How big is your hard drive?

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Recently I did an article for ComputerWorld about how Windows 10 has increased what I consider “normal” hard drive space. No longer do I think 100 gig
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Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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256GB SSD + 1TB HDD (+16TB network connected external HDDs).

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I don’t run too many different applications, so I can keep my system partition pretty small.

In my 3 HTPCs I have a 64-128-256GB SSD, and on these I just create a single partition.
On my desktops I used to split the 500GB SSD in a 60GB system partition and a 400GB data partition. Recently I upgraded to a 1TB SSD and now have it on 80/900GB.

To keep the size of the swap file down, I limit it to 2-8GB. With 32GB of RAM, my desktop shouldn’t do too much swapping anyway…

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How big is your hard drive?
3.25″ externals x2 for regular system images
5.25″ external x2 for regular system images

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created IT- AE

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The OS is on a 500 GB SSD and I have 3 2 TB HDDs for data storage.   The OS drive has 92 GB of system files which includes program files.  I think if one is just setting up an office computer, a 250 GB OS drive would be more than sufficient.

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C drive is an SSD with 500 GB space and D drive is a standard drive with 2 TB space. I also have an external drive attached that is 1 TB.

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500 GB SSD for the “OS” (C) drive
2 TB standard drive for the “data” drive
2 TB standard drive for the external backup drive

I think when my “data” drive gets older, I might replace it with an SSD – I’ve noticed a little lag now and then when my “OS” drive (SSD) is interacting with my “data” drive (standard)…

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A 100GB for Microsoft Windows 10 is actually plentiful for a simple Home / SOHO machine, as long as you don’t install too much software and keep it clean after every Microsoft Windows 10 upgrade and automatically run a tool like CCleaner once in a while (you can configure it to run automatically). What does a user need nowadays besides Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office? Perhaps Google Chrome (if not using Microsoft Edge Chromium) or a third party piece of antivirus software?

I’d say 250GB if the user does some light / personal phohotgraphy and more documents

I’d say 500GB for a power user (Adobe software suite / Autodesk software suite)

More than 1 TB is only required for streamer, gamers, content producers etc.

I’ve got a 512GB SSD for as my main drive (but I consider myself a power user and compile):

• / is 100GB formatted as F2FS
• /boot is 1GB formatted as FAT32 (my MSP partition)
• I’ve also got a swap partition that is 16GB
• /home is 400GB mapped as crypt-home (using LUKS2) formatted as F2FS

Other:

• /var/tmp/portage is a 16GB RAM drive and set the swapiness to low, so it’ll first use up all of my memory to compile, before it starts to trash my SSD with temporary data.

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My three year old HP laptop has a 128 GB SSD and a one TB hard drive and runs the latest version of Windows 10 Home (20H2) just fine with close to 80 GB free space on the SSD. I have two older desktop PC’s (Dell and HP) that are eight and seven years old respectively that only have spinning hard drives (1 TB and 2 TB respectively) but 12 GB RAM each, and are running perfectly fine with Windows 7 x64 SP1 and Microsoft Defender anti-virus and firewall. Windows 7 reports that the hard drives on each have no bad blocs or sectors. But when I previously tried to upgrade them to Windows 10, before wiping out Windows 10 and returning back to Windows 7, Windows 10 kept reporting that both PC’s had ever increasing numbers of bad blocs or sectors on their hard drives. The longer I kept Windows 10 booting from those hard drives, the more corrupted the hard drives became. No such problems with Windows 7; and neither PC has an SSD drive. Both are running perfectly still with Windows 7.

 

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256GB SSD & 500GB HDD

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Agree with you on the HDD vs SSD debacle, actually. My Windows 10 laptop with a 1 TB HDD is hardy but the HDD slows everything down to a hair-tearing crawl. It can take up to 5 minutes to finish booting up. It’s maddening. HDDs will soon be relegated to external HDDs in my life, used only for storing files I don’t need to access often and for backups. SSDs have now matured enough to replace HDDs for everyday consumers now.

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My Windows 10 PC is my Windows 7 PC after an in-place (not clean install) upgrade to Windows 8, then 8.1, then 10.  My OS partition was and is 100GB.  My Program Files partition was and is 100GB.  My Users partition was and is 100GB.  I have other partitions for other specific storage needs.

Twenty-one partitions spread across—
250GB Samsung 860 EVO mSATA SSD
250GB Samsung 860 EVO SSD
250GB Samsung 970 EVO NVMe SSD (in PCIe Adapter)
Three 1TB Samsung 860 EVO SSD’s (one for drive images)

I built this PC with future-proofing in mind, and I have not been disappointed.  I follow my own recommendations for Hardened Windows, but well beyond the minimum requirements.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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doriel

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Windows on C drive (500GB SSD), D drive for data is 2TB HDD.

