minimal partition size for the OS

[hawat.thufir]

on a 30gig hard drive, what's a good partitioning scheme? I'm
thinking:

win2k name linux name filesystem purpose
-------------------------------------------------------------------
C:\ hda1 NTFS windows 2000
D:\ hda2 FAT32/VFAT ? software & data
E:\ /mnt/cd-rom? cd-r/w
F:\ hda3 ext3 linux swap
?? hda? ext3 Fedora Core 3


I'm thinking C:\ should be as small as possible, <4gig. what's the
minimum for the most basic system? I'll muck around a bit so that
programs install to D:\ by default (assuming they're well behaved).

on the linux side it's less clear. installing linux software, or
putting /home on hda2, would be consistent with the win2k scheme, but,
it'd mean using VFAT instead of ext3 which sounds like a bad idea, but
that's off-topic and in flux.


thanks,

Thufir

 

[Gary Smith]

Be cautious about making drive C too small. Some programs simply won't
install on a drive other than the one on which Windows resides. Others --
Outlook Express is reported to be one such -- will install on any drive
but won't run unless they're on the same drive as Windows.

on a 30gig hard drive, what's a good partitioning scheme? I'm
thinking:

 

[Colon Terminus]

on a 30gig hard drive, what's a good partitioning scheme? I'm
thinking:

win2k name linux name filesystem purpose
-------------------------------------------------------------------
C:\ hda1 NTFS windows 2000
D:\ hda2 FAT32/VFAT ? software & data
E:\ /mnt/cd-rom? cd-r/w
F:\ hda3 ext3 linux swap
?? hda? ext3 Fedora Core 3


I'm thinking C:\ should be as small as possible, <4gig. what's the
minimum for the most basic system? I'll muck around a bit so that
programs install to D:\ by default (assuming they're well behaved).

on the linux side it's less clear. installing linux software, or
putting /home on hda2, would be consistent with the win2k scheme, but,
it'd mean using VFAT instead of ext3 which sounds like a bad idea, but
that's off-topic and in flux.


thanks,

Thufir

I have two systems where the OS drive is 2GB, one where the OS drive is 3GB
and at least a dozen where the OS drive is 4GB. All work just fine and have
done so for several years. You need to ensure that the Swap file and Program
Files are on another volume (registry entry ProgramFilerDir) and that IE and
OE store directories are on another volume. My systems where the OS
partition is 4GB are graphics workstations with thousands of fonts installed
which accounts for the greater size allocation.

 

[Rick]

I have two systems where the OS drive is 2GB, one where the OS drive is 3GB
and at least a dozen where the OS drive is 4GB. All work just fine and have
done so for several years. You need to ensure that the Swap file and Program
Files are on another volume (registry entry ProgramFilerDir) and that IE and
OE store directories are on another volume. My systems where the OS
partition is 4GB are graphics workstations with thousands of fonts installed
which accounts for the greater size allocation.

I second Colon's experience. My primary system has been running
just fine for five years now with a 2GB FAT boot/system partition --
and that's *with* MS Office 2000, IE6, SoundForge 6 and a half
dozen other major apps installed on it. I did move my pagefile to a
separate drive, and also allocated 0MB to Windows File Protection
(via Group Policy Editor) and deleted the entire dllcache folder,
which freed up 300+MB. I also don't archive files when installing
Service Packs, and delete uninstall folders after installing updates.

All of this is worth it IMO, just to keep my system partition readily
accessible with a simple DOS boot disk. This access has saved
my butt more times than I can count over the years, and it's the
primary reason why I've never had to reinstall Win2K.