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Windows 10Best Partition Size for 500GB or 1TB Hard Drives in Windows 10

Best Partition Size for 500GB or 1TB Hard Drives in Windows 10

By Sophia | Last Updated

It's important to partition your hard drive properly so that your computer can run as smoothly as a new one and you don't need to worry about the problem of running out of space on C drive. Most SSDs on the market now have 500GB or 1TB capacity and the capacity of HDDs is much larger. Since SSDs are more popular than HDDs, this post will talk about how to partition 500GB and 1TB hard drives in Windows 10.

best partition size for 500gb or 1tb hard drives

Best partition size for 500GB hard drives

Concerning partitioning 500GB hard drives in Windows 10, it is recommended that the hard drives are divided into C/D/E/F zones. And it is appropriate that the capacity of each zone is 150GB, 100GB, 100GB, 150GB.

best partition size for 500gb hard drives

C drive, as the system drive, is needed about 150GB in total. Among them, Windows 10 requires 40GB of space to run. Pagefile.sys and dormancy files take up 16GB to 32GB respectively. If there is not enough space to restore dormancy files, the system couldn't fall asleep.

D drive is needed 100GB because it is recommended storing all installed programs into D drive rather than the C drive. Setting up a separated partition for the software can greatly reduce the fragmentation of the C drive. Even if you install and delete programs, the impact on C disk is very small, thus improving the running speed of the Windows system.

It is recommended setting E drive to 100GB while F drive is 150GB. You can use them based on your needs, like personal data, files for entertainment and office, etc. BitLocker encryption is recommended if there is something in the partition that you do not want others to see.

Best partition size for 1TB hard drives

We have more space to allocate with a 1TB hard drive. Like the way we partition 500GB hard drives, we can partition 1TB drives into C/D/E/F zone and add more capacity of 50 to 100GB to these zones. Then the remaining space can be divided as needed. It's recommended allocating 1TB hard drives as follow.

best partition size for 1tb hard drives

It is recommended allocating 220GB to the C drive. Among them, the system files require 40GB of space and the pagefile.sys require 32GB. Dormancy files take up 32GB and temporary files take up 10GB. In addition, we set aside 90 gigabytes of space as the spare space.

D drive is needed 100GB for storing all installed programs. It is suggested that D disk is specially created to store programs. Before allocating the disk, programs are generally stored on the C disk. But if there are too many programs, the cache fragmentation generated by the programs will affect the stability of the system. In general, 100GB would be enough even for a game enthusiast or a video editor.

Besides, it is recommended allocating 100GB for E drive in order to store pagefiles and temporary files. In this way, the fragmentation of C drive can be reduced greatly which is good for improving the access speed of the C disk. Moreover, it is also very convenient for you to clean up the temporary files--just find the temporary directory of the E disk and delete the files that can be deleted. Want to know how to move pagefile.sys and temporary files to another disk? Please read the title 4 Ways to Fix C Drive Full in Windows 10.

You can allocate 200GB to F drive. It is recommended restoring files according to file types. For example, creating folders for different types of files such as videos, music, and documents, etc. Additionally, BitLocker is recommended for encrypting a partition if you have personal privacy information, photos, or files.

The rest of the space can be further partitioned and used to store personal data. For example, you can divide the rest evenly into GB drive and H drive for storing personal data.

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