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250 GB SSD for OS/programs

1 TB internal SATA for data

2 TB external HDD for backups

250 GB external SSD for personal data (plugged in only when in use)

2 – 128 GB flash drives to rotate for off site backups

HTH, Dana:))

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512 GB Samsung Pro SSD’s on all computers for “C” and 1 TB spinners for Data on my Desktops.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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1 TB SATA SSD (M.2) + 64 GB eMMC (soldered) on the Acer Swift. Windows is still on the eMMC, as it came from the factory (though it came with an empty M.2 slot). Dual boot with Linux.

250 GB NVMe SSD + 1 TB SATA SSD (2.5″) on the Dell G3. No longer has Windows 10 on it, but it did until less than a week ago.

1 TB NVMe SSD on the Dell XPS 13. Never had Windows on it, but most of this same model from Dell do.

3 x 128 GB SATA SSDs + 3 TB HDD (7200 RPM) on the desktop. Still has Windows 8.1 installed in dual boot.

512 GB HDD, 640 GB HDD, 1 TB HDD, 3 TB HDD, 5 TB HDD on the desktop I call my backup server. Still runs Windows ’cause I haven’t gotten around to switching it to Linux yet.

1TB HDD on the Asus F8Sn laptop (the old Core 2 Duo). Dual boot with Windows 8.1 and Linux.

32 GB (eMMC, soldered) on the Dell Inspiron 11. It came with Windows 10, but it really shouldn’t have.

 

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/16GB & GTX1660ti, KDE Neon
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, KDE Neon (and Win 11 for maintenance)

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1 500 GB Samsung 960 EVO NVMe SSD drive (C: Drive). I have this inserted into an NVMe -> PCI-E card and plugged into a PCI-E slot the communicates directly with the CPU. All of my onboard NVMe slots go through the PCH chip.

4 1 TB Samsung 860 EVO SATA3 SSD drives in a RAID 5 array (D: Drive)

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I haven’t considered any internal storage other than 1 Tb SSD for a while.  I have a good NVMe in my main system, and use 1 Tb TLC/QLC in other ones.  Smallest rotating storage I have is 6 Tb drives in NAS units.  I did buy a WD 1 Tb external USB drive for intermittent use as I couldn’t justify SSD price for something that gets limited use.

 

I used to do partitioning/swap file tweaking but now just can’t be bothered.  It was a thing though back in the day of the “Raptor” 10k rpm drives with limited capacity.

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I recently built a new computer for mixed use, gaming and applications. I got lucky as I ordered the components last year just before the shortage of video cards. My storage setup is as follows:

System drive (C:) — 1TB XPG Gammix S11 Pro (NVMe)

Game drive — 500 GB Crucial MX500 SSD

Other storage — (2) 1TB WD Black HDDs; (1) 2TB Seagate FireCuda HDD

Everything but the S11 Pro is a carry-over from the old system. One of the 1TB drives will be replaced very soon with another S11 Pro. My case doesn’t have the best cooling so eliminating one 3.5″ drive will help with the airflow.

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Hey Y’all,

Main Machine: 256 GB NVME Boot Drive, 2 x 256 GB SSDs (Data Drive & Test/Backup drive)

Secondary Machine: 240 GB SSD Boot Drive, 960 GB SSD Data Drive

Laptop:   256 SSD (Partitioned C: 80 Gb, G: 145 Gb)

Backup 5 x3.5 HDDs used in USB dock for rotating backups.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Bottom line: A 100 to 128GB drive is much too small, even with everything in the cloud

My C drive with 256GB SSD has 170GB free ! Why ? Because 90+% of the software I use is portable and is run from D drive (HDD).
I got along for 6 years with 128GB SSD on my previous Windows 7 laptop with ~60GB of free space.

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256GB nvme for W7

256GB nvme for W10

2TB external backup/scratch drive.

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Old 64GB SSD 🙁

Luckily it’s enough for Win10 + few apps + page file. I disable hibernation.

In addition, I have an 8TB HDD.

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1 TB OS drives on all our machines, 1-2 TB data drives.  Server with two 6 GB spinners, the rest are nvme’s or ssd’s.  A bunch of usb backup drives.

If you game, make, edit or download HD videos, a 1 TB drive will fill quickly.  4K vids are huge, many GB at even at 30 fps.  A 60 fps 1080p vid is about 300 MB per minute from a real video camera.  Games can be 50-100 GB and up.

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My desktop has a 8 TB HHD.

My laptop has 512 GB SSD AND 1 TB HHD.

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Primary laptop aproximatelly 250 GB.
Secondary laptop also 250 GB.
Desktop PC (GNU/Linux) 1 TB.

