How large should my partition be for a "bare-bones" Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 operating system?

[aesopamenra]

I've got a ASUS P8Z68-V PRO maxxed-out with 6 internal drives. C: OS=Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB, D: =Hitachi-LG Data Storage BD-RE WH16NS40 BluRay Burner, E: =Western Digital WD5002AALX-00J37A0 500GB, F: =Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1TB, G: =Seagate ST2000DM001-1CH164 2TB, H: =Toshiba MD04ACA400 4TB.

I just bought a Toshiba N300 HDWQ140XZSTA 4TB that I'm going to swap out the Western Digital with. The 2nd partition will be primarily data(Kontakt sound libraries).

I want the 1st partition to be a bare-bones Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 OS(with "beneficial" Windows and driver updates) loaded with several utility apps(PerfectDisk, Glary Utilities 5, WinSysClean, FRST64, LatencyMon, GPU-Z, CPU-Z, BitDefender Total Internet Security 2019, Kerish Doctor, HitmanPro, Malwarebytes, etc.) MOST of which are fairly small in size. This Aux OS will be used as a utility OS to fix/optimize the Main OS and as a backup OS.

Approx. how large does the 1st partition need to be to accommodate a "core" Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 operating system?

 

[Traditore]

20GB

 

[USAFRet]

Which physical drive is the OS going to be on?

 

[aesopamenra]

Which physical drive is the OS going to be on?

Sorry, I thought I was pretty clear until I re-read it and then remembered English is not ALL of humanity's primary language. Gotta stay humble in this expanding world because sometimes the "nitwit" who can't seem to read or spell correctly, can actually do so just fine in FOUR other languages.

I'm gonna put the OS on the 1st partition of the new Toshiba N300 HDWQ140XZSTA 4TB NAS HDD that I just bought I just need to know how much space Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 takes with just the "recommended" Windows updates and no user software. I'm gonna throw my favorite utilities on there too so I'LL add that amount to the figure I get from y'all here.

 

[aesopamenra]

20GB

Really? That doesn't seem possible. This is the same OS that I'm currently using and JUST my "Windows" folder is 30GB. Now understandably, this other OS is not bare-bones, but the "Windows" folder is MOSTLY system files, I'm guessing.

 

[USAFRet]

Which physical drive is the OS going to be on?

Sorry, I thought I was pretty clear until I re-read it and then remembered English is not ALL of humanity's primary language. Gotta stay humble in this expanding world because sometimes the "nitwit" who can't seem to read or spell correctly, can actually do so just fine in FOUR other languages.

I'm gonna put the OS on the 1st partition of the new Toshiba N300 HDWQ140XZSTA 4TB NAS HDD that I just bought I just need to know how much space Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 takes with just the "recommended" Windows updates and no user software. I'm gonna throw my favorite utilities on there too so I'LL add that amount to the figure I get from y'all here.

I would strongly suggest NOT splitting up the 4TB like this. You'll run into MBR vs GPT issues, and not being able to actually use the whole 4TB space.
IIRC, Win 7 requires the boot drive to be MBR formatted, resulting in a max volume size of 2.2TB The rest of the drive would be unusable.

Additionally, why would you not have the OS on the 500GB SSD?

But whichever drive you put it on, I'd suggest nothing smaller than a 100GB partition for the OS and your utilities.
Yes, you could fit it into smaller. But you have plenty of drive space...give it a bit of breathing room.

 

[aesopamenra]

Which physical drive is the OS going to be on?

Sorry, I thought I was pretty clear until I re-read it and then remembered English is not ALL of humanity's primary language. Gotta stay humble in this expanding world because sometimes the "nitwit" who can't seem to read or spell correctly, can actually do so just fine in FOUR other languages.

I'm gonna put the OS on the 1st partition of the new Toshiba N300 HDWQ140XZSTA 4TB NAS HDD that I just bought I just need to know how much space Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 takes with just the "recommended" Windows updates and no user software. I'm gonna throw my favorite utilities on there too so I'LL add that amount to the figure I get from y'all here.

I would strongly suggest NOT splitting up the 4TB like this. You'll run into MBR vs GPT issues, and not being able to actually use the whole 4TB space.
IIRC, Win 7 requires the boot drive to be MBR formatted, resulting in a max volume size of 2.2TB The rest of the drive would be unusable.

Additionally, why would you not have the OS on the 500GB SSD?

But whichever drive you put it on, I'd suggest nothing smaller than a 100GB partition for the OS and your utilities.
Yes, you could fit it into smaller. But you have plenty of drive space...give it a bit of breathing room.

Well first off, I actually DO have an OS on the 500GB SSD and I indicated as such in the 2nd sentence.

C: OS=Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB

I also mentioned WHY I want another Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 operating system.

This Aux OS will be used as a utility OS to fix/optimize the Main OS and as a backup OS.

You see, I've had this OS installed since Oct 2011 and it's got some issues that I need to fix. The task scheduler is broken and won't let me do anything in it without getting an error. Because of TuneUp Utilities' destructive "Styler" app, the desktop background/theme functionality is broken and I can only use solid colors for the desktop background or it turns black. It also broke System Restore, but I got it working again.

