new hard drive - partitioning for Windows 7 64-bit

I got a new hard drive (a 120 GB solid-state drive) and am prepared to install Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit on it. In the past, I've never made separate partitions on my HDDs, but I've heard some people recommend that I create one solely for my OS files for various reasons (so I can wipe the OS files without wiping my personal files and vice versa, to keep potential viruses in my personal files from affecting my OS files, etc.). Would you suggest I do this, and if so, what size partition should I create? Keep in mind that the HDD is only 120 GB.

I also hear that some people create this extra partition for not only their OS files, but also for their program files. I've heard someone say that 30 GB was more than enough for their Win7 OS files, so I'm considering making a 25 or 30 GB partition for just my OS files and keeping my personal and program files in the remaining 90 GB. What do you all think?
 
Given if you ever need to reinstall your OS you'll need to reinstall all your programs, I think they may as well go on the same partition. Separate partitions won't do much to counter viruses either.

Can you not look at the space you used on your old drive? If it's any version of Vista or 7 it should be reasonably indicative.

With that small a drive, there's a strong case for just the one partition though. If you run out of space on your OS partition, you're in for a LOT of hassle. Running out of space on your data partition is less problematic but does mean you'll have data on the OS partition too, which starts to undermine the use of a separate data partition in the first place.
 
usually there's never much use for a separate partition for storage exclusively unless you run a nasty habit of corrupting your partitions and losing data, which never happens if you're smart about what you download and mounting / unmounting

it's more of a hassle than anything, especially if you don't bother changing your default download / sync locations

if you must, install an ubuntu .iso off their site onto a flash drive (there's a walkthrough to do it on the site)
you don't have to install the OS, just use a program called 'gparted' under the System tab which is a very easy-to-use partition editor

and remember that your main OS part has to be in NTFS and your storage can be in either FAT or NTFS as well - don't use the ext formats

but i really wouldn't recommend this at all especially since your hard drive is so small, partitioning is only really useful if you are running oses alongside each other
 
i could give you a hard time about installing windows (seriously, why would anyone ever want to do that) but instead i'll just agree with mootles

i really wouldn't recommend this at all especially since your hard drive is so small, partitioning is only really useful if you are running oses alongside each other
you don't need to partition your drive. just keep all your documents in one directory and back them up to an external drive every couple of months or so.

if you decide to ignore our advice and do it anyway, definitely give at least 90 gbs to the os + program files partition.
 

Firestorm

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If you're using a 120GB SSD, you probably want to get a secondary hard drive for files rather than partitioning an already small drive for storage space. Is this a desktop or laptop?
 

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