How full can my hard drive be?

[JuanAdams]

Okay, I am about to set up my new HP computer which has Vista Premium
64 bit and a 750 gig hard drive.

With all the mp3's, lossless audio and avi's I have on various
external hard drives, 750 gigs isn't really "that big" anymore!

So I was on the phone with a friend last night and he said "I have to
delete a bunch of stuff from my hard drive because my computer geek
friend told me I should never have my drive more than 50% full."

I said, "Well, surely nowadays with big hard drives that is no longer
true. But I will ask."

So:
How full can a 750gig hard drive be, before it causes sluggishness or
other problems, using Vista Premium 64bit?

Note: I am thinking of shrinking the C partition into various
partitions:
about 20gigs for a cd/dvd ripping area
about 100gigs for Vista and programs and desktop working area" (C
drive)
about 400 gigs for mp3's
and the rest for .avi movie files

Is this a reasonable plan?
And is it okay to shrink it and divide it after I'm already up and
running with Vista, internet, etc.?

Thanks for the info!

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Your plan looks reasonable. Windows generally needs about 15% free space on
the system volume for expansion and various temp file creations during
normal operation, the data volumes are not quite so critical.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Paul Smith]

So I was on the phone with a friend last night and he said "I have to
delete a bunch of stuff from my hard drive because my computer geek
friend told me I should never have my drive more than 50% full."

Not true. At least not to the degree being stated, its a good idea to give
Windows a bit of space for when it installs patches and updates, and to make
sure there's room for System Restore and the like.

How full can a 750gig hard drive be, before it causes sluggishness or
other problems, using Vista Premium 64bit?

15%-20% is fine. I've been running mine with about 2% free, (about 10GB)
for a couple of months now, granted I only have a few System Restore points
now, but its working fine.

There is a performance impact as a drive gets full, this is because it takes
longer to access the outside of a platter than the inside (because of the
rotation speed), in benchmarks it can be half the speed of the beginning of
the drive, but Windows typically will be physically positioned near the
beginning of the drive anyway, and being a bit slow accessing music or
videos won't have any impact. This isn't something an end-user would notice
without having tools to actually test the drive.

Note: I am thinking of shrinking the C partition into various
partitions:
about 20gigs for a cd/dvd ripping area
about 100gigs for Vista and programs and desktop working area" (C
drive)
about 400 gigs for mp3's
and the rest for .avi movie files

Partitioning the drives wouldn't change performance factor at all. It may
enable you to have a greater percentage of free space on the system
partition, but I'm doubtful if its worth it considering the situation you
could come across later on wishing you had a few more gigabytes for your MP3
partition, and so having to spread it around different partitions for
example. (The built in partitioning tools cannot always shrink a partition,
usually because there's data that cannot be physically moved being in the
way).

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Okay, I am about to set up my new HP computer which has Vista Premium
64 bit and a 750 gig hard drive.

With all the mp3's, lossless audio and avi's I have on various
external hard drives, 750 gigs isn't really "that big" anymore!

So I was on the phone with a friend last night and he said "I have to
delete a bunch of stuff from my hard drive because my computer geek
friend told me I should never have my drive more than 50% full."

I said, "Well, surely nowadays with big hard drives that is no longer
true. But I will ask."

So:
How full can a 750gig hard drive be, before it causes sluggishness or
other problems, using Vista Premium 64bit?

Note: I am thinking of shrinking the C partition into various
partitions:
about 20gigs for a cd/dvd ripping area
about 100gigs for Vista and programs and desktop working area" (C
drive)
about 400 gigs for mp3's
and the rest for .avi movie files

Is this a reasonable plan?
And is it okay to shrink it and divide it after I'm already up and
running with Vista, internet, etc.?

Thanks for the info!

50% free space is excessive.. 25% is not a bad idea though..

 

[JuanAdams]

Not true.  At least not to the degree being stated, its a good idea to give
Windows a bit of space for when it installs patches and updates, and to make
sure there's room for System Restore and the like.


15%-20% is fine.  I've been running mine with about 2% free, (about 10GB)
for a couple of months now, granted I only have a few System Restore points
now, but its working fine.

There is a performance impact as a drive gets full, this is because it takes
longer to access the outside of a platter than the inside (because of the
rotation speed), in benchmarks it can be half the speed of the beginning of
the drive, but Windows typically will be physically positioned near the
beginning of the drive anyway, and being a bit slow accessing music or
videos won't have any impact.  This isn't something an end-user would notice
without having tools to actually test the drive.


