What would you do - Windows Drive - Big or Small

[101RRS]

I have a new Lenovo laptop and its Windows C Drive is a 128Gb SSD.

In the spare hard drive slot D drive I have a 500gb SSD.

So I am asking for thoughts on whether to keep Windows and all programs etc on the 128gb drive and use the 500 for storage or clone across Windows and programs to the 500gb drive to run the computer with the 128gb for storage only.

I am concerned that with Windows and programs the 128gb will go close to getting full with not a lot of room for expansion where the 500gb will be big enough for me for ever. All my pics, documents, music and videos will easily fit on the 128gb drive and even if it does fill up I will have space on the 500gb drive.

What would you do?

Thanks

Garry

[Markf]

I'd go as big as I could with both drives, especially the C drive.

Remember that the Law of Sheds [1] applies to computers.

[1]. The Law of Sheds states that the amount of "stuff" will always expand to fit the available space.

[incisor]

128g is not big enough for windows 10 for long term use.

256g min

seeing it a lot lately and have done a couple in the last week or two, no room on 128 even with all the user directories mapped to a second drive after 6 months or so of use.

[101RRS]

Thanks for those comments - makes it clear cut then - the 500SSD for Windows etc and the 128 for my other stuff.

Now all I need to do is copy the 128 over to the 500 and redesignate the 500 as C drive and the 128 as D drive - this last bit is harder than I expected as you cannot change it when it is in use.

Cheers

garry

[Tins]

I don't want to get into the whole Mac v Windows thing here, but I have an iMac with 3 TB, one TB of which is SSD. Apple use a thing called Fusion Drive, which apparently works out which stuff you use most and parks that on the SSD. This Mac is 5 years old, so I'm tipping that there will be a Windows feature that does the same thing. I have no benchmarks, apart from GeekBench, to suggest they are right, but I have never seen anything to see that they are wrong. Apple have a habit of being at the forefront, although admittedly less so these days. But Fusion Drive at PC level was something.

[DAMINK]

I run all my core programs on C drive (SSD) Windows, Firewall, Antivirus.

Beyond that everything is moved to another drive. All non critical programs get installed on a different drive.

Even my desktop resides on another drive other than C.

Its been years since i have investigated the SSDs but i was under the impression they dont like being rewritten so its best to keep all non critical stuff else where ie standard drive.

[101RRS]

Thanks for those comments - makes it clear cut then - the 500SSD for Windows etc and the 128 for my other stuff.

Now all I need to do is copy the 128 over to the 500 and redesignate the 500 as C drive and the 128 as D drive - this last bit is harder than I expected as you cannot change it when it is in use.

Cheers

garry

Ok "cloned" the Windows M.2 drive across to the 500gb SSD and it seems it copied everything but not the boot stuff. Used different software with the same result. The boot descriptor stays it with the M.2 drive. To double check, I even removed the M.2 drive and rebooted with just the 500gb SSD with windows on it but the laptop had a dummy spit with windows not loading and error messages everywhere.

So if the 128 is not going to be big enough I rang a supplier of M.2 drives to see what was available and he indicated that putting in a bigger drive will mean a clean install which I would rather do now as I only have Win 10 (not sure how I do a reinstal of Windows as the laptop did not come with any product codes for windows - I have tried downloading the iso file etc from the Microsoft site but it does not work).

So on the look out for a new M.2 drive.

Oh don't buy a Chinese designed designed laptop - the hardware is fine but the software that runs things like bios is absolute crap (a lot like the crap menus in my Soniq TV) - clunky and not logical and difficult to use.

This Lenovo might end on Gumtree before too long - a bit of a disappointment.

[DAMINK]

A free software like imgburn should burn your iso without any issues.
Its what i use when i burn a disk but i prefer to mount the iso to a usb stick.
If thats the method you want then i suggest rufus and point it to your iso image. Should be fine unless its a corrupt file which happens from time to time.

[101RRS]

Yes that is what I was trying to do but with different software - however the iso is downloaded from the microsoft website and then copied to the USB stick - not sure if the laptop modifies the downloaded file to include additional relevant computer information.

