Windows 7 Optimal Partition Size for Windows 7 and Virtual XP on 1TB Hard Drive

[Jerome100]

I have a new Lenovo computer with Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. I'm going to partition it into drives C, D, E and F. It has a 1 Terabyte hard drive (actually 918 GB)

I need to allow sufficient space in the C partition for the W7P operating system PLUS Virtual XP, which I plan to install. Rather than divide the hard drive into 4 equal spaces, I am thinking I should make the C partition somewhat larger than the other partitions.

Any recommendation on how much space I should allow for the C partition?

Thanks in advance for any input.

Jerry

 

[patcooke]

Depends substantially on what apps you intend installing but allowing 60GB for each of the Windows 7 and for VM should be adequate for a typical install. See what others say and go for somewhere around the mean!

 

[Jimbo22]

For me, my C: drive being the primary drive, I keep mine around 200+ GB. My partitions I keep at 100 GB but I only have 2 partitions, one is running window 8.1 Pro and the other is running Windows 10 TP.

 

[Jerome100]

To Pat and Bassfisher - Thank you both for your replies. I'll see if any others respond - then make a decision based on an analysis of all the replies. Appreciate your taking time to write....! Jerry

 

[patcooke]

Worth mentioning in addition that for all sorts of reasons I have always limited my drive C (and any other drives/partitions to which an op sys is installed) to containing only the op sys, associated system files and installed apps. All user data files are stored in their own drive/partition. This has always been an industry standard practice and means that backups of your system drive are not bloated by storage of large user files like movies, music etc. It also avoids the problem of trying to preserve any user data from being over-written if and when the necessity arises to run a recovery/reinstall of the system drive. This practice is strongly recommended but if you do not adopt it then system drive sizing becomes a much greater case of "how long is a piece of string."

 

[Jerome100]

Pat - Thanks for that comment. My thinking has been the same. I try to keep data files on drives other than "C". Sometimes I get careless (I'm almost 80 and my mind doesn't function as well as it used to..!) but when I discover my carelessness, I just move the wrongly placed data file to a different partition. Jerry

 

[patcooke]

I'm not far behind you Jerry - celebrated my 69th birthday just over a week ago so know exactly what you mean!

 

[Joe S]

I partitioned my HD with 100 G for system and installed software and put data on the other partition. I can restore a system image in less that 15 min with Acronis.
Joe