XP partition, what size?

Hi, i am going to set up my sons laptop this week ready for xmas.
It only has 512 memory and a 40GB hard drive.

I want to keep the data separate from the OS but i am unsure as to what size to make the XP partition.
I dont want to make it too small and end up running out of space, but then again i dont want to make it too large and waste his storage space.

I want to try and get this right first time before i image the system as it is clean, updated and has Office 2007 and no other software at the moment.

Thanks for any help and advise.

 

I guess the o/s is XP pro?

 

Yes it is.

 

I would give it 4 GB and the rest of the h/d,do as you will.That is the safe side way.

 

I would disagree. I would make the primary active parition (the c: ) 10gb. This allows you to install maybe office or things that you use and don't archive. It is amazing how just your normal stuff can grow to 5gb +. This also allows you to create backup images. But most importantly, with the size of applications today, 4gb is too small IMHO.

Sul.

 

Office is a program not an o/s.

 

You could survive on 4 GB but long term for ease of use its way too small.

Where are you going to install programs?

If you want system restore and any sort of decent recycle bin I reckon you'll need 8-10 GB. If you are going to install programs in that partition you'll need to increase that.

Otherwise you're going to have to keep going back to strip stuff out.

 

15 % h/d free space to defrag the o/s,the rest are programs or whatever you want to run.

 

hibernation

pagefile

 

4 GB will take care of that with no problem and room to spare!

 

I have XP PRO and i have HDD 40GB, i have 2 partitions - one for my os second one for data.
For OS i have set my partition size on 12GB, the rest ~36GB is for second partition.
On my OS patition i install application, office, software, etc.
Now (in last week i had restore my sys from image) my C partition has ~3GB free space.

 

hiberfil.sys - .9 GB on my machine. sure you can do without hibernation.

pagefile - let XP set it at whatever size it wants. on my machine thats 3 GB right now...obviously you can work on less, but why not let the OS work at whatever it decides its optimum settings are?

system restore - you may not use it, but 12% (default setting iirc, again letting windows set it at optimum) of 4 GB is .48 GB

Running XP in a 4GB partition is going to affect performance, and iirc XP starts warning about drive space with only 800MB left.

 

i would say 10gb

 

Primary partition size for OS : 6~8 GB is enough .

 

Run XP pro on 3 gig with no problem but do as you will.

 

I would set the partition size to 6gb then download/burn to CD the open source application GPARTED (link).
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/

GPARTED works beautifully with XP, is compatible with multiple file systems, and will allow for easy after-the-fact resizing of partitions whenever needed. It will also allow for the creation of a third partition or partition deletion, all without data loss provided you use it correctly.

 

@pugmug, I don't disagree that xp can run on 4gb. I have some old laptops that only have 4gb drives, and xp runs fine on them.

But I think that most users who install thier favorite applications etc probably will end up needing more than that. I used to install my apps in other partitions, even used subst a lot, but eventually gave up on trying to convince software updates that it was OK for the program to live somewhere other than c:\Program Files.

Sul.

 

I normally give my xp system partition around 10gb of space. I've found thats plenty of space for additional programs, pagefile, hiberfile etc... 30gb should be plenty of storage space for your son.

 

Hi Tony,

Consider that the partition should have:

a) 1,5gb~2gb for the OS
b) 1,5gb for the pagefile
c) 0,5gb for hiberantion file
d) the necessary space for the various applications, games, etc.
e) space of at least 2~3gb for restore points
+ 25%~30% of (a+b+c+d+e) as free space.

Personally I would go for 15gb-20gb.

Panagiotis

 

I would go with at least 10GB maybe even 12GB. I always use the same sort of partitioning scheme, OS on one partition and data on another.

This is what I have on one system. A 75GB hard drive with a 20GB partition for the OS and the rest for data. I have many programs installed. Drive space used for the OS partition is 9GB. Here is a main folder break down of the C: drive; 3GB Windows Folders, 2GB Program Files (Open Office takes up about 311MB), System Volume Information 2GB (Restore Points), 1GB Documents and Settings, with about 1GB in the root (swap file). If your son will be using hibernate, that will take at least 1GB.

I have another XP Pro system with minimal programs installed. The C: drive is a little over 6GB in size. The OS is takes up about 4GB.

A friend of mine has a 20GB hard drive, the C: drive is 10GB, at the moment he has about 4GB free. but that was not the case a few weeks ago. He was down to less than 1GB of free space.

 

I have read many articles claiming that partitioning can slow down read/write/seek performance. Theory is that a single disk now has further head travel because of the partition. If you had your OS on part1, and storage/apps on part2, theoretically when you start office 2007 (or whatever), the hdd times will be slower because it must travel greater distances than if it were all on one partition. If you are using part2 for storage, and it is not accessed often, then is that a problem?

For me now, I always have more than one hdd, so I never partition. I reformat without worrying, or put an image on. My data is on either my 2nd hdd or a network share or similar.

But for a laptop or systems with only one hdd, if you have data you realy don't want to lose, paritioning is wise. As long as the drive does not die, reformatting or imaging is easy.

But really with a new computer, can anyone really tell the difference in speed?

Just some food for thought.

Sul.

 

Normally 15 gb is enough . If u work with computers through professional software like visual studio ,u may keep 20 gb .

 

Thank you all for taking the time to reply

My initial thoughts myself were for 8 - 10GB.
I will not be using system restore, as whenever i have really needed its use in the past then it has always failed me.

All programs will be installed on the C partition and all data on the other.

I want him to feel like this is his laptop and not mine.
All though he is only 13 he has a good grasp on security with NoScript, DefenseWall etc from using the home computer, and knows that as i do my banking online how important computer security is and he always asks when he is unsure rather than click away, so hopefully he will transfer the same care to his laptop

I will keep the original clean image stored on the data partion, and then show him how to back up to dvd to keep the data partition clear for his use.

Thank again for everyones input i think i will go for 10GB.

 

While I'm just an old-timer running everything on one 35G partition (40G drive, less about 5G that the pre-installed Restore-It set up as a "hidden" partition for itself), I can certainly see the logic of separating OS and programs from data files.

Out of curiosity, where should the stuff in Docs and Settings go when splitting up the disk? I'd guess most likely with the OS and programs, since while files there are often changing (e.g., as you revise options) they're closely tied in to the OS and/or applications. Plus, of course, I suspect that neither Win nor most apps gives you much if any choice on where to locate D&S.

 

Depends on whether you're dividing by means of separate disks or just separate partitions.

If its all on the same disk, then I wouldn't partition the disk at all, apart from maybe a separate partition for media files if you have to keep them on the one disk.

If you can put OS/Programs on one disk and D&S on a separate disk then there'd be an advantage in that you've got two heads seeking and each one has less work to do.