OT: LTSC (64-bit) boot partition size recommendations?

[Dave Labrecque]

Planning to move Windows profile stuff (Documents, Downloads, Pictures, etc.) to another partition or physical drive.

This'll be my first LTSC install. I guess it's supposed to be more svelte than your your mom's Windows 10. I've done 100GB in recent-year Win10 installs. I figure I can go lower, but how low can I go? It'll be on a 500 GB NVMe SSD, FWIW. TY. IOU.

[cgrafx]

Planning to move Windows profile stuff (Documents, Downloads, Pictures, etc.) to another partition or physical drive.

This'll be my first LTSC install. I guess it's supposed to be more svelte than your your mom's Windows 10. I've done 100GB in recent-year Win10 installs. I figure I can go lower, but how low can I go? It'll be on a 500 GB NVMe SSD, FWIW. TY. IOU.

I wouldn't split the OS configuration that way.

I would leave the entire OS intact on a single drive (250-500gb), then run a second drive (not partition), for your project files (Audio, video, photos).

[Dave Labrecque]

I wouldn't split the OS configuration that way.

I would leave the entire OS intact on a single drive (250-500gb), then run a second drive (not partition), for your project files (Audio, video, photos).

My plan was to do two SSDs., 0.5 and 1 TB. First one with boot and general data partitions. The other one all data (audio/video projects). Thus the question of how best to partition that first drive.

Still not liking it, Philip? Why? It just seems like a lot of wasted space if I use the whole 500 GB for Windows.

[mr_es335]

Dave,

I am very curious to see what Philip has to say!

A standard Windows 10 Pro install is approximately 24GB.
A somewhat stripped Windows 10 Pro install is approximately 18GB.
I have been able to get a Windows 10 LTSC install down to approximately 16GB.

For most of my purposes, on a 500GB SSD, I would allocate 80GB-100GB for the OS, and the rest for data...though for my needs I also allocated a 20GB partition for the page file - if used.
* I also used that 20GB partition for "other" needs as well.

Hope this information is of help to you, Dave?

[cgrafx]

My plan was to do two SSDs., 0.5 and 1 TB. First one with boot and general data partitions. The other one all data (audio/video projects). Thus the question of how best to partition that first drive.

Still not liking it, Philip? Why? It just seems like a lot of wasted space if I use the whole 500 GB for Windows.

I'm not liking the idea of trying to split up the windows default storage locations. Let windows do what its going to do. Stripping the partition down to its minimum required space leaves you no room for the OS to do updates, or manage its space as needed.

If your going to partition the drive, thats fine, but leave yourself a decent buffer (maybe do 100gig space for the OS) and don't try to force non-standard folder locations. I can guarantee that at some point in the future, something will not be were the OS is expecting it to be and will cause you grief trying to resolve why its broken.

I also do not ever recommend overclocking purpose built systems designed for primarily single purpose use. If your building a studio machine you want it to be as rock-stable as possible.

In order to make that happen, don't mess around with things like folder locations and don't push the system past its standard operating settings. At the speeds everything works these days there are very few valid reasons for anybody to push the limits of the system.

I guess my question to you would be what are you expecting to put in the other partition and how does partitioning the drive make that a better option?

If its just stuff that would normally be in the standard OS default document folders, then there's very little value in partitioning the drive and pointing to a different location. The data is still physically on the same drive.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...c-be06fc308c3f

[Dave Labrecque]

Dave,

I am very curious to see what Philip has to say!

A standard Windows 10 Pro install is approximately 24GB.
A somewhat stripped Windows 10 Pro install is approximately 18GB.
I have been able to get a Windows 10 LTSC install down to approximately 16GB.

For most of my purposes, on a 500GB SSD, I would allocate 80GB-100GB for the OS, and the rest for data...though for my needs I also allocated a 20GB partition for the page file - if used.
* I also used that 20GB partition for "other" needs as well.

Hope this information is of help to you, Dave?

That's about what I was thinking. Thanks, Dell.

But now you got me thinking about page file. About twenty years ago, Bob tried turning off the page file on his computer and reported it that it seemed to be okay to do if you had enough memory. What's thinking these days on that? I'll have 16 GB of RAM in the new computer. Is that enough to turn off a Windows 10 page file in 2021? Are there other factors to consider?

UPDATE: now Philip has me thinking that there's no good reason to partition these days. At least not in my case. See his post for the details. I suppose if the user is all about being able to roll-back the OS independently of data, it could still make sense. I'm mostly of an image-backup-for-data-protection guy, though.

[Dave Labrecque]

I'm not liking the idea of trying to split up the windows default storage locations. Let windows do what its going to do. Stripping the partition down to its minimum required space leaves you no room for the OS to do updates, or manage its space as needed.

Well, I wasn't thinking of trying to achieve the bare minimum partition size but rather a smart partition size based on what I can expect of LTSC's typically/potentially smaller install size.

If your going to partition the drive, thats fine, but leave yourself a decent buffer (maybe do 100gig space for the OS) and don't try to force non-standard folder locations. I can guarantee that at some point in the future, something will not be were the OS is expecting it to be and will cause you grief trying to resolve why its broken.

Hmmm... even user profile data like documents, downloads, photos, dropbox, etc.?

I also do not ever recommend overclocking purpose built systems designed for primarily single purpose use. If your building a studio machine you want it to be as rock-stable as possible.

