recommended SSD size for windows 7

[Jalfrezi]

hello... quick question... building my own pc atm... however i have a spare £100 which i wasnt expecting to have available untill early next year. so i am planning on getting an SSD for my OS (windows 7).

whats the recommended size? 50gb be enough?

thanks in advance.

[Sephiracle]

if you're putting just windows on it, 32gig will be fine.

[Noakh]

Ya I have a little tiny 30gig drive that has room to spare as a boot drive. just make sure you reroute all of your system folders to the bigger drive.

[Jalfrezi]

lovely, thanks guys

it is just for my os to boot off. everything else will go on my normal mechanical hard drive.

i had a feeling around 30gb would be fine... but my irl mate kept going on about the bigger the better... but since its just for my os theres no need.

[Deleted]

but my irl mate kept going on about the bigger the better...

Bigger is generally better though (pun intended) and while a 30Gb SSD is enough for Windows, a SSD with larger capacity would allow for more software to be stored on it (not to mention expanding for future needs). Remember, all software located on the SSD will load faster and be more responsive. In my opinion, a 30Gb SSD works best in conjunction with SRT but anyone buying one today should look at getting at least a SSD with 60Gb capacity.

[Bigdunka]

Keep in mind if you go with a small drive, there are several locations in the Windows folder that store information from Windows Update and other annoying little temp files. You'll notice the drive fill up quickly unless you move the update files or link them off that drive. If you don't move them, it can store upwards of 10-20 gigs worth of files alone. There's a tricky little folder (normally C:\Windows\winsxs\) that stores these annoying little files that you really shouldn't delete. My system here is pretty freshly installed and that folder is already over 10 gig. My last install had that folder up to nearly 25gig at the time of last wipe and reinstall, and that was over about 2 years.

[Jalfrezi]

Bigger is generally better though (pun intended) and while a 30Gb SSD is enough for Windows, a SSD with larger capacity would allow for more software to be stored on it (not to mention expanding for future needs). Remember, all software located on the SSD will load faster and be more responsive. In my opinion, a 30Gb SSD works best in conjunction with SRT but anyone buying one today should look at getting at least a SSD with 60Gb capacity.

been looking at an OCZ SSD 60GB... my mate was on about getting 128GB+ he's also talking about 16GB RAM and having 2 GPU's.... his favourite word is power, anything to try and out-do me!!

[Trbodsl]

I have a Corsair 120gb SSD. It has 111gb usable space total. I have Win7 and Wow on it. They currently take up 68gb leaving 43gb open and both programs grow. Both programs are roughly the same size. I would think twice about starting off with 30gb drive IMO, but i do recommend an SSD drive over an HDD if it can be in the budget. Just my $.02

[vesseblah]

I'd say 60GB minimum really, that will be enough for windows, wow and few of your most used programs. Basically you want big enough SSD to fit everything you use daily and everything else on mechanical discs.

90-120GB is the recommended size. Will fit comfortably all programs and 2-5 games too in addition to windows.

---------- Post added 2011-10-13 at 06:13 PM ----------

I have Win7 and Wow on it. They currently take up 68gb leaving 43gb open and both programs grow. Both programs are roughly the same size.

Turn hibernate off (on desktop computer) and turn pagefile down to 512mb (if on 8GB or more RAM), that will cut Windows down to 12GB. Then delete all old WoW patches.

WoW + Win7 takes around 35GB after those tweaks.

[DeltrusDisc]

Bigger is generally better though (pun intended) and while a 30Gb SSD is enough for Windows, a SSD with larger capacity would allow for more software to be stored on it (not to mention expanding for future needs). Remember, all software located on the SSD will load faster and be more responsive. In my opinion, a 30Gb SSD works best in conjunction with SRT but anyone buying one today should look at getting at least a SSD with 60Gb capacity.

Not to mention bigger SSDs have been shown to have higher read and write speeds!

[Deleted]

im looking for a ssd but if wow and windows 7 64bit wont fir on a 60gb ssd then i aint paying £120+ for a fucking glorified usb drive why are ssd's so expensive its not even new tech to store things on memory chips look at old consoles like playstation etc there like 18 years old and there memcards work exactly the same way as a ssd drive, more ways to shaft the customer

Please don't necro old threads. Thank you.

[Deleted]

im looking for a ssd but if wow and windows 7 64bit wont fir on a 60gb ssd then i aint paying £120+ for a fucking glorified usb drive why are ssd's so expensive its not even new tech to store things on memory chips look at old consoles like playstation etc there like 18 years old and there memcards work exactly the same way as a ssd drive, more ways to shaft the customer

An SSD is much, much faster than a USB drive. You think 18 year old tech had a 550mbps read speed?

[vesseblah]

im looking for a ssd but if wow and windows 7 64bit wont fir on a 60gb ssd then i aint paying £120+ for a fucking glorified usb drive why are ssd's so expensive its not even new tech to store things on memory chips look at old consoles like playstation etc there like 18 years old and there memcards work exactly the same way as a ssd drive, more ways to shaft the customer

You might want to research a bit before going ranting and raving around the forums. Typical SATA2 SSD has 250Mbps read and write speeds, while a SATA3 SSD can reach 450Mbps. Compare that to a standard USB stick with 10Mbps read and 5Mbps write speeds, and you might understand why it's slightly more than a glorified USB memory stick. And 64GB USB stick costs about the same as 64GB SSD except it's 50 times slower.

Also with current prices the price/gigabyte ratio favors 120GB SSDs heavily. 60GB discs on average costs 2/3 of an 120GB disc, so with bit of extra money you can double the size.

[tohyatvc]

30GB is way, way, way too small! You'll regret it, seriously. 60GB absolute minimum.

im looking for a ssd but if wow and windows 7 64bit wont fir on a 60gb ssd then i aint paying £120+ for a fucking glorified usb drive why are ssd's so expensive its not even new tech to store things on memory chips look at old consoles like playstation etc there like 18 years old and there memcards work exactly the same way as a ssd drive, more ways to shaft the customer

Serious trolling here. SSDs are way faster than USB drives or old school memory cards. Also, a memory card for a PS2 is 8MB. Christ.

Please don't call other users trolls. If you think they are deliberately causing a fuss, use the report function. Thank you.

[Deleted]

I personally wouldn't go less than 120 GB, and if I was on a fixed budget, would get an older or weaker model with more capacity. No matter what, you're going to notice a difference between a mechanical drive and a solid state. (Just don't get the crappiest...). The reason is that having your computer boot quickly is nice, but then having programs "crawl" (at least in comparison), isn't going to make you happy. And how often do you boot? Once a day? And how often do you start a program? Switch chars in WoW or enter some dungeon loading screen? Those are the things you really notice...

One other thing to consider, is that SSDs like a bit of room for things like wear leveling, etc. and even though most have an overcommitment (more space than actually usable), it still won't be as fast if it's full. My old Intel X-25m's got slower at about 70% use - it's not hard to hit that on a 60GB SSD.

And as the other dude said - most drives with higher capacity are quicker than the same model with less due to the amount of chips and the bus connections needed.

You could always wait a month and get another one that you would be happy with and not cause the worry.

[Deleted]

Alright, I'm going to close this as the OP posted this about a month ago and has probably already made his/her choice regarding what SSD to pick. If you want to ask specific questions regarding the subject in general or what SSD would fit your current or future build, I suggest you create a new thread (preferably in Computer Build Help). Thank you.