Thinkpads Forum

hello
i'm planning to clean install win xpp sp2 as instructed here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ae470391fb
i will cancell the hidden partition and will create two partitions; C and D, where D is for my personal files. my question is: how much space you think i'm going to need for C? i will install most TP drivers i guess. i use office 2003, adobe CS (photoshop, llustrator and indesign), premier pro, skype, norton internet security, acdsee and a bunch of other programs i will want to install...
right now on my old, non-IBM laptop my C partition with only OS and programs on it is 5GB but i have SP1 and not all software i'm going to use with my new laptop.
on my new X60s with almost none of these programs installed and no personal files, the main partition already has 11GB...
i know it's a bit general question, but i want to have a rough idea how much space to leave for OS and programs...
any suggestions?
thanks
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"clean install" suggests that IBM's preload is dirty. No it is not, it includes many very useful software. You have 100 GB and you bother about 3GB?

Concerning your question: I think 14 GB for the C partition is sufficient.

If you are going to put both Win and Programs on the C:\ drive, then I'd suggest at least 20GB... I've run out of room with 10GB for Programs and 4GB for Win.

I second the post by Dngrsone. My T41 has a 60Gb drive with 53Gb useful. There is 21 Gb free, meaning 32 Gb is absorbed in programs and data. Data accounts for 9 Gb and Virtual Machines accounts for 8 Gb meaning the Programs and OS takes up 15 Gb. 20 Gb should work just fine for your install. ... JD Hurst

I have used 8-10 GB system partitions in my personal computers and 7-8 GB in my work computers which I tend to keep rather clean and lean. I keep all personal data on the other partition, I don't use My Documents at all. I also keep rarely used programs and data compressed (NTFS compression), which saves few MB-s here and there. I install into Program Files only such programs which absolutely want to be there. Games, pics, docs, work related stuff - all reside on bigger partition.

I'm rather amazed that you have 11GB wasted even without your personal data and without your programs. What on earth you have there? Restrict swapfile to sensible size and make IE (if you use it) cache directory smaller, by default it takes up obscene size.

Primary C drive : 20GB is a quite good size for me. Past a few years, I have been allocating this size to Win XPPro for office work.
C drive only has Windows and programs.Data (private and business) is located in D drive.
Details are:
Windows : ~ 3GB
Program : 3~5GB(full MS-office ,Adobe etc.)
IBM tool,Driver,I386: ~2GB
Hibernation file : ~2GB
Page file : ~2GB
=== Total ~14GB
My all laptops are the same configuration.

28GB C: drive with 10GB in use (which includes a 2GB hibernation file).

Windows : ~ 2.7GB
Program : 4.5GB(full MS-office, lots of Adobe etc., a couple of games)
Hibernation file : 2GB
Page file : none
Misc: 800MB of other cruft I'm too lazy to sort through and remove.
=== Total ~10GB

If you need to, you can always put the page file on a seperate partition.

Performing a clean install doesn't always mean you are starting out with a dirty install. Thoughs of us that are anal and/or admins know that the best way to take control of your system is to always do a clean install when you get a new computer. Lets face it, Windows is full of flaws, but it can run smooth. In my opinion (whatever thats worth), the best thing to do is start from scratch and partition. I always make four partitions....
OS
Swap
Programs
Data
Some people say there is no performance increase with a swap partition, but it definitely won't hurt. All of my experience and research in this area says it helps. To find out the sizes you need for OS/Programs you will need to figure out the max amount of data you will be needing to store on the computer. I keep my data partition relatively small, because I only keep exactly what I need. The rest goes to my file server or external hard drive. This forces me to keep from junking up my laptop with old data. Remember, Windows likes to bloat some. If you have a 100GB hard drive, and you want to combine OS and Programs, make the partition big. Its better to be safe than sorry. This is especially important if you have a lot of programs to install. It will all come down to how much data you want to keep on the laptop, in my opinion. Then again, if you screw up you can always use partition magic to fix the sizes. Hope this helps.

There is a (albeit small) performance increase when you have a separate swap drive.

thanks all, that's very usefull suggestions and information!
so, i guess i'll leave 20-25 GB for OS and programs.

aabram wrote:I'm rather amazed that you have 11GB wasted even without your personal data and without your programs. What on earth you have there? Restrict swapfile to sensible size and make IE (if you use it) cache directory smaller, by default it takes up obscene size.

aabram; that's one of the reasons i wanted to clean install, these 11GB were mostly there when i got the computer. i didnt install almost anything yet, it's brand new!

Dngrsone wrote:There is a (albeit small) performance increase when you have a separate swap drive.

oh, now i'm really curious, how do you do that and what exactly is the swap drive / swapfile. do you mean the page file, or the hibernation file?

ok, thanks again

Yes, it is the page file. Those of us that use linux/unix are use to calling it the swap file.

I will try to walk you through the process....
--Right click my computer
--Click properties on the menu
--Click Advanced tab
--Click settings button under performance
--Click advanced tab
--Click change button under virtual memory
--Inside virtual memory window
----click on the swap partition you created (default is the c drive)
----click on the custom size radio button
----enter the same size for initial and max size
----click on the original swap file (again, should be c drive)
----click on the no paging file radio button
----sometimes it acts a little difficult, just repeat until the settings take
----click the set button
You will now need to reboot

Swap size is debatable. The old equation was 1.5-2 times the system memory, but that was decided back before systems ran the amount of ram they do today. I usually make my swap the same size as my system memory. All my systems have 2-4 gigs. This is probably too big of a swap file/partition, but I have never experienced any problems. I am sure someone will chime in with better info on this. Hopes this helps.

I've a 100G HDD and my setup right now is:

C drive using 100% usage disk capacity
D drive (2nd HDD Ultrabay) using 100% usage disk capacity (including documents)

This because I tend to install a lot of games. And keep the drive defragmented

Dngrsone wrote:There is a (albeit small) performance increase when you have a separate swap drive.

Yes -- assuming that's a physical drive (ie a separate spindle), not just a logical partition on the same physical drive.

In my case X60s (17045UG) with standard 80 GB HD
divided by PartitionMagic8 (USB-FDD) as follow:
IBM_PRELOAD* C:\20.09 GB - OS & prg files
& ERDnt (registry backups)
& actual hdw & sfw status noted in several ways
(DirPrint, AutoRuns, SysInfo, HjThis,TpSmry etc)
DATA* D:\17.58 GB - for backups & .GHO images
EXTRA* E:\19.54 GB - for .doc .pdf ect
FAN* F:\12.69 GB[/size] - for dwl, CD, DVD

FYI plain OS with useful prgs: Office-11 + supplements + latest upg
so after: ERUnt, backups, cleaning, defrag ect
on C:\ used 10.5 GB (as source for NG image)