That makes sense. I don't have time to mess around with that, anyway. And I bought an H-level chipset/motherboard, so it doesn't have much "headroom" for RAM overclocking, anyway. I suppose there's always the CPU, which is unlocked (10850K), but that means more cooling, which means struggling with trying to keep it quiet, which I've already done in the parts selection process.

In order to make that happen, don't mess around with things like folder locations and don't push the system past its standard operating settings. At the speeds everything works these days there are very few valid reasons for anybody to push the limits of the system.

I like it. Except for the folder locations thing. More on that, soon...

I guess my question to you would be what are you expecting to put in the other partition and how does partitioning the drive make that a better option?

My thought was to do it just as I have it on my current system:

Drive 0 is C: (boot) and D: (library-type data, e.g. documents, downloads, photos, dropbox, etc. AND sound effects, music libraries, etc.)

Drive 1 is E: (audio and video projects; separate drive for better performance, though I assume that's a non-issue with the new system, which will be all SSD)

So, the performance thing being moot in 2020 with two SSDs, my thinking on such partitioning for the new system really comes down to wanting to be able to create a nightly boot partition image (with no data) on the second physical drive. But now you (and the author you linked to) have me thinking there's really no advantage to keeping data out of that image. With an HDD situation, it could mean quicker full image backups, but with SSDs I'm thinking it's a non-issue (and would actually protect more to include the data in the image). So long as I maintain enough space for that imaging on the second physical drive.

And the more I think about it, the more I don't want to have to do that, so a third drive seems to be in my future.

If its just stuff that would normally be in the standard OS default document folders, then there's very little value in partitioning the drive and pointing to a different location. The data is still physically on the same drive.

Exactly. In fact, as I mentioned, it'd be better to image that day-to-day data along with the boot/OS stuff, so no need to move those folders. If I lose the drive, I can then get back all that and not just the OS from the image. What was I thinking?

The author makes a good point about some people (me) just liking the organization of different kinds of data in different partitions, when in fact you can do that organization with folders and avoid the performance deficits that partitioning can bring (more of an HDD thing) as well as avoid the running-out-of-space problems that can happen when you multiple-partition a physical drive.

Thanks for updating my thinking on this.

[mr_es335]

Dave and Philip,

Since I have been involved with computers, I have been partitioning HDD's.

I was initially told to keep programs and user data separate and I have been abiding by that principle ever since.

I have applied this principle to every built and re-built system that I have ever worked on. With seven children and a past client-base of over 400 regular clients I have never, ever had any issues with regards to HDD partitioning.

In a single drive environment, I partition a single drive into three partitions, 1) Boot, 2) Utility and 3) Data. I allocate what I believe to be an acceptable boot partition size for #1, 12GB for #2 and the balance of the free space to #3.

In a dual drive environment, I will generally allocate all available space to the boot drive, then assigning the 12GB for #2 and the balance of the free space to #3.

I then move all of the five main User folders to #3 - mainly, audio, images, text, video and downloads. If the client will be using a local email client, I will add an email folder to #3.

I then install a 3rd party backup program - either QTDSync or Cobian, and configure a backup of all user data from #3. Having a separate data partition also permits me to incorporate the use of disk imaging...which has proven to be extremely beneficial to my clients.
* Note: What is particularly interesting is that the moving of the user folders is completely transparent to the user.

As a general "rule of practice", for Windows OS's I allocate the following for the boot partition:

WIN9x: 20GB
WIN2K: 25GB
WIN7 Pro: 30-40GB
WIN10 Pro: 30-40GB
WIN10 LTSC: 20GB

Regarding the comment, "...and don't try to force non-standard folder locations. I can guarantee that at some point in the future, something will not be were the OS is expecting it to be and will cause you grief trying to resolve why its broken" ...I need further clarification on what is meant by "forcing non-standard folder locations". In checking my known service record, I have applied the above partitioning scheme to some 3000+ systems since I began my own consulting business backing in 1998...and never once have I ever had any issues whatsoever!

I heartily agree with not overclocking your system. Unless you are a gamer, I have never seen any reason to overclock an audio-based system.

Again, I would like further clarification on "...don't mess around with things like folder locations..."?

Regarding "expectations", partitioning the drive has the following benefits...though I do agree entirely with the fact that the same drive IS being used:

1. Keeping programs and user data separate.
2. Simplifies the backing up of user data.
3. Allows for the use of disk imaging.

I still agree with Bob's recommendation of disabling the pagefile - even for Windows 10 - but only for specific purposes.

Partitioning a drive is a very simply process - and maybe adds 5-to-10 minutes to the overall build time. For the benefits I have noted above, I will continue to partition drives for as long as I am able.

With regards to disk imaging versus backup, I use the principle, "image programs - backup data". For disk imaging I currently use Macrium and for backup either QTDSync or Cobian.

I do hope that above is of some practicable use.

PS: What of the use of GPT versus MBR?

[Microstudio]

I have 4 drives.

1TB Drive for OS and Programs install
1TB Samples
1TB Recordings
4TB as Storage

[Dave Labrecque]

Thanks for the info, Dell.

[SIZE=3]
As a general "rule of practice", for Windows OS's I allocate the following for the boot partition:

WIN9x: 20GB
WIN2K: 25GB
WIN7 Pro: 30-40GB
WIN10 Pro: 30-40GB
WIN10 LTSC: 20GB

Hmmm... my current Win10 x64 Home boot partition, sans user data, is taking up 54 GB. 68 with. And I've moved my user data folders to another partition! Looks like lots of stuff still finds its way to the boot partition's user profile folder structure despite my best efforts. I guess it's mostly program installations that put stuff there.