separate SSD as Windows 10 will prompt you to remove all other Drives except the one on which you want to instal the OS after converting the MBR partition to GPT partition. After converting the MBR partition to GPT, you may proceed with formatting the SSD (fully) as Windows 10 64 Bit will work smoothly on that separate SSD. After finishing the installation of Windows 10 on the physically separate SSD, you may reconnect your old Hard Disk(s) and use them as Storage Disks alone. This facilitates reinstalling Windows on the SSD without worrying about your valuable Data stored in another physically separate HDD.

Earlier versions of Windows like Windows 7 allowed the user to simply format and re-instal Windows afresh even with existing other partitions (with or without Data). But this is not the case with Windows 10 as while installing Windows 10, it requires deleting all the other partitions. So there is no point in buying and installing a large capacity SSD too and partitioning the SSD. Because, in case if you require re-installation (I mean, a full fresh installation) for one or other reason, again you need to back up your Data on other partitions on your SSD and you need to delete all existing partitions even if you use a large capacity SSD. So it is ideal to have a separate 240 or 250 GB SSD for the Operating System alone. You may store all your valuable Data on a physically separate SSD or HDD. Hope this clears your doubts.

 

[USAFRet]

Actually, your plan appears good, but unfortunately, it is not practical because of the following reasons.

1. Purple (or bold black) text? Really???
2. This thread is 2 yrs old. Please don't dredge up ancient stuff

 

[Colif]

Purple is a lot of fun to read on a black background.