There are some other things too that escape my mind at the moment, but this is basically how I learn computer science and PC repair. I BREAK THINGS BY EXPERIMENTING AND TRYING TO MODIFY THINGS FOR MY PERSONAL TASTES OR NEEDS, then I figure out how to fix the things I broke. I'm CURRENTLY learning about drivers so that I can start making my own drivers or at least modding them out. It angers me that companies are often negligent when it comes to updating their drivers because as soon as they've released a product, they're busy working on ANOTHER one which often leaves nobody to service and update the older product. Updated drivers(LAN, chipset, VGA, BIOS, USB 3, Bluetooth, etc.) for my motherboard ceased to be released after about ONE YEAR. Forums like this are a main source of info for people like me who don't need the structure of college or tech school to keep us motivated and on task and I know WAY more about how computers ACTUALLY work than ANY of my friends who went to college to learn about computers.

If I wiped the 500GB SSD clean and reinstalled the OS on that, it would take me OVER a week just to reinstall all of the software that is crucial to my livelihood. Eventually sometime this year, I'll be upgrading and putting together my 2nd build. But until then, I'm just gonna continue to learn how to fix things.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the 2.2 GB limit. These damn technologies and protocols need to move into place a little faster once it's determined that a newer one is superior. Lately, MBR vs GPT, BIOS vs UEFI, Thunderbolt 3 vs USB 3.1, and other little "relevance wars" have been irritating my nerves and I'm a pretty patient person generally. It seems like the newer technologies are holding their predecessor's "legacy" hands WAY too long these days. Sorta like a cuck who ends up taking care of more than one woman all because he can't simply tell ANY woman that it's HIS way or the HIGHWAY. These companies seem more interested in providing backwards compatibility than they do in refining and advancing their technologies/products. I guess I'll put the OS on the Seagate then as it's only a 2TB drive(technically, only 1.81TB).

I like your suggestion of 100GB for the partition and I agree that there's no need to choke-out the OS. I'm just trying to maximize my storage drive space while still using the computer musician's "best practices". One of the first standards is to put your DAW and plugins on the OS drive, your music project files on a seperate drive, and your sound libraries and other large data files on yet another drive. Disabling timer-based software(scheduled tasks, network software and other types that intermittently "ping" or "notify" something often causing an audible "pop" or "crackle")

 

[karenjoly]

No need to guess so much. Partition the disk in GPT then install the OS, updates and OS drive apps. In disk management, you can reduce the size of the primary to accommodate the data size, current and proposed, then start a new partition in the newly unallocated space.

 

[USAFRet]

There are some other things too that escape my mind at the moment, but this is basically how I learn computer science and PC repair. I BREAK THINGS BY EXPERIMENTING AND TRYING TO MODIFY THINGS FOR MY PERSONAL TASTES OR NEEDS, then I figure out how to fix the things I broke. I'm CURRENTLY learning about drivers so that I can start making my own drivers or at least modding them out. It angers me that companies are often negligent when it comes to updating their drivers because as soon as they've released a product, they're busy working on ANOTHER one which often leaves nobody to service and update the older product. Updated drivers(LAN, chipset, VGA, BIOS, USB 3, Bluetooth, etc.) for my motherboard ceased to be released after about ONE YEAR. Forums like this are a main source of info for people like me who don't need the structure of college or tech school to keep us motivated and on task and I know WAY more about how computers ACTUALLY work than ANY of my friends who went to college to learn about computers.

OK..I thought you were moving the OS from the SSD to a partition on this 4TB.

For this, I would absolutely dedicate a single physical drive for this.
Not a partition as part of some larger drive.

250GB-1TB, under $50.

Or source an old cheesy laptop. You could probably find one for $50 on craigslist or equivalent.

 

[aesopamenra]

No need to guess so much. Partition the disk in GPT then install the OS, updates and OS drive apps. In disk management, you can reduce the size of the primary to accommodate the data size, current and proposed, then start a new partition in the newly unallocated space.

Unfortunately, I have to move files around so I won't be able to install the OS on the Seagate until the very end. Here's my plan.

1. From a SATA hard drive docking station, create 1 partition on the new Toshiba NAS 4TB
drive which will be a 4TB (K) drive to be ULTIMATELY called TheStore (G) for data storage (mostly Kontakt sound libraries).

2. Copy entire Western Digital(E and Seagate(G) drives over to the Toshiba (K) drive that's in
the SATA hard drive docking station.

3. After FORMATTING the Western Digital(E) and Seagate(G) drives, REMOVE the Western
Digital (E) drive from its connections(power & data) in the tower's drive bay and put it to the
side. Later, I can store files that I don't need on the computer on this drive using the SATA
hard drive docking station.

4. REMOVE and RE-INSTALL the Seagate(G) drive to the spot where the Western Digital(E)
drive was just removed from. RESTART the computer and RENAME the Seagate drive
BlackSong (E) to allow linked file functionality.

5. SHUTDOWN the computer, REMOVE the new Toshiba (K) drive from the SATA hard drive
docking station, and INSTALL it in the tower's drive bay spot where the Seagate(G) drive was
removed from.

6. RESTART the computer, and INSTALL Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 operating system on the
Seagate (G) drive.

7. MOVE all Western Digital(E) info located on Toshiba (K) to the proper place on the Seagate
drive BlackSong (E), and then ERASE all Western Digital(E) info located on the Toshiba (K)
drive.

6. RENAME the Toshiba (K) drive to TheStore (G) and clean up files/folders if necessary.


Please let me know if you see any flaws.