Several external drives, all together up to 3 TB. I connect them with all computers with USB/SATA reduction.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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Both my PC’s have a 256 GB SSD, but they run Windows 7 and 8.1 yet. Tried Windows 10 for a while but did not like the software as a service model that serves Microsoft’s needs more than my own. So I went back to 8.1 where I have full control over the system again. But I digress.

Regardless of OS, 256 GB is more than adequate as I highly limit installed software (to reduce the system attack surface and general KISS principle practice) and do not have a lot of data (less than 2 GB). So each drive always has over 200 GB free space. The only system of large size is my NAS with two mirrored 1 TB HDD’s used for backups and a software repository. But it never uses more than 100 GB of space.

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I manage a small elementary school; ~ 110 Windows 10 desktops and laptops.  Our newer desktops and laptops have 120GB SSDs and even the pack-rattyest teachers have space to spare.  Our older desktops have 160GB VelociRaptors, and again, that’s plenty.  I agree in principle with Ms. Bradley regarding Windows 10 on SSDs; VelociRaptors aren’t as good, but acceptable.

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750 GB HD, 8 GB RAM in my 9 1/2 years old Windows 7 HP laptop in dual-boot with Linux, plus a total of 2 TB of external HDs for Windows data backups and other purposes, and an external 2 TB HD for Linux backups. In the PC’s HD remain free some 250 G B. I could clean it by removing some unnecessary things that have accumulated over time there and so regain free space, but I am not using this PC that much these days, having switched gradually, over the last four years, for most of what I do, to a Mac laptop with 1 TB SSD and 16 GB of RAM. For this Mac backups I have a 2 TB HD. The OS itself is some 25 GB, but it claims some 250 GB, mostly because of cached browser leavings and other stuff it keeps to work faster when browsing, etc. that I may remove some day. I am using myself some 55 GB, with 23 GB being my very own data and the rest being taken up by the installed applications.

With any luck, the Windows 7 PC should be good for several more years and the Mac probably will last also for a long, long time, if I don’t decide, some day, to replace it with a newer model. My way of thinking, developed from hard-earn experience,, when buying a computer is that I rather spend on mass-storage and RAM, to make sure I’ll be using the same machine, that I will have gradually customize to my liking, for as long as I care to keep it and not because I no longer have enough free storage space to work with it.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I always use 1TB drives for my OS partitions since I have several dozen installed apps, since I like to have lots of restore points, and since I like to have a lot of available free space on my OS partitions which is available for use if any of my additionally attached data drives were to bite the dust. I generally use 2TB drives in my laptop computers with a 750MB partition for the OS and the rest which is used as a separate data partition.

I deliberately leave 750MB to 1GB of unused space at the end of any drive when I create the drive partitions. Why? So that no matter what I can clone the drive to any other brand of hard drive with the same advertised capacity, yet which might actually have slightly lower overall real capacity. The total number of guaranteed bytes for a given size drive slightly varies not only from manufacturer to manufacturer, but also can slightly vary amongst different revisions of model numbers for the same size drive from the same manufacturer. This potentially could be an issue when using cheap disk duplicator devices. I prefer to avoid any such potential issues since some software and defrag programs will sometimes store data at the very end of the OS drive partition.

Note that some EaseUS software products do store data at the very end of a drive partition. The EaseUS Partition Manager program does this when performing partition resizing. The issue is that this EaseUS program does not properly reset all NTFS data for these deleted sectors and blocks, such that other programs report that the sectors and blocks are still “occupied” yet were deleted by another application (EaseUS Partition Manager). Please see the attached screen capture. The issue is that a cheap disk duplicator device will see these supposedly deleted sectors and blocks as occupied sectors and blocks which need to be cloned to the new hard drive. The end of these occupied sectors and blocks are located at the very end of the partition. If the drive which you are cloning to, using a cheap disk disk duplicator device, has very slightly lower total capacity, then this could cause the cloning operation to fail at the very end of the clone operation.

 

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New Laptop(1TB Samsung M.2/NVMe, 500GB Samsung SATA SSD) and Mini PC(500GB Samsung M.2/NVMe, 500GB Samsung SATA SSD) are all solid state and no spinning Rust! I have 3 1TB+ Seagate external USB Hard Disk drives for external backup and all my older laptops are all either 1TB hard drives for the 2 of the laptops and 500GB hard drives for the 2 oldest of the old laptops.

Those M.2/NVMe drives are so much faster and even the SATA-3 SSDs are speedy for System Image backups or Home directory backups(Linux) and I’m able to copy that later to the external backup media in the background.

I’m reading that there is a new from of Coin mining that’s making us of large amounts of hard drive space to enforce difficulty(Proof of Space) instead of proof of work and that’s lead to a run on large capacity hard drives in Asia as the speculators buy up loads of high capacity hard drives!

 

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OscarCP

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