256 gb enough for windows partition?

[seerex11]

Hello all,

I am about to purchase a new Macbook Pro. I currently have a macbook pro, but i think it is around 4 years old now, and i can feel the performance needs to get up.

I currently have a 15" laptop, and it is what i have always had. The stuff i do on it is:

- Programming (mainly)
- Gaming (light, no major games, just stuff like LoL)
- School work (which involves programming)

I would need to run BOTH windows and OSX since i program in both environments.

And that is what concerns me. The macbook pro comes with 256 gb. of storage (unless i spend a buck load of money). So, i was wondering if that is enough? How much would go to windows? A 100 gb? Is that enough?

I do carry around an external drive with 1 TB on it, but i don't want to be 100% reliant on it.

So, in your experience, is 256 GB enough to run both OSX and Windows, with the main focus areas being programming (in programs like Xcode, Visual Studio and so on), and some light gaming (in the OSX environment mainly).

I would probably go with 156 GB for OSX and 100 for Windows, but not sure if that is enough?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Einz]

Get at least 512G

 

[Serban]

i have a 100 GB partition for windows 7 and i have no problem

 

[ixxx69]

So, in your experience, is 256 GB enough to run both OSX and Windows, with the main focus areas being programming (in programs like Xcode, Visual Studio and so on), and some light gaming (in the OSX environment mainly).

256GB is a tough fit, but it's certainly doable if you keep things lean.

Windows 8 takes up about 20GB by itself. I think Visual Studio is around 10GB. Then you have to figure in any other apps, space for projects, and future growth.

If you already have a similar setup, can't you look at that to see how much space you're using?

I would really recommend the 500GB option if you can swing it.

If you do go with the 256GB option, and you're strictly using BC for programming projects, I think you could get by with 50GB partition.

P.S. - this is the Mac Pro forum.

 

[AidenShaw]

Windows 8 takes up about 20GB by itself. I think Visual Studio is around 10GB.

The 20GB for Windows x64 is a bare minimum - you'll use that much right after installation IFF you disable hibernation ("powercfg -h off") to delete the hiberfil.sys and drop pagefile.sys to 512 MB or so.

If you want to be able to hibernate (and hybrid sleep) the hiberfil.sys defaults to 75% of the size of RAM. (A 16 GiB system will have 12 GiB in hiberfil.sys alone.)

Pagefile.sys can usually be shrunk to a small size and set to grow on demand. Ignore the warnings about "errors may occur" if it's set to grow - that's such a remote possibility you should not worry about it.

10 GB is very safe for VS - one of my VS9 installations is about 4 GiB with the local documentation, VS12 is about 2.8 GiB without local help files.

 

[glenthompson]

If additional performance is all you need have you considered upgrading your existing MBP? A memory boost and a SSD could go a long way in giving you good performance. I have a 2011 MBP and it runs Windows under Parallels with no problem. After upgrading to a SSD my performance has been better than I need.