How full can I load my hard drive?

[rver32940]

Good Mornin',

I'm using Windows Home Pro Version 2002 Service Pack 2 on a laptop that has a 60 GB hard drive with 55.8 GB of usable space. So far I've used over 50% of the available space with 24.6 GB of space left. Is there a "downside" if I continue to add more data to use up still more of the 24.6 GB of the hard drive space?

BTW, this laptop is already 4 1/2 years old. I was told once that a hard drive's life span is usually 3-4 years so I make sure to do regular backups of my data. I do plan on purchasing a new laptop with a much larger hard drive once we return to FL from our annual RV road trip in the fall.

Thanks for the help,

Dee

 

[Lexluethar]

There is really no limit. As long as you have enough space for your paging file you should be good. I would caution against going over say 90% because at that point windows cannot run disk defragmentation on the drive (not sure if it is exactly 90% but around there).

 

[rver32940]

Thanks so much for the info!

Dee

 

[biz_kid1]

Windows XP Defrag requires 15% space free; so, you would need about 9 GB free for that. So, you can use up to 51 GB of disk space.