I'm planning on buying a new rig soon with an Intel X25-M 160GB SSD and I intend to create a 30GB partition on the SSD for Win 7 exclusively, however, the last time I tried keeping an OS on its own partition it started to get bloated despite the fact I wasn't installing anything on that partition, are there any guides out there or can anyone provide advice on how to keep that from happening and maintain a clean OS partition?
Maintaining a clean OS partition?
- Thread starter Leweh
- Start date
Don't bother with a separate partition. Windows grows as it installs updates and software. There is precisely **** all you can do to stop this, only slow it down.
Just use the entire drive for the OS partition and you never have to worry about it. Besides, 30GB is way too small. My install is only a month old and I am pushing 30GB already.
Just use the entire drive for the OS partition and you never have to worry about it. Besides, 30GB is way too small. My install is only a month old and I am pushing 30GB already.
It will be different for everyone - I have rather a lot of software and data which is pushing mine up a fair bit. However, 30GB is still not very big.
120GB for a HDD is tiny and you can easily create a disk image of the whole thing and save it to a second, larger HDD.
My 60GB Falcon has around 25GB free space, this is with W7 Ultimate 64bit, Office 2007, a few codec packs, and encoding/decoding programs, MSI Afterburner, FTP software, Anti Virus, Malwareantibytes etc and Paint Shop Pro. All my games/Steam, Docs, pics and videos are on an second HDD.
So 30gb would Not be recommended if you are going to install common apps in the windows drive, for W7 Only, you might get away with it, but whats the point... you risk running out of space in the future and having to resize the partitions etc, and things could go wrong.
So 30gb would Not be recommended if you are going to install common apps in the windows drive, for W7 Only, you might get away with it, but whats the point... you risk running out of space in the future and having to resize the partitions etc, and things could go wrong.
Of course it'll be differerent for everybody, but he want's to make it for Windows exclusively so 30GB would be fine, the reasons for doing such are another matter.
I'll have 2x 500gb Samsung F3's running in RAID0 for all other applications other than a select few games which have a lot of loading which will go on the SSD too, but on a seperate partition. At least that was the idea.
The reason for doing so is more or less purely for organization and neatness, I'm OCD about those kind of things!
The reason for doing so is more or less purely for organization and neatness, I'm OCD about those kind of things!
I never did understand the reasoning behind putting games and applications on a seperate partition. It's not going to speed up loading much (if at all, even on a seperate disk) and you will need to reinstall the games after a reinstall of the OS anyway. Best bet is to have something like 100GB for the OS and programs/games and then the 60GB for your documents. That means you don't need to worry about your documents when/if you reinstall your OS.
I made the mistake of sticking Vista on a 40GB partition a few years ago and although I don't have really any big programs on it it's constantly running out of space.
Partitions are useful, I have about 8, but you need to be careul how big you make them and whether they are useful. I have two redundant partitions at the moment (one from a Dual boot XP install that was formatted and due to these artitions being over 3 disks with data on they are a pain to merge. Trying to jig a TB of data around to merge partitions with partitions between them is a pain! That means next time I sort out my PC and buy new disks/OS i'll be having only 6(!) Partitions:
OS and programs
Documents
Music
Media (films etc)
Photos
Backup
All with a massive amount of space massive space...
I made the mistake of sticking Vista on a 40GB partition a few years ago and although I don't have really any big programs on it it's constantly running out of space.
Partitions are useful, I have about 8, but you need to be careul how big you make them and whether they are useful. I have two redundant partitions at the moment (one from a Dual boot XP install that was formatted and due to these artitions being over 3 disks with data on they are a pain to merge. Trying to jig a TB of data around to merge partitions with partitions between them is a pain! That means next time I sort out my PC and buy new disks/OS i'll be having only 6(!) Partitions:
OS and programs
Documents
Music
Media (films etc)
Photos
Backup
All with a massive amount of space massive space...
Not necessarily, many/most games will work fine without being re-installed, and any that do require a re-install will only need to copy over a few missing files/shortcuts so it only takes a few seconds. Anything installed via Steam should work fine on a new install.
It also reduces fragmentation if you've got games on a dedicated partition.
But the registry will be purged from what I understand?
Also why reduce fragmentation? Once the game is installed the auto defragmentor will defragment the drive. I can't see subsequent playing of the game to cause fragmentation.
Also why reduce fragmentation? Once the game is installed the auto defragmentor will defragment the drive. I can't see subsequent playing of the game to cause fragmentation.
If a game has been coded properly, the only place where data changes often enough to fragment is in your Documents folders [saved games, configs etc etc] - unless you do a lot of modding/tinkering of course.
Also, most games [and indeed, software] do not need registry entries. They are usually stuff like file associations, startup and so on. I can't think of anything a game would put in the registry that you absolutely need. Maybe some DRM crap, I dunno - never come across a game I couldn't just play after an OS nuke.
I am quite fond of having as large as possible OS drive and mahoosive amounts of storage on other drives. I can install all my apps and games on the OS drive and create a disk image, knowing there is bugger all I have to do in the event of a restoration. Plus I never have to worry about running out of space [well, I do on my 80GB SSD, but I still have all my apps and the few games I am playing on there with room to spare!
]
Moving media stuff away from your OS drive is a good idea as even a small amount of music/video can chew up capacity. My music and photos are on a RAIDed drive and will be regularly backed up independantly from the OS.
Also, most games [and indeed, software] do not need registry entries. They are usually stuff like file associations, startup and so on. I can't think of anything a game would put in the registry that you absolutely need. Maybe some DRM crap, I dunno - never come across a game I couldn't just play after an OS nuke.
I am quite fond of having as large as possible OS drive and mahoosive amounts of storage on other drives. I can install all my apps and games on the OS drive and create a disk image, knowing there is bugger all I have to do in the event of a restoration. Plus I never have to worry about running out of space [well, I do on my 80GB SSD, but I still have all my apps and the few games I am playing on there with room to spare!
]Moving media stuff away from your OS drive is a good idea as even a small amount of music/video can chew up capacity. My music and photos are on a RAIDed drive and will be regularly backed up independantly from the OS.