Windows 10: Partition strategy for clean install (Win10, apps, scratch, storage)?

Hello,

In need of basic advise please.

I am building a new computer next weekend and have three drives and would appreciate your advice on a partitioning strategy for 3 drives:

- Drive 1: New 256GB SSD m.2 pci-e SSD for Win10 and apps (autocad, sketchup, Adobe CC, rendering apps)

- Drive 2: Old 2010 Vertex SSD which is 90-120gb (can't recall) for scratch disk/win page file for Adobe and apps

- Drive 3: New HGST 7200rpm 4TB 3.5" HDD for files, pics, video and possible system image ( necessary on Win10?)

1) I plan to format all 3 drives as NTFS unless there is strong suggestion to do otherwise?
2) what is best partition strategy for Drive 1? How much GBs for partitions for Win vs Apps? Is 60GB adequate for win10 partition leaving just under 200 GB for apps?
3) I read on win website to create 3 partitions for sys in this order: utilities; sys; win recovery. Does default win setup do this automatically or must I specify how many partitions and in what order and in what size? I'm clueless on this.
4) Disk 2: how much risk am I taking by using 5 yr old SSD for scratch disk? The virtual memory is volatile anyway so am I just risking each current session? I plan to point page file, cache, scratch to this drive. If too risky, I presume that using boot SSD as scratch is better than using HDD #3?
5) Disk 3: does win10 still require that user do image of opsys for recovery (using acronis et al) and, if so, how many GBs do I partition on Disk 3 and if so does it matter if it is the first or last partition on this drive 3?
6) what win 10 should I get? At Fry's they have OEM and also USB flash drive?

Thank you you for any advice in advance!

:)

 

Windows 10 Mail and Calendar apps just freeze upon opening and Windows store app stopped downloading

Well I fixed this myself. Got tired of all the trouble shooting tips and just said the heck with it and rolled back to Win 8.1 as I had done the upgrade to Win10. Now ironically, the mail app and calendar app after roll back works on Win 8.1, interesting.

Now just for fun as I already had a partition setup and empty as it had a Win 10 preview build on it and was removed and empty. I thought what the heck, I already had the Win10 install from the Microsoft site ready as boot-able media. And so I installed
Win10 on the empty clean partition and now I have 8.1 back as well as Win10 activated as well. And the mail and calendar apps are working on both Win systems. I have no clue what this issue is? Also app store on Win10 on a clean partition works and updates
like it is supposed to.

So if you are tech savvy and have the install of Win10 as boot-able media, just roll back to Win 8.1. And then create a clean partition and reinstall Win10 on the clean and empty partition. And walla, ready, set, go.

 

c1900101-20017 getting error code while installing windows 10 from windows 8.1! please help me to fix this issue!

Hi.

I took out my Broadcom wifi card, and still could not install Win10. Found out that there were 2 hidden partitions which probably were the problem. I gave up and deleted all partitions and installed from scratch. Now win10 works.

 

I can tell you how I would start. Boot from the Windows 10 install USB, select custom install, delete any partitions on the first SSD, install Windows 10 to the unallocated space and let it create it's own partitions.

Also, I would not pay full price for a Windows 10 product key, I would purchase a cheaper Windows 7 or 8 and use that product key to activate Windows 10 with.

 

Hi,

If you let Windows 10 have the entire drive it's likely going to drop system files all over it so you can't shrink it easily afterwards.
Well, not without some trickery anyway.

Cheers, *Wink

 

just one of those things that make you -
*What

SAY WHAT ??

 

Hi,

Well it happened to me on numerous counts hence my warning.
Note also that, and it's just a habit of mine based on experience, none of my W10 installs are larger than 25Gb.
Yet when you do a clean install on an empty drive then Windows system files are all over the place making shrinking the drive a laugh as disk manager can't move system files.

Cheers, *Wink

 

That's ridiculous! You will spend all your time trying to keep enough free space so the PC can run at all much less well.

Let the 250GB be the C: boot drive, exactly s NavyLCDR described. You have plenty of space in the 4TB drive for anything else. It will be divided into 3 partitions, like my 250GB Samsung SSD is and as shown I still have 168GB free:

 

Hi,

Thank you for that. *sarc
What is ridiculous to my mind however is wasting drive space and mixing OS and data. But what do I know....*Huh

Make that 4.

To each his own, *Wink

 

Poorly worded, sorry. I could have phrased that a lot better. Anyway, that's why it's called a PC (Personal Computer). Everyone has their opinion or idea on how it should be setup and used. As long as your choice works for you then all is well.

Peace.

 

I'd leave the page file on drive 1. No point having it on a slower disk, let windows partition disk 1 (keeping apps, OS, pagefile etc in the default one partition) and make one partition each on 2 (scratch) and 3 (data). You could make a small partition on disk 3 (say 1GB) to put a Windows PE or Marcrium bootable image on to save on USB key but other than that I can't think of any benefit in partitioning.

You do need to make system images, yes. You could keep one image of disk 1 on 3 (no need for it to be in a separate partition). Disk 3 you should backup (whatever directories you would care if you lost) to an external drive (which isn't always connected) as well.

I'd get the cheapest 7 or 8 version I could find (Pro as I always want bitlocker) and then just install 10 Pro and use the key to activate it. If you think you might upgrade your MB in future it is probably worth getting a non OEM version so you can transfer it.

 

Thanks to all who responded. I decided not to partition any of the disks. I'm using #1 as OS/apps, #2 as app scratch disk and app temp files and #3 data/archive/disk #1 images