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Bootcamp partition size

C

ciberkarlos

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 8, 2011
97
1
Hi everyone, i'm a PhD student and i want to install Windows via bootcamp on my MBP 2010 Crucial M4 256gb SSD. I need it just to run a few lab´s programs, so i won't install heavy programs or games. As my SSD is not as big as i wanted it to be, i want to know the smallest bootcamp partition size i could create without losing performance. For example, 20-30gb will be enough?

Thank you very much, and sorry for my english.
 
It depends on how large the applications are that you plan to install.

I would normally say about 10GB for Windows only, but that was in thr XP days. I'm not sure of the size now though.
 
stridemat said:
It depends on how large the applications are that you plan to install.

I would normally say about 10GB for Windows only, but that was in thr XP days. I'm not sure of the size now though.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your response. The applications are very small, just to show some data from the instrumental i connect to the mac. I want to install Windows 7 and upgrade to Windows 8 when it is released. How much space will i need taking into account that my applications are very small (less than 2gb all of them)??
 
FWIW, I went with the bootcamp recommendation of a 10Gb partition and installed the Windows 8 preview. When i tried to install the preview release of Office '13, I was told there was not enough space on the drive to download the file.
 
murphychris said:
While it's fairly stupid that Boot Camp Assistant would allow you to set up a 10GB partition for Windows, the system requirements for Windows 7 and the Office Preview are very easily to locate.

Windows 7 64-bit = 20GB
Office 13 preview = 3.5GB

http://windows.microsoft.com/systemrequirements/
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/en/faq
Click to expand...

You're absolutely right; I apologize for my error and hope I didn't mislead anyone. BootCamp did indeed recommend a 20GB partition, which isn't big enough for the Windows 8 and Office 13 previews.
 
I installed windows 7 pro on my 256GB '11 MBA yesterday (to play HD DVDs with TotalMedia Theater 5 and play some light games). Went for a 35GB bootcamp partition, after installing Windows and about 120 Windows Updates (...) and performing a disk cleanup via Explorer/right click on C drive I had 10.8 GB left. So you'd be better off with a 40/50GB partition imho, for your programs and documents + the inevitable hibernation & paging files and a few system restore points.

Makes me wonder how much one will be able to cram in a storage-constrained x86 Windows tablet... But that's another story.
 
I've just installed Windows 7 professional 64-bit on Bootcamp, then Chrome and MSE. Used space is 12Gb. Not done any tidying up, you could perhaps remove a teeny bit, but not much.
 
Since i don't want to install Office '13 or any kind of those "heavy" suites like Adobe CS6, i'll probably go with 20-25gb as some of you recommend. Thanks!
 
ciberkarlos said:
Since i don't want to install Office '13 or any kind of those "heavy" suites like Adobe CS6, i'll probably go with 20-25gb as some of you recommend. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I'll be aiming for a 30GB partition (w/ room for Windows 8 upgrade) and use a 32GB USB flash drive to store videos, music, etc.
 
Depends what you want to use it for, and whether, for example, you want to have multiple "big" applications, games in particular, installed at once. I set my bootcamp partition to 65Gb (I have a 256Gb SSD). I do have iPartition though (which is great), so can adjust this reasonably easily, if necessary.
 
tillsbury said:
I've just installed Windows 7 professional 64-bit on Bootcamp, then Chrome and MSE. Used space is 12Gb. Not done any tidying up, you could perhaps remove a teeny bit, but not much.
Click to expand...

Wow! How did you manage to only use 12GB? Please teach me how, please!!!
 
My 50GB (46.5GB in Windows) BOOTCAMP partition has 19.4GB of free space. I installed 64-bit Windows 8 with all updates, most of Office 2007 Enterprise (584MB) and iRacing (4.65GB). I also disabled Hibernate to save 8GB of disk space. I have no other software installed at the moment.
 
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