Any way when I first tried I had an old 32gb usb stick which worked fine on my Win 7 computer. When I put it into the Win 10 machine (noting I have never used Win 10) it said the stick would need formatting but then said the stick was not readable. Put it back into the old computer and all was fine - I reformatted it there and put it pack in the Win 10 machine with same response - still worked fine in the old computer - checking it was in Fat 32 format so I reformatted it to NFTS and when put back into the Win 10 machine it now worked fine (so I guess Win 10 cannot read Fat 32 usbs)

Tried to download the ISO again and copy to the USB and it failed halfway - on checking the USB if was no longer NFTS but back in Fat32 - the computer did that all by itself - bit could not then read the USB

I went and bought a new USB3 32gb stick thinking it would work and the same thing - when the USB is in NFTS the Win10 machine can read it but somewhere in the ISO copying process the formatting changes back to Fat32 which the Win10 system cannot read.

I do not like Win 10 - why Windows keeps taking out some of the functionality of operating systems when they upgrade is beyond me.

[speleomike]

Microsoft and Intel would prefer you to buy a complete new laptop. That is how the world and economics really works :-)

[AK83]

....

Its been years since i have investigated the SSDs but i was under the impression they dont like being rewritten so its best to keep all non critical stuff else where ie standard drive.

They used to be like that, but the modern ones not.

They basically run into the Petabyte region rewrite cycles before they start to fail.
Unlikely that a 'typical' home computer user will write/rewrite a petabyte of data on a single drive in a typical computer lifetime.

I used my 256G SSD for the OS, and try desperately hard not to keep 'storage stuff' on it, and regularly clean it up as well.
storage stuff = music, images, docs etc.
In saying that I am a bit of a slacker and do store that kind of stuff on the "OS" drive, but eventually I do take the time to move it all to the correct "DATA" drive and then make backups to a NAS for long term keeper data.

So I reckon 128Gb SSD on Win 10 should be good for at least 5 or so years with the odd cleanup routine .. for a non habitual software downloader!
That's another of my weaknesses. I'm always trying new software(mainly photography stuff) so I clog my OS SSD quite easily if I didn't check it's properties every now and then.

The main source of frustration is when programs get deleted and don't delete 'User Data', where you end up with many gigabytes of garbage that should have been deleted.

Check your C:\Users\username\AppData folders for a trove of easily deleted trash in there.
Usually three folders named Local, LocalLow and Roaming. I simply try to delete all the contents in those directories, not the folders themselves. Sometimes a process won't allow some stuff to be deleted.
Recently did my son's laptop the same way. He needed over 100G of space(256G SSD) and I simply shift deleted almost the entire contents of that area and recovered 85Gb!
That's my routine drive cleanout... Adobe software is about the worst, followed by Nikon's in hoarding gigs of data there, frankly not really needed.
The way it works is that almost all(but not all!) programs write data into there to attempt a speedup of the program the next time it's run. On an SSD, it's not really needed, and the extra sec or two never killed me in any way.
Major issue was always Adobe's Lightroom tho, as it maintained a lot of cached images in there for it's catalog. I never liked Lr, so to see it finally go was a relief anyhow.
My other issue is Nikon's software(I do a lot of photography stuff) and it also keeps cached images in there, by the trillions. Many gigs of really old thumbnails simply not needed. SSDs are fast enough that thumbnail caches are rebuilt instantly nowadays.

BUT! you do need some caution with the above process.
Some programs actually use the AppData area for program operation, instead of heavy reliance on the Registry for operating.
The last such program I worked this out for was Sigma's PhotoPro6(PhotoPro5 was fine tho).
So If I deleted the AppData folder for Sigma PP6, the program would basically install itself all over again.

After just over 3 years, my Win10 install, which includes many hundred of installs, removals and installs again of hundred of software has yet to exceed over 100Gb.
I can easily trim that down to closer to 80 or less.

My last annoyingly complicated PC session was trying to do a fresh install of Win7 on an old laptop basically doing the same thing as your errant USB drive saga.
Win10 PC creating a bootable USB drive with the modded Win7 install(all updates pre installed) and the USB drive worked, and was recognised by both my Win10 PC and the now vacant laptop, but the lappie just wouldnt' boot from the USB drive.
Would fail 'install' after a few mins every time saying something like boot media not recognised or something. Drove me insane for a few days.
I tried various different ways to get it to start the process, with no luck, but finally, and not really doing anything differently, it took hold and finally installed.

[101RRS]

Microsoft and Intel would prefer you to buy a complete new laptop. That is how the world and economics really works :-)

I have had this laptop 2 days.

