necessary free space

[lynn]

long, long ago, it was suggested that 1/2 of the space on
your hard drive remain free. What is the standard
today? How much of my 20 gig can I safely use?

[Jim Macklin]

You need 15% free in order to run defrag and then it will
still slower than if you had more space. Somewhere around
15-17 GB would be a good time to spend $50-120 for a faster
and bigger drive to run as primary, it will spewed up your
computer. I would do a clean install on a new drive and
make the old drive a slave...and transfer the data. I would
partition the new drive so the C: was for the OS and
applications and have one or two more partitions for data
(which means your data is safer. You can keep the old drive
for quick on-site back-ups.


"lynn" > wrote in
message ...
| long, long ago, it was suggested that 1/2 of the space on
| your hard drive remain free. What is the standard
| today? How much of my 20 gig can I safely use?

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Lynn,

All of it. But seriously, you should only need to leave enough space
available to allow for expansion of various files/folders (pagefile, temp
internet files, system restore folders) and allow about 15% free space for
defragging purposes.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone
www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Win98 Help - www.rickrogers.org

"lynn" > wrote in message
...
> long, long ago, it was suggested that 1/2 of the space on
> your hard drive remain free. What is the standard
> today? How much of my 20 gig can I safely use?

[Ken Blake]

In ,
lynn > typed:

> long, long ago, it was suggested that 1/2 of the space on
> your hard drive remain free. What is the standard
> today? How much of my 20 gig can I safely use?


I don't know who suggested that, but it doesn't make any sense to
me, either long ago or now.

First, you need 15% to run defrag. How much else you need free
depends on how big your drive is and how you use your computer.
ALmost everyone would want a greater percentage of a smaller
drive free than of a bigger one. There's a big difference between
50% of a 20GB drive and 50% of a 200GB one.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup