Windows 7 Minimum Hard Drive Space

[B-rock]

I recently upgraded my hard drive in my PC and I was ideally wanting to have my old hard drive only run the operating system. The old hard drive is only a 40gb drive? Assuming that I only install a handful of needed programs on the hard drive, is a 40gb hard drive big enough for Windows 7?

Thanks.

 

[Yami]

40GB is enough, I'm currently using a 30GB partition for my Windows 7 (Pro 64-bit), and usually have about 5GB free. I keep everything like music, video etc. on my other drives.

 

[B-rock]

Alright cool I will install my windows 7 64 bit on the hard drive and use another one for everything else.

Thank you.

 

[MindoverMaster]

Yeah, I once ran Windows 7 x64 on a 30GB SSD. Like Yami, it only had about 5GB of free space. Every non-Windows program was on my secondary drive.

 

[jasonalwaysready]

if youre trying to upgrade in place, it might not be enough space.

 

[Livingdeadman]

Have used 40GB, 80GB, 120GB and 160GB combinations on my machines here. What I can tell you is this, for me, 40GB for installation of OS causes lags compared to 80GB. Remember although you may install programs and the like to the 2nd drive/partition, etc... you need sufficient page file space, virtual space and free space.
On desktops the best results I have had are with 80GB drives, single Partition for OS only, a 2nd SATA drive(160GB) split into 2(40GB/120GB) where the 40GB partition becomes the Application Partition.
On laptops the game becomes different, 64bit wants more space always, be it laptop or desktop. I prep a 120GB hard drive for the OS and a 2nd Hard drive from 320 up instead of a OPtical(DVD/CD) drive, with the optical drive being done via USB.
On 64bit Computing, it's not really the Hard drive size that makes the difference, although 64bit does perform better with bigger drive sizes, RAM is critical on 64 bit computing, personally I would use no less than 8GB Ram with 64bit, I have tried with 4GB and find no significant performance difference on my systems other than more stability.
Hope the Essay helps, sorry for the long post.

 

[MindoverMaster]

Living, I run off a 60GB SSD, and currently, I have about 12GB of free space. Running x64.

4GB is just fine for x64. It depends on how much is running in the background. I have 8GB, and I am using 20% of it. That's with all my programs running as of startup.

 

[Livingdeadman]

Thank for the feedback MindOM, I agree with you and from your perspective/needs it helps, but you also proved my point.
You're above 40Gb and you're using a Solid State Drive, so you are basically speeding up some system and system responses. I never said that 4GB of Ram would be a problem. the reason for going 64bit is obviously for the enhanced performance of the machine due to 64bit processing, however when using 4Gb of Ram the performance increase is negligible, however the stability with 64bit processing is evident.
Note as well, there is no performance increase in any way if you are running 32bit software on a 64bit OS, whilst 32bit SW can have 64bit extensions it does not have the true native 64bit capability hence no performance increase, it can only leverage from the enhanced capability of added RAM being managed by the 64bit Operating system, in essence 64bit processing allows a much larger RAM footprint and even 32bit SW with 64bit compatibility will experience a performance enhancement due to the added memory capabilty.
Hope this clarifies.

 

[MindoverMaster]

Well, yes, a x32 and x64 version of software, WinRAR for example, doesn't process any faster.

 

[B-rock]

So, I am NOT using a SSD, but an older normal hard drive. Is this going to cause problems?

BTW the only programs I am installing will be:
Antivirus software
Chrome
and maybe one other program, so its not like there will be much at all on the hard drive.