Windows 7 W7 64-bit Memory Requirement

[jimlau]

how much hard drive memory does a W7 64-bit pro take up?

thanks.

 

[patcooke]

At the risk of sounding pedantic (which I don't want to do!) you need to take care between referring to disk storage (typically a hard disk drive) and the term memory which is generally used to refer to solid state memory, most commonly in the form of random access memory (RAM). I guess you are referring to the disk space used by an installation. The minimum free space required at install time is 20GB. You are likely to need at least twice as much as this to accommodate other system files and applications. My 64 bit system drive, with a fair number of installed apps is currently using 32GB.

 

[jimlau]

thanks.

do u know if it is problematic to have an SSD, say, 90% full, like it is a problem for regular hard drives to be 90% full?

 

[patcooke]

Not sure what you mean by a "problem". If you are referring to the warnings which pop up you can turn that off. You can minimise the growth in the system drive size be ensuring that all non essential files (especially user data files) are stored elsewhere. It will further help if you turn off hibernation. You amy also consider having no pagefile or storing it elsewhere. I have 4GB RAM and have no pagefile.

 

[jimlau]

i was referring to how the system can slow down when the hard drive gets fuller. i was told anything above 2/3 full would probably yield a slowdown on a SATA HD.

i was considering getting a 60gb SSD and want to make sure that's large enough if i don't have too many programs on that drive.

 

[patcooke]

60GB would be more than enough. If you keep the drive junk free with something like ccleaner and keep it defragged you should have no problems with slowing down. A traditional hard drive does have areas which are somewhat slower to access but this is related to the physical position of the data on the tracks and this is not an issue of course with SSD's.

 

[Drew]

Rule of thumb, no matter SSD or HDD, is minimum 15% free space. & Pat is correct (of course) 60-80GB SSD is fine... especially, when one adds in the fact that there should always be (another) drive for Data. Hard to slow down an SSD, lol As, Pat say, just give it the same regular maintenance as any other.

Cheers,
Drew

 

[catilley1092]

So a SSD is to be defragged just as a HDD is? I seen the option inside of Perfect Disk's settings, but there's the common belief out there that SSD's aren't to be defragged.

Again, this is hearsay to me, the "common belief" that I spoke of. Members of other forums, articles & so on. I'm soon going to buy a M4 128GB, which will be plenty enough for my 10GB recovery partition, 60GB for the Windows 7 Pro x64 install, 30GB for a VM that I run, the rest for data. It's doubtful that I'll store that much data on it anyway. I use USB Flash drives for this.

Cat

 

[Drew]

I've heard this, Cat... doesn't mean it's not true. Far as I knew, they were/could be treated, in this context, like any (hard) drive; certainly, that could incorrect... including defrag... just the 1st time (here & now) I'd heard of the 'common belief', I mighta missed the memo, too ...maybe, I've just learned something (new).

Drew

 

[Drew]

Cat,

I just did a wee bit of research...

Found, yes one should & no, one should not. Nothing that one could not or should not, but, some suggesting it was pointless & unnecessary. others saying, it should be done.

Cheers,
Drew

 

[patcooke]

Just another thought - don't think I'd waste 10GB of SSD on a "recovery partition". I'd at least store it on an external hdd and more likely just create two copies of recovery dvd's - they are needed so infrequently (hopefully!) that having them on immediate access al the time is wasteful (especially of ssd space).

 

[catilley1092]

Just another thought - don't think I'd waste 10GB of SSD on a "recovery partition". I'd at least store it on an external hdd and more likely just create two copies of recovery dvd's - they are needed so infrequently (hopefully!) that having them on immediate access al the time is wasteful (especially of ssd space).

I like that recovery partition being there, it's a very quick way to reinstall my OS, w/o wiping my VM & Data partitions. Which I usually do at least once a year.

I have a set of recovery disks that I burned when the notebook was new, but I would only use them in an emergency. Because, like my HP recovery set, it'll format the entire HDD. I don't want that. 10GB is no big deal to me, since I'm getting a 128GB SSD. I don't think that OS space will be an issue for my use of the notebook.

I just want to speed it up a bit & have a long lasting SSD. The M4 ought to satisfy me.

Cat

 

[alexandervs]

Minimum requirements for 64-bit Windows 7 is 20 GB + whatever you plan on installing or saving to it.

 

[catilley1092]

This is really about the memory requirement, although 2GB is the minimum that MS says for 7 64 bit, it's just not enough. The video card takes 256MB, so that leaves 1.75MB to run 64 bit Windows 7 on. Performance was pitiful. Windows 7 64 bit really needs 3GB RAM to run good. 4GB is considered my many experts to be the "sweet spot" for 64 bit 7. 32 bit, I know little about, but would imagine that 1GB wouldn't be enough for many users. Out of 4 computers (2 of which are XP based & lower) 2GB is my minimum.

Around early 2010, I upgraded my desktop to the max, using Crucial's online tool, I discovered that it would take 4GB RAM, and a faster speed than what shipped with it. The upgrade cost me nearly $100, but it was the best $100 that I spent on the PC. About all one can do with an all-in-one PC is to upgrade the RAM & HDD, I done both.

The desktop has an anemic dual core AMD Athlon X2 3250e running at 1.5GHz, I'm considering this one, when the warranty ends.

Link Removed - Invalid URL

But like I stated, I'm just considering it. The HP's BIOS is so neutered, I don't know if I can even take advantage of the multi-threading & other options that it offers. All that I know is that it's fully compatible with the MB.

Windows 8 CP is certainly running well on it, as is. Come Windows 9, or whatever it's named, I'm going for a new PC, & it won't be of the AIO type, & will have much higher performance.

Cat

 

[whs]

i was referring to how the system can slow down when the hard drive gets fuller. i was told anything above 2/3 full would probably yield a slowdown on a SATA HD.

i was considering getting a 60gb SSD and want to make sure that's large enough if i don't have too many programs on that drive.

60GB is plenty for running Win7 64bit. I run 3 desktops like that. And even on my laptops the largest SSD is 90GB. On one desktop with a 60GB Crucial M4 I run Win7 64bit and Win8 CP and Ubuntu as guest operating systems in virtual Box. And I have still 15GB of available space. My data is on the spinners, hiberfile is disabled and pagefile is 2GB (no pagefile will not work - the system would crash even with my 8GB of RAM).

 

[patcooke]

(no pagefile will not work - the system would crash even with my 8GB of RAM).

May or not be true depending on circumstances but most certainly not invariably so - as I said much earlier, depending on what apps you run you may or may not need a pagefile. I haven't had one for years and I'm currently running a triple boot system including Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit with 4gb RAM and no problem. It's always worth trying because if you don't need it you save on various resources (we need to be aware that there are quite a few badly structured programs which just use pagefile regardless of whether or not it is needed incurring unnecessary disks transfers). At the worst, if you discover you cannot run without one then you just recreate one.

 

[whs]

Pat, check your system. I am pretty certain the system allocated a default pagefile. Just look into Resource Manager > Memory tab > the graph bottom right. You will see occasional hard faults.