Partitioning the drives wouldn't change performance factor at all.  It may
enable you to have a greater percentage of free space on the system
partition, but I'm doubtful if its worth it considering the situation you
could come across later on wishing you had a few more gigabytes for your MP3
partition, and so having to spread it around different partitions for
example.  (The built in partitioning tools cannot always shrink a partition,
usually because there's data that cannot be physically moved being in the
way).

Thanks for your response. That's interesting. Some other Vista experts
have told me it IS a good idea to partition the drive, especially in
terms of having an area for ripping and deleting downloads - so that
are will be easier to defrag and I won't fragment the rest of the
drive (the other partition(s).

Is this something that no one knows for sure and so there is some
controversy about it? Or are you saying unequivocably that
partitioning my hard drive in the manner I've described is useless?

I think you've convinced me at least not to make sep. partitions for
mp3's and movies. But I am still wondering about the efficacy of
having a separate partition for downloading, combining (as in unrar,
rar, etc) and deleting and/or moving files to an archiving area? That
intuitively seems to make sense to me - that an area like this would
get very fragmented and so keeping it a smaller partition would keep
it easier to defrag and keep my C drive from getting so fragged from
it.

I'm no expert I'm just going by what I've been told, so feel free to
set me straight if I'm not understanding correctly.

Are you still advocating that I not shrink and partition an area of my
drive for just ripping and combining and burning mp3s and movies?
Thanks for your opinion.

 

[Leon]

"JuanAdams" wrote

Thanks for your response. That's interesting. Some other Vista experts
have told me it IS a good idea to partition the drive,

Let me give you my experience. You decide if it is authoritative.

I built myself a 0.75 terabyte three dive RAID 0 storage array. This enables
the Smartdrive features of the drives. On this storage array I have two
partitions, one for Windows 7 64-bit beta and the other to boot Vista
Ultimate 64-bit. Partitions are essentially for multiboot. At one time I
used two partition for Vista, but it was a pain in the ass. Backup has not
worked for me since 1996. Think of it, if backup was reliable and easy, I
could give you my backup, you would have my OS's and Microsoft would lose
money. Self interest counts. Instead of backup I use redundancy of the
important files of my server on other computers in my network. I have a
single drive store with two partitions one for Windows 7 64-bit beta and the
other Vista Ultimate 64-bit, both bootable. I use commercial software that
costs pennies to copy whole partitions from one drive store to another on
this computer. I am posting anonymously so that Microsoft does not get mad
at me for what I said.

 

[Bigguy]

Okay, I am about to set up my new HP computer which has Vista Premium
64 bit and a 750 gig hard drive.

With all the mp3's, lossless audio and avi's I have on various
external hard drives, 750 gigs isn't really "that big" anymore!

So I was on the phone with a friend last night and he said "I have to
delete a bunch of stuff from my hard drive because my computer geek
friend told me I should never have my drive more than 50% full."

I said, "Well, surely nowadays with big hard drives that is no longer
true. But I will ask."

So:
How full can a 750gig hard drive be, before it causes sluggishness or
other problems, using Vista Premium 64bit?

Note: I am thinking of shrinking the C partition into various
partitions:
about 20gigs for a cd/dvd ripping area
about 100gigs for Vista and programs and desktop working area" (C
drive)
about 400 gigs for mp3's
and the rest for .avi movie files

Is this a reasonable plan?
And is it okay to shrink it and divide it after I'm already up and
running with Vista, internet, etc.?

Thanks for the info!

20% free is good - after 15% things really do start to slow down.

HDDs are so cheap at the moment - add a big second drive and move all
your downloads and media to it.

Guy

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

"JuanAdams" wrote


Let me give you my experience. You decide if it is authoritative.

I built myself a 0.75 terabyte three dive RAID 0 storage array. This
enables the Smartdrive features of the drives. On this storage array I
have two partitions, one for Windows 7 64-bit beta and the other to boot
Vista Ultimate 64-bit. Partitions are essentially for multiboot. At one
time I used two partition for Vista, but it was a pain in the ass. Backup
has not worked for me since 1996. Think of it, if backup was reliable and
easy, I could give you my backup, you would have my OS's and Microsoft
would lose money. Self interest counts. Instead of backup I use redundancy
of the important files of my server on other computers in my network. I
have a single drive store with two partitions one for Windows 7 64-bit
beta and the other Vista Ultimate 64-bit, both bootable. I use commercial
software that costs pennies to copy whole partitions from one drive store
to another on this computer. I am posting anonymously so that Microsoft
does not get mad at me for what I said.

Microsoft will be more bemused by what you said than mad at you..

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Not true. At least not to the degree being stated, its a good idea to give
Windows a bit of space for when it installs patches and updates, and to
make
sure there's room for System Restore and the like.


