% Used Hard Drive Space VS. Computer Speed

[Guest]

Does the bigger percentage of hard drive space used mean the slower the speed
of your computer?

I have 2 internal hard drives in my laptop and I am deciding whether I
should install programs such as games on the hard drive which does not
contain windows xp so that the program does not slow my computer (login
speed, etc.)

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

You're OK until free space gets down to 15% of disk space, but otherwise it
doesn't affect performance. Leave your apps on the system partition (usually
C:\) and move your personal files to a different partition.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Does the bigger percentage of hard drive space used mean the
slower the speed
of your computer?

I have 2 internal hard drives in my laptop and I am deciding
whether I should install programs such as games on the hard drive
which does not contain windows xp so that the program does not
slow my computer (login speed, etc.)

You're OK until free space gets down to 15% of disk space, but
otherwise it doesn't affect performance. Leave your apps on the
system partition (usually C:\) and move your personal files to a
different partition.

.... and even then - I don't think the 15% is a hard and fast (nor accurate)
guage any longer. Sure - you won't be able to defragment as effectively
(supposedly) but with a 750GB drive, the 100+GB being free or not (15%+ of
the actual formatted space) is UNLIKLEY to start affecting performanace
until you start getting down to a lot less free space.

I think the 15% starts losing relevance over about 200GB... You probably
want to maintain a good 30-50GB free space on drives like that - if you can.

Of course - that's just me talking - there may be numbers out there to prove
me wrong.

 

[Lil' Dave]

Does the bigger percentage of hard drive space used mean the slower the
speed
of your computer?

I have 2 internal hard drives in my laptop and I am deciding whether I
should install programs such as games on the hard drive which does not
contain windows xp so that the program does not slow my computer (login
speed, etc.)

I like 20% free space in a windows partition minimum.
If it gets less than that, I consider removing stuff or moving to larger
hard drive if needed.
I install all applications in the windows partition.
I store stuff on alternate partitions.
The only exception I've found for the way I do things is video rendering
which uses a sort of swapfile of its own. I use an alternate partition on
another physcial hard drive for the pseudo swapfile.

Don't see how, even if a game is installed on another partition, it would
alter the login speed. (guessing you mean loading user settings after
login).
Dave

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

I agree. Just tossed in the 15% figure because it's so easy to remember and
a decent rule of thumb. But then, I don't put the OS and apps on partitions
anywhere near the sizes you're talking about. I keep the system partition
around 30GB at most.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Does the bigger percentage of hard drive space used mean the slower the speed
of your computer?

No.


I have 2 internal hard drives in my laptop and I am deciding whether I
should install programs such as games on the hard drive which does not
contain windows xp so that the program does not slow my computer (login
speed, etc.)

It doesn't matter.

 

[Plato]

You're OK until free space gets down to 15% of disk space, but otherwise it
doesn't affect performance. Leave your apps on the system partition (usually
C:\) and move your personal files to a different partition.

My opinion is to always have 25% free on C:

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My opinion is to always have 25% free on C:

And mine is that it greatly depends on the size of the drive (or
partition). If C: is a 5GB drive, 25% is probably insufficient for
most people. And if C: is a 1TB drive, 25% is *way* overkill for
almost everyone.

 

[Plato]

And mine is that it greatly depends on the size of the drive (or
partition). If C: is a 5GB drive, 25% is probably insufficient for
most people. And if C: is a 1TB drive, 25% is *way* overkill for
almost everyone.

I cant argue with that Ken Wich I could tho You take the time to
write with more info than I do. I do respect you for that....

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I cant argue with that Ken Wich I could tho You take the time to
write with more info than I do. I do respect you for that....

Thanks, Ed.