# How much free space on Sample drive?



## Obi-Wan Spaghetti (Aug 9, 2021)

I know windows recommend keeping an amount of free space for system drives(HD or SSD), but i wonder if i need to respect that rule as far a sample drive goes. Considering that it's a read only drive and that i will not install/unzip more libraries so i don't need space for that. Question apply to HD and SSD.


----------



## d.healey (Aug 9, 2021)

What does the manufacturer recommend?


----------



## Obi-Wan Spaghetti (Aug 9, 2021)

d.healey said:


> What does the manufacturer recommend?


Good question. But did not look into that. I have many different brand anyways. Question would be in general. Something tells me we don't need that much free sapce for read only. But i could be wrong i guess.


----------



## Crowe (Aug 9, 2021)

Obi-Wan Spaghetti said:


> I know windows recommend keeping an amount of free space for system drives(HD or SSD), but i wonder if i need to respect that rule as far a sample drive goes. Considering that it's a read only drive and that i will not install/unzip more libraries so i don't need space for that. Question apply to HD and SSD.


Microsoft recommends a certain amount of free space on the Operating Drive for use as Virtual Memory, space during updates and various other processes relevant to operations. The operating system uses this space elastically. I see my C drive change in space daily due to temporary downloads etc.

A drive that is purely used as a Data drive does not fall under the same purview. Unless you've configured certain applications to download directly to said drive, for example during updates, there is no need to keep extra space reserved.

That said, *I personally do* try to keep 10% of space free on all my drives as a rule because I generally *do* download directly to my Data Drives where possible. And also just because. I've configured my Eastwest and Spitfire applications to download to a drive that always has 200gb free as a minimum because of the download sizes for some of the libraries I own.

TL;DR: the answer to your specific question is quite probably 'No'. Keep a 10 gb overflow or something 'just in case' and you're going to be good in most scenarios.

Yeah, I told you 'No' and then proceeded to advise you to do it anyway.


----------



## CharlieCee (Aug 9, 2021)

I like to keep 15% spare on all of my SSD drives.


----------



## Obi-Wan Spaghetti (Aug 9, 2021)

Crowe said:


> Microsoft recommends a certain amount of free space on the Operating Drive for use as Virtual Memory, space during updates and various other processes relevant to operations. The operating system uses this space elastically. I see my C drive change in space daily due to temporary downloads etc.
> 
> A drive that is purely used as a Data drive does not fall under the same purview. Unless you've configured certain applications to download directly to said drive, for example during updates, there is no need to keep extra space reserved.
> 
> ...


That pretty much solved my problem. Thanks for that explanation.


----------