15%-20% is fine. I've been running mine with about 2% free, (about 10GB)
for a couple of months now, granted I only have a few System Restore
points
now, but its working fine.

There is a performance impact as a drive gets full, this is because it
takes
longer to access the outside of a platter than the inside (because of the
rotation speed), in benchmarks it can be half the speed of the beginning
of
the drive, but Windows typically will be physically positioned near the
beginning of the drive anyway, and being a bit slow accessing music or
videos won't have any impact. This isn't something an end-user would
notice
without having tools to actually test the drive.


Partitioning the drives wouldn't change performance factor at all. It may
enable you to have a greater percentage of free space on the system
partition, but I'm doubtful if its worth it considering the situation you
could come across later on wishing you had a few more gigabytes for your
MP3
partition, and so having to spread it around different partitions for
example. (The built in partitioning tools cannot always shrink a
partition,
usually because there's data that cannot be physically moved being in the
way).

Thanks for your response. That's interesting. Some other Vista experts
have told me it IS a good idea to partition the drive, especially in
terms of having an area for ripping and deleting downloads - so that
are will be easier to defrag and I won't fragment the rest of the
drive (the other partition(s).

Is this something that no one knows for sure and so there is some
controversy about it? Or are you saying unequivocably that
partitioning my hard drive in the manner I've described is useless?

I think you've convinced me at least not to make sep. partitions for
mp3's and movies. But I am still wondering about the efficacy of
having a separate partition for downloading, combining (as in unrar,
rar, etc) and deleting and/or moving files to an archiving area? That
intuitively seems to make sense to me - that an area like this would
get very fragmented and so keeping it a smaller partition would keep
it easier to defrag and keep my C drive from getting so fragged from
it.

I'm no expert I'm just going by what I've been told, so feel free to
set me straight if I'm not understanding correctly.

Are you still advocating that I not shrink and partition an area of my
drive for just ripping and combining and burning mp3s and movies?
Thanks for your opinion.


The essence of partitioning is that it gives you more easily managed parts,
and it allows for better organization.

Assuming that the drive never totally craps out (and some don't), you can
keep your data on a separate partition to the OS and applications. In the
event of OS failure, it can be re-installed without endangering your data.
Having data on a separate partition also makes backing up that much easier.
You simply just back up the partition.

I partition into three or four parts depending upon the size of the drive.
Allow at least 100gb for Vista 64. This will allow plenty of space for
applications, page file etc. You may never get close to using it all, but
that is a good thing because it will allow the OS to breathe.

It is a good idea to create a partition for the stuff that is installed but
for which you do not have original installation media. You may want to
allocate 50gb or so for this.

You may also want a partition to keep an image of the OS and applications,
but ensure that you have an image saved externally too.

The rest can be used for your music, videos, documents..

 

[+Bob+]

There is a performance impact as a drive gets full, this is because it takes
longer to access the outside of a platter than the inside (because of the
rotation speed), in benchmarks it can be half the speed of the beginning of
the drive, but Windows typically will be physically positioned near the
beginning of the drive anyway, and being a bit slow accessing music or
videos won't have any impact. This isn't something an end-user would notice
without having tools to actually test the drive.

The end user will notice the reduction in performance as the drive
thrashes about when close to full. Rattle, rattle, rattle, wait, wait,
wait.

 

[JuanAdams]

Your drive is going toast......
But that depends on how full and how slow, the manufacturer (ie; how
cheap),,,
you need to leave atleast 20% free space for proper defragging

never going over 50% free space is a bit on the rediculous side if you
ask me.

With that said......

SSD drives will not suffer these problems.

What's an SSD drive?

 

[JuanAdams]

Thanks for your response. That's interesting. Some other Vista experts
have told me it IS a good idea to partition the drive, especially in
terms of having an area for ripping and deleting downloads - so that
are will be easier to defrag and I won't fragment the rest of the
drive (the other partition(s).

Is this something that no one knows for sure and so there is some
controversy about it? Or are you saying unequivocably that
partitioning my hard drive in the manner I've described is useless?

I think you've convinced me at least not to make sep. partitions for
mp3's and movies. But I am still wondering about the efficacy of
having a separate partition for downloading, combining (as in unrar,
rar, etc) and deleting and/or moving files to an archiving area? That
intuitively seems to make sense to me - that an area like this would
get very fragmented and so keeping it a smaller partition would keep
it easier to defrag and keep my C drive from getting so fragged from
it.

I'm no expert I'm just going by what I've been told, so feel free to
set me straight if I'm not understanding correctly.

Are you still advocating that I not shrink and partition an area of my
drive for just ripping and combining and burning mp3s and movies?
Thanks for your opinion.