[101RRS]

Microsoft and Intel would prefer you to buy a complete new laptop. That is how the world and economics really works :-)

I have had this laptop 2 days. I should have researched better - I did not even know M.2 drives existed - knew about the large SSD drives but not M.2 drives - I know now [thumbsupbig]

[AK83]

.... I should have researched better - I did not even know M.2 drives existed - knew about the large SSD drives but not M.2 drives - I know now [thumbsupbig]

Check some online sources, but about $70 should get 'ya a decent quality 250-ish Gig M.2.

eg. Scorptech has a Western Digitial 240Gig M2 drive for $72 or so. (about $45 for a 120G).

[Graeme]

Just for comparison, my 2yo Lenovo laptop running win10 has a 1TB drive but occupies less than 70gb. However I don't download stuff and it only runs a basic system, being mostly for my own business records.

[incisor]

Windows 10 has changed many things and really runs as service offering these days

The pace of updates alone has ensured many had to update their net data limits

That is about to change as big business has been complaining loudly and Microsoft is finally listening

To run reliably w10 needs a little bit under 20g to use for itself as it sees fit when it sees fit

Throw in Microsoft office and a printer scanner and another chunk of space vanishes from the freely available space

Throw in the fact that most systems also come with the x64 version of windows and as low as 4g ram but come supplied with an x86 version of office installed so the x86 emulator has to kick in swallowing almost 2g of ram for itself, that disk based swap file can consume a fair chunk of space as well

If you run office 365 or variants make sure you login to your office account and install the x64 version not the default x86 version

Makes big difference on a smaller system

[101RRS]

Thanks Inc for that.

it all got too hard - so what I am doing is only putting Windows on the 128gb drive and nothing else - unless programs must go on that drive. All programs will be installed on the 500gb SSD and with the speed of the two SSDs there should be no real speed restrictions hauling operating programs files across - given most go to RAM anyway.

Thanks everyone for your input - has been a real learning experience.

cheers

Garry

[DAMINK]

The main source of frustration is when programs get deleted and don't delete 'User Data', where you end up with many gigabytes of garbage that should have been deleted.

Check your C:\Users\username\AppData folders for a trove of easily deleted trash in there.
Usually three folders named Local, LocalLow and Roaming. I simply try to delete all the contents in those directories, not the folders themselves. Sometimes a process won't allow some stuff to be deleted.


As i said before the easy fix for these folders in the user folder is to change there location to another drive fixing the bloating problem on the small drive.
But also combined with moving program files to different drives you can have programs work even after a fresh install. Not all but most.
I even have my recycling bin on another drive for example. Just standard practice when i install. Fresh install then move the user files over to my other drive which has all my user stuff in there from last install.
Works for me anyway.

[101RRS]

Just to follow up - Win 10 on the 128gb M.2 C Drive - as well as those programs that must go on the same drive drive as Win 10 I have used 38.5Gb of the 128gb so still a lot of space left. All other programs where I have a choice where they go are on the 500gb SSD. In running programs there is no apparent drag due to programs being on the other drive.

I have yet to put an e-mail system on yet and will do that soon - see my new Thread on that.

Thanks to everyone I appreciate the help [bigsmile1]

Garry

[incisor]

windows system files have to be on the boot drive, even tho you install programs on another drive some files will be placed on the boot drive.

windows caches a lot of things in system directories.

experience shows you have in reality about 60gb of usable space to fill with whatever on the boot drive you have, soon as that is used system speed and reliability will be impacted to varying degrees.

if you do little other than internet browsing and only install the odd program you should be fine for a couple of years at least

using a utility like ATF-Cleaner can help you manage how much the system caches grow and keep it all where you need it. it works well in windows 10 despite the description.

antivirus programs tend to store a multitude of data in system folders as well but if you stick with the builtin defender that wont be an issue like it is with many of the others. i once saw 30+gb of logs in an avg install.

the pace of windows service updates is supposedly going to be slower from here on, i'll believe it when i see it, but you never know and if it's true, drive space will definitely last longer than it has been in windows 10.

lenovo make some nice laptops, for the price......

[DAMINK]

Remember you can move a lot of windows files. All the USER files can be put on a spare drive freeing up heaps of room! Desktop, recycle, local and roaming.
I do it standard and have no issues at all.

[101RRS]

Yes - I already have all user files, desktop etc over on the d drive.