How big of a partition should I make?

[calbear93]

I'm getting a MacBook Pro with a 320GB hard drive. I'm thinking about putting Windows 7 on it. I might use it for schoolwork just in case I don't feel like I can be productive on Mac OS X. I might also use it to download movies and stuff like that. So how big of a partition should I make in it? I don't even know how much space the Windows OS itself takes so if anyone could explain that, that would be helpful too!

 

[Quad5Ny]

Windows 7 itself takes about 10GB plus:

• Hibernation file that's 75 percent of the total physical memory (you can choose to disable Hibernation and only use Sleep)
• Pagefile that's the size of the total physical memory + 1MB (you can also change this, most people don't need a 4-8GB Pagefile )

So if you had 8GB of RAM that would be 10,240MB + 6,144MB + 8,193MB = 24GB
In this case, 40GB would be a safe size for a Windows Partition (This would leave you with 16GB for Your Files & System Restore)

If you were to disable Hibernation, Shrink the Pagefile to 2GB and disable System Restore
That would be 10,240MB + 2,048MB = 12.2GB
Now you only need a 20GB Windows Partition (This would leave you with 7.8GB free for Your Files)


If it were me, I would give the Windows partition 80-100GB, Disable Hibernation/System Restore and set the Pagefile to 3GB.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Restore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_mode
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernation_(computing)

 

[NZed]

I have about 70gb for windows. Its filled with CoD 4 MW, CoD MW2, CoD BlackOps, Portal2, Skype and nothing else except whats included in the installation... And i have about 5gb left...

 

[vistadude]

At least 100 GB if you download a lot of stuff and use windows as the primary OS. Windows 7 takes up ~10-15 GB, plus apps might take another 5 GB.

 

[GrantMeThePower]

I've disabled both hibernation and system restore. Only program installed is firefox. I have 12 gb of ram. The partition for win 7 is 55 gb

I only have 27 gb left, which means that just win7 is taking up 28 gb?!!

What's up with this?

 

[bpeeps]

I've disabled both hibernation and system restore. Only program installed is firefox. I have 12 gb of ram. The partition for win 7 is 55 gb

I only have 27 gb left, which means that just win7 is taking up 28 gb?!!

What's up with this?

Bootcamp itself takes up some space. I just installed Win7 today, they're forgetting the OSX drivers, files, and extra stuff.

I made a partition for 210GB, installed Win7 which took me to 195. Then installed all of the necessary drivers and that took me to 171GB. Your numbers seem fine.

 

[Quad5Ny]

I've disabled both hibernation and system restore. Only program installed is firefox. I have 12 gb of ram. The partition for win 7 is 55 gb

I only have 27 gb left, which means that just win7 is taking up 28 gb?!!

What's up with this?

Did you even read my post?

You have a 12GB Pagefile and a 9GB Hibernation file (and also some System Restore backups).

Windows itself is only using 10ish GB.

Bootcamp itself takes up some space. I just installed Win7 today, they're forgetting the OSX drivers, files, and extra stuff.

I made a partition for 210GB, installed Win7 which took me to 195. Then installed all of the necessary drivers and that took me to 171GB. Your numbers seem fine.

The BootCamp driver package only uses around 500MB.

 

[Mac.Enthusiast]

calbear93,
I commend you to allocate 100 of your 320 GB -- it should enough for the Win7 itself, a few app suites, and for documents.

 

[GrantMeThePower]

Did you even read my post?

You have a 12GB Pagefile and a 9GB Hibernation file (and also some System Restore backups).

Windows itself is only using 10ish GB.

I did read your post. It helped me save a lot of space. That is why i said i disabled both hibernation and system restore. I checked to make sure that the hibernation file was also deleted.

I tried to change the page file to a custom size but I couldnt find any answers on how to do it safely and what should be the starting size.

There are no system restore backups after i disable system restore, right? It says it is now set to use 0mb of hard drive.

i dont see what i missed on your post.

 

[Quad5Ny]

Sorry. For some reason when I read your post I skipped the first sentence.