The essence of partitioning is that it gives you more easily managed parts,
and it allows for better organization.

Assuming that the drive never totally craps out (and some don't), you can
keep your data on a separate partition to the OS and applications. In the
event of OS failure, it can be re-installed without endangering your data..
Having data on a separate partition also makes backing up that much easier.
You simply just back up the partition.

I partition into three or four parts depending upon the size of the drive..
Allow at least 100gb for Vista 64. This will allow plenty of space for
applications, page file etc. You may never get close to using it all, but
that is a good thing because it will allow the OS to breathe.

It is a good idea to create a partition for the stuff that is installed but
for which you do not have original installation media. You may want to
allocate 50gb or so for this.

You may also want a partition to keep an image of the OS and applications,
but ensure that you have an image saved externally too.

The rest can be used for your music, videos, documents..

One person has recommended to me that I do the following:
Keep the Vista OS ONLY in it's own partition of about 50 gigs. Direct
all downloads and temp files to go to the bigger partition and keep
all programs and archives on the other partition. This way if I need
to re-install Vista or get a virus that only affects the main drive
where the OS is, I can easily wipe that partition and start afresh
with Vista without losing or having to reinstall anything.

Does that sound like a sound way of doing things? Any drawbacks to it?
(I'm no expert but it makes sense to me!)

 

[JuanAdams]

One person has recommended to me that I do the following:
Keep the Vista OS ONLY in it's own partition of about 50 gigs. Direct
all downloads and temp files to go to the bigger partition and keep
all programs and archives on the other partition. This way if I need
to re-install Vista or get a virus that only affects the main drive
where the OS is, I can easily wipe that partition and start afresh
with Vista without losing or having to reinstall anything.

Does that sound like a sound way of doing things? Any drawbacks to it?
(I'm no expert but it makes sense to me!)

PS. Did I understand correctly, as I think someone told me, that it is
okay to INSTALL ALL PROGRAMS on a separate partition, not on C drive?
Will this cause any lack of speed or other problems? If not, then it
seems to make sense. That way if I need to re-install or wipe my C
drive I can do so easily without having to re-install programs. Also
it would make virus checking and defragging quicker. No?

 

[Mike Torello]

What's an SSD drive?

GOT GOOGLE??

 

[Mike Torello]

PS. Did I understand correctly, as I think someone told me, that it is
okay to INSTALL ALL PROGRAMS on a separate partition, not on C drive?
Will this cause any lack of speed or other problems? If not, then it
seems to make sense. That way if I need to re-install or wipe my C
drive I can do so easily without having to re-install programs. Also
it would make virus checking and defragging quicker. No?

You will still have to reinstall your programs, except for what few -
if any - don't make registry entries.

Won't save any virus-checking time.

 

[JuanAdams]

GOT GOOGLE??

No.
Got patience?

 

[JuanAdams]

GOT GOOGLE??

I do have Google, after all.
For those who may not want to go looking it up, I found the following
info at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

"A solid-state drive (SSD) is a data storage device that uses solid-
state memory to store persistent data. An SSD emulates a hard disk
drive interface, thus easily replacing it in most applications. An SSD
using SRAM or DRAM (instead of flash memory) is often called a RAM-
drive.

The original usage of the term solid-state (from solid-state physics)
refers to the use of semiconductor devices rather than electron tubes,
but in this context, has been adopted to distinguish solid-state
electronics from electromechanical devices as well. With no moving
parts, solid-state drives are less fragile than hard disks and are
also silent (unless a cooling fan is used); as there are no mechanical
delays, they usually employ low access time and latency.

SSDs have begun to appear in laptops,[1][2] although as of 2009 they
are substantially more expensive per unit of capacity than hard drives
(US$500 for a 256 GB SSD, vs. US$50 for a similar size external USB HDD
[3])."

me:
Sounds like a good deal if and when they come down in price. Right now
they're maybe a good deal, anyway if you consider that they are less
likely (IF they indeed are less likely?) to die within a year or two
as most USB External Hard drives seem to do.

 

[JuanAdams]

You will still have to reinstall your programs, except for what few -
if any - don't make registry entries.

Won't save any virus-checking time.

Thanks for that bit of info.
So in that case it is of limited usefulness to install the programs on
a separate partition.
But is there any DISadvantage to doing so?

 

[Mike Torello]

Thanks for that bit of info.
So in that case it is of limited usefulness to install the programs on
a separate partition.
But is there any DISadvantage to doing so?

There might be programs that prefer to be installed on the system
partition. Other than that, it's just extra work to put them
somewhere other than where they automatically would otherwise install.