How much do you keep free?

L31mr0d

i'm talking about HDD space. I mean I have a 500GB (really 465GB) RAID 0, and in just over 5 months i've managed to pack it with 400GB of files, CD images, movies, programs. But for some reason I refuse to let it be filled anymore. My limit, I think has always been to keep 1/5th of my drive free in case of an emergency or something where i'd need to do a sudden backup onto the drive or something.

So i'm wondering. How much of your drive do you keep free, or do you let it clog up until it BSODs, and why do you keep the space free?

Creamy Goodness

well i have three drives.

one 30 gig raptor.

two 300 gig's sata drives.

i have windows on the raptor and that's it, i keep the rest free for emergency such as yourself.

the two 300 giggers i'm healthyly (made up word i think) to filling them.

eamoss

I have 160gbs on this computer and I have used 50gbs so what thats 70% free?

Endurance Man

Iv got about 2-3tb worth of hdd's sitting right behind me ^^, there is no emergency to big.

Ruu_Old

I have one 250gb IDE HD thats empty as its just been put into a new machine(desktop), 120gb external about 10gb free on that and another 160gb that has 20gb free, main HD on laptop is a tiny 60gb in total, has about 10gb free.

melekalikimaka

600 gig...bout 200mb free...sh1t

Lump

Out of 783 Gigs, I have 331 gigs free. I've backed up a load of stuff to DVD though. Once I buy a 400 gig drive in Sept I've have loads free

John

ScumLord

I always have windows on it's own 20gb partition at least, so I never have to think about keeping space free.

skywalker

Ive about 700Gb and at a rough guess probly 200Gb of that is free. There tends to be a lot of dvd images of stuff I only want to watch once on there at any given time though so if I wanted to I could probly free up a lot of space as needed.

Wertz

SouperComputer

Not a whole lot on my OS Partition:




Its sitting on a 76GB SCSI and is behaving well. If it starts to behave badly then I may consider using Partition Tragic. Its been good for about 2years at this rate. Until then................

Buceph

Why do you have your OS on one partition and everything else on the other? Surely if the drive goes having a partition makes no difference.

mickoneill30

Having the OS on a seperate partition means you can blow it away at any time safe in the knowledge that your data is on partition 2.
Whenever I reinstall Windows I like to do a format (it's just a preference thing). This format doesn't affect my data.
If you get infected by spyware or viruses then your executable files will be on the OS partition.
If your apps don't change much it also means that the OS partition will have less fragmentation than your data partition (probably). I always keep about 2GB free on my OS partition. Doesn't really matter about the data one.

irlrobins

Yea I have data on one partition and OS and progs on another. If drive is big enough I have a third partition for media (videos, music, etc). Find it less cluttered, easier to back up and to reinstall if need be.

ScumLord

Whenever I reinstall Windows I like to do a format (it's just a preference thing).

Same as that. couldn't be arsed to try and fix the problem just reinstall windows.

SouperComputer

Buceph wrote:

Why do you have your OS on one partition and everything else on the other? Surely if the drive goes having a partition makes no difference.

That depends on how the drive goes.

There are many reasons for separating your OS from your programs and documents. One of which is fragmentation that occurs when your software config regularly changes. Also if you have to reinstall or change your OS a lot for various reasons, "most" applications will live happily on the seperate partition.

The main reason however is that the original install I have stems from an old P3 setup I had on a 36GB SCSI. It's seen a lot of hardware changes over the years but the partition has stayed the same size. On the original 36GB I had Geexbox, Windows 98, Windows 2K and debian installed. Hence the partition size <36GB

I have all documents and media on a seperate fileserver.

danniemcq

3% of 370GB free damn pron