Also are you sure the partition is 55GB? OS X and Windows report space differently. (In Snow Leopard 1GB is 953.67432MB | In Windows 1GB is 1,024MB)

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How to Shrink your Pagefile (To a Minimum of 16MB and a Maximum of 4GB):

1. Open up a Administrator Command Prompt
2. TYPE - wmic computersystem where name="%computername%" set AutomaticManagedPagefile=False
3. Press Enter
4. TYPE - wmic pagefileset where name="C:\\pagefile.sys" set InitialSize=16,MaximumSize=4096
5. Press Enter
6. Restart your Computer

Note that You can also do this through the GUI, but its easier for me to just tell you 2 commands.
Video of How to COMPLETLY disable the Pagefile using the GUI - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM1UZc9AkE4
If you have 12GB of RAM I don't see any reason you couldn't completely disable it.


To Set the Pagefile back to default:

1. Open up a Administrator Command Prompt
2. TYPE - wmic computersystem where name="%computername%" set AutomaticManagedPagefile=True
3. Press Enter
4. Restart your Computer

Also please note if your Windows partition ever goes under 4GB of free space and then try's to allocate the full 4GB for the Pagefile, you'll probably get a BugCheck Bluescreen.
You can avoid this by setting InitialSize to 4096. This way you always have 4GB allocated.

How to disable Hibernation (Sleep will Still work):

1. Open up a Administrator Command Prompt
2. TYPE - powercfg hibernate off
3. Press Enter
4. TYPE - del /A "C:\hiberfil.sys"
5. Press Enter

To Re-Enable Hibernation:

1. Open up a Administrator Command Prompt
2. TYPE - powercfg hibernate on
3. Press Enter
4. Restart

Disabling Hibernation will give you back %Space% in HD storage space.
Where %Space% is == 75% of your Physical RAM
Example: If you had 4GB of RAM, you would re-gain 3GB of storage space on your Windows Partition.

How to disable System Restore in Windows 7 <-- This is a Youtube link, Click it.

It will probably do it automatically, but you might also want to click the "Delete" button to remove any old restore points.


To Re-enable System Restore: Follow the steps in the video but instead of clicking 'Turn off system protection' click "Restore system settings and previous versions of files'.


By default I think its 8ish GB or so on a 50GB Partition. If your careful you should never need it.

(How) To clean up all files on the computer:

1. Open Disk Cleanup by clicking the Start button
   
   . In the search box, type Disk Cleanup, and then, in the list of results, click Disk Cleanup.
   
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2. In the Drives list, click the hard disk drive that you want to clean up, and then click OK.
   
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3. In the Disk Cleanup dialog box, click Clean up system files.
   
   If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
   
   .​
4. In the Disk Cleanup: Drive Selection dialog box, select the hard disk drive that you want to clean up, and then click OK.
   
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5. In the Disk Cleanup dialog box, on the Disk Cleanup tab, select the check boxes for the file types that you want to delete, and then click OK.
   
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6. In the message that appears, click Delete files.
   
   .​
   The More Options tab is available when you choose to clean files from all users on the computer. This tab includes two additional ways to free even more disk space:
   
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   • Programs and Features. This option opens Programs and Features in Control Panel, where you can uninstall programs that you no longer use. The Size column in Programs and Features shows how much disk space each program uses.
     
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   • System Restore and Shadow Copies. With this option, you can delete all but the most recent restore point on the disk.
     
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     System Restore uses restore points to return your system files to an earlier point in time. If your computer is running normally, you can save disk space by deleting the earlier restore points.
     
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     In some editions of Windows 7, restore points can include previous versions of files, known as shadow copies, and backup images created with Windows Complete PC Backup. These files and images will also be deleted. For more information about System Restore, see What is System Restore?

Source © 2011 Microsoft Corporation
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This is my Windows 7 x64 SP1 install after doing all those steps.
(I have 8GB of RAM and keep Programs/Games on a separate partition).​

.​

 

[GrantMeThePower]

Sorry. For some reason when I read your post I skipped the first sentence.

No worries, dude. Thank you so much for posting all of those instructions. That's a big help for me, and I'm sure to a lot of other people as well. Might be worth a mod creating a sticky of just that for people that made their partition too small and want to make as much room as possible.

Also are you sure the partition is 55GB? OS X and Windows report space differently. (In Snow Leopard 1GB is 1,000MB | In Windows 1GB is 1,024MB)

I didn't know that they counted GB differently! I'm new to the Mac world. I had set it to 55GB in OSX for the initial partition, but now i see that it is less in windows. What a pitb! haha. I could use that space! Thats a gig right there.

Bottom line is I shouldn't have been so stingy with space in the first place, but your tips really helped me.