Installing Windows on SSD: Partitioning Question

[gba]

I have installed Win 7 Ultimate x64 onto a 40GB SSD. I usually move user profiles and program files to dedicated partitions for each in order to protect them in the event I need to restore Windows from an image. With only 40GB to work with, I am thinking I would not have enough room to create my normal three partitions on the SSD. Since due to the volatile nature of SSD I would be moving all of my personal data to partitions on a separate HD anyway, I was considering creating a small partition on the SSD to install programs to and also to move App Data to. Am I correct in assuming my system would run faster with programs installed on the SSD or should I just install them to the HD and leave the SSD as a single partition for Windows? Perhaps I can also move my page file to a partition at the head of the HD, as I do not expect it to be used much by Windows in my 8GB system?That would free up a bit more space from the SSD.

TIA for the advice.

 

[razel]

Sounds like everything I'd do, but if you're still pinching for space after everything is in place, perhaps 40GB just isn't enough in the 1st place.

 

[gba]

Sounds like everything I'd do, but if you're still pinching for space after everything is in place, perhaps 40GB just isn't enough in the 1st place.

Thanks for the response. It definitely would not have been enough space with Vista x64 but I have an inkling I will just make it with Win7 x64. I do not want to disable hibernation support but if I did, I am reasonably certain that I would be more than fine with 40GB.

So for clarity's sake: you are confirming that I would be taking a performance hit by not installing programs on the SSD and moving App Data there, too?

Thanks again for the advice.

 

[razel]

Performance hit for programs... it depends. Only way to find out is to try it. However, the way I'd maximize my usage of an SSD is to put everything except your files that don't require frequent fast access like music/videos/documents/zips/isos/p0rn.

FYI. My folks got an older laptop with a 32GB PATA SSD. Win7 with Office and all typical programs and a small collection of pics and music. It's barely 11 GB minus swap and hibernation file. Of course, they love it. Even they noticed the difference and appreciated it most during the automatic windows updates. With an HDD, it'd churn away and IE performance would be laggy. Because they're old and wise, they're patient enough to walk away and come back when it's finished. Now, they just power through it. Most of us instead of walking away would upgrade or buy a new laptop.

 

[SimMike2]

I would not characterize SSD as "volatile nature." If you have a good drive, because of no mechanical moving parts, I would say old hard drives are more volatile in nature.

I keep all my main files on my main partition, and image this once or twice per week. I also make backup copies of critical files on a regular basis. If you have reasonable backup/imaging plan, I would keep everything together.

 

[Binky]

My own minimal but fully patched installation of Win7 X64 is about 11GB. This includes no space used by media (MP3, movies, porn, etc.), and no swap, hibernation, or system restore files. This also includes very little space used by installed programs so it's close to a base install.

I generally move the My Documents folder to another drive, but I leave all other user files in the default locations.

So depending on your insalled files, you might just get by with a system partition of 20GB or less.

 

[gba]

Thanks to all for the responses. Mike: I do see your point, "volatile in nature" is not what I should have said. I guess the point is that I need to start trusting SSDs at least as much as I do hard drives. That said, I do back-up and image regularly (I do not trust hard drives either). Although I always used to disable hibernation but have grown to realize that it is occasionally invaluable in my work, as I often have to drop everything and run out. What I am leaning towards doing is moving the page file to a partition at the head of my storage HD and created a 10GB partition after the boot drive for programs, program and app data. Although I image my boot drive, I seem to like doing fresh installs from time to time and have found that having the program stuff elsewhere is often handy. I am hoping that Windows will not outgrow the 30GB I am throwing at it!

 

[SimMike2]

I have an Intel 80GB, so I wasn't as tight for space.

I just got this and talking about an imaging nightmare. The Win7 built in imager/backup would not work. When I finally got it to image to my SSD, not sure how I did this, but eventually I got it to work, it totally screwed up the alignment of the SSD. So I got rid of this and started over. What I did, which finally worked, was to go back to my hard drive that had the OS. I booted to this and formatted the SSD making sure the alignment parameters were correct. Next I used an imaging tool called "snapshot.exe." When I had this image, which I created from within Windows, I restored this to the SSD. It didn't touch the format, but afterwards I did have to right mouse click on the drive in the Snapshot program and make sure it was active and bootable. Next I disconnected my regular hard drives and booted to the SSD. It worked and the alignment was correct. After I was sure it was all OK, I shutdown and connected my two regular hard drives. I can still boot to the other hard drive by choosing boot priority in the BIOS. My new SSD remembered most of the partitions, so I was good to go. I did rename my old boot drive to something different, but I decided to keep the OS intact there in case I need to boot to it for some reason in the next few days. If you want your partitions to match what they were before, you can change drive letters on everything.

I did snapshot totally within Windows. I did try the DOS boot disk I created with the program, but it didn't find my NTFS drive that had the image, which I why I had to boot to my old OS to do the image.

I kind of lost faith in the Windows Image tool. It has a real problem if you want to restore the OS partition to a smaller physical hard drive, even though the data is small enough to fit comfortably. I also was bothered that it flaked on the alignment.

I'm going to image with Acronis and probably the Win7 tool on a regular basis. If anyone has tried, I'm curious if when you restore these images, that were taken from a properly aligned SSD, if the resulting restore is properly aligned. I don't have the nerve to test this right now.

 

[razel]

If anyone has tried, I'm curious if when you restore these images, that were taken from a properly aligned SSD, if the resulting restore is properly aligned. I don't have the nerve to test this right now.

Yes, several times. Different SSDs, HDDs, different sizes. The flake I ran into was when I wanted a dedicated single USB drive that was bootable with win7 and contained the backup images. It always wanted to overwrite the image over itself and gave me no option to choose the right drive.

 

[SimMike2]

So it sounds like Win7 imaging is only useful if you are reinstalling to the exact same drive. So much for the poppy cock about "if your drive crashes." What I like about other imaging software, like Acronis, is the ability to search through your image file and only reinstall what you want. There doesn't seem to be anyway to do this with Win7 imaging. BTW, I'm using Home Premium. Maybe Windows imaging it is beefed up and better in Pro.