Why does windows 11 need minimum of 48GB HDD storage to install etc

Hi folks

It's about time for non-enterprise versions of Windows to get back to being a decent efficient and lean OS. Just because it's got a GUI doesn't mean that it has to take up a load of disk space (even if disk space is cheap) these days. Just compare the requirements for W11 PRO and W2022 Server -- server can run on much less - and is super fast compared with the bog standard W11 Pro. Can't Ms just remove all the bloat etc -- I'don't need XBOX or all the other zillion and one things -- just let people install those "at will".

I miss the old app which could really "streamline" an XP or W7 system by removing surplus bloat. Nobody seems to have got round to that for W11 yet.

Cheers
jimbo

Because 120GB SSDs are cheap these days. And that is more than enough for Windows 11. Why should MS worry about minimum space required? It doesn't matter to 99.999999% of consumers.

My initial backup, after installing W11, is under 10GB. But I have added another 20GB since then!
I don't know how much compression MR has used. I think the backup is about 60% of the original.

badrobot said:

Because 120GB SSDs are cheap these days. And that is more than enough for Windows 11. Why should MS worry about minimum space required? It doesn't matter to 99.999999% of consumers.

Click to expand...

I know that someone here with a small OS disk wants to keep hers at less than 50% used space to have space for windows.old although I don't know how many GB useable space her small OS disk is.

Related question:
If you have only a C: disk for OS and 100GB of data, what is the minimum size of C: if you still want to be able to do re-installs that you can walk back?

Q: Why does windows 11 need minimum of 48GB HDD storage to install, etc?

A: Because it's just filled with goodness.

goodness = useless crap

Hi @jimbo45, i love your questions, they are hard to answer.

badrobot said:

Because 120GB SSDs are cheap these days. And that is more than enough for Windows 11. Why should MS worry about minimum space required? It doesn't matter to 99.999999% of consumers.

Click to expand...

However if you try and install W11 it bombs out with error -- minimum 48 GB required for storage space.

I was bought up on "Waste not -- Want not".

The amount of things I actually use on Windows including photoshop fits nicely into around 27 GB of HDD space. Data storage / temp files etc is another matter but I like to keep the OS separate in a small partition. That way restoring the Os / installing a new one doesn't require saving all your old data etc. before doing the update. Also I might have a whole slew of VM's on the HDD which I don't want to have to backup and re-do each time !!!!.

Cheers
jimbo

Microsoft's requirement is 64GB. Windows.old is about 11GB but yours may vary. With 100GB of data, that adds up to 175GB.
I think Windows.old contains your Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos and Desktop folders.
Also
The old registry hives
Your personal profile files which includes Cookies, Start Menu, UserData and more.

jimbo45 said:

However if you try and install W11 it bombs out with error -- minimum 48 GB required for storage space.

I was bought up on "Waste not -- Want not".

The amount of things I actually use on Windows including photoshop fits nicely into around 27 GB of HDD space. Data storage / temp files etc is another matter but I like to keep the OS separate in a small partition. That way restoring the Os / installing a new one doesn't require saving all your old data etc. before doing the update. Also I might have a whole slew of VM's on the HDD which I don't want to have to backup and re-do each time !!!!.

Cheers
jimbo

Click to expand...

I do the same but I don't allocate a small partition. I allocate a small ssd just for the OS. My main rig is just 500GB M.2 SSD but only less than half of it is used. The rest is just for whatever. I don't really care if it is a waste. Data is entirely separate drive. Macrium imaging/restoring only takes about 5 minutes or so. I don't understand the reason behind limiting yourself in terms OS dtive space.
I never use VM. I test with actual hardware. I have a separate drive for every OS I want to play with on my secondary rig. It is so much easier to mess around with individual drives.

It's very considerate of you to label the banking drive. Saves thieves time! 🤣

kelper said:

It's very considerate of you to label the banking drive. Saves thieves time! 🤣

Click to expand...

That's the trick. All his banking info is on a drive marked: Rousing Polkas
And, as everyone knows... thieves don't polka.


Well... most of them don't...



Hudson Hawk - clip

badrobot said:

I do the same but I don't allocate a small partition. I allocate a small ssd just for the OS. My main rig is just 500GB M.2 SSD but only less than half of it is used. The rest is just for whatever. I don't really care if it is a waste. Data is entirely separate drive. Macrium imaging/restoring only takes about 5 minutes or so. I don't understand the reason behind limiting yourself in terms OS dtive space.
I never use VM. I test with actual hardware. I have a separate drive for every OS I want to play with on my secondary rig. It is so much easier to mess around with individual drives.

Click to expand...

While I don't use a smaller dedicated hard drive for my OS, I do partition my drive with a 500GB partition for the OS (C drive). With standard HDD's and SSD's, I would do the separate drive, but with M.2 drives where I only have 2 slots of my mobo's, I just go for a large capacity drive and make a parttion. I don't like to have to clean up and continuously be on the look out for free space, so I make it bigger than I need it to be. It just works for me.

I test a lot with VM's. But I also have some really small systems (Intel NUC's, a Mac Mini, and a BeeLink miniPC (My windows 11 box). I just like having dedicated test areas so I can experiment and blow it up without impacting my main productivity/gaming box.

kelper said:

It's very considerate of you to label the banking drive. Saves thieves time! 🤣

Click to expand...

"Banking" is just a clean OS with VPN and Onion browser. Nothing is saved there really. I can put it out my door and thieves can help themselves to it any time if they can get into the empty OS. 🤣

I was only jesting!

badrobot said:

"Banking" is just a clean OS with VPN and Onion browser. Nothing is saved there really. I can put it out my door and thieves can help themselves to it any time if they can get into the empty OS. 🤣

Click to expand...

Why not label EVERYTHING when you have a label maker!!

Its funny, one of the things that I dislike about M.2 style drives is that they are a PITA to switch out compared to the old school power and data cable to a SATA drive. I used to have a few hard drives, and would just plug in the one that I wanted to play with at one moment in time. It's more of a pain since M.2 are usually buried under a GPU or under a shroud on the mobo.

On the flip side, I love that M.2's dont require power and data cables and are super small so they don't lead to much clutter.

pparks1 said:

Its funny, one of the things that I dislike about M.2 style drives is that they are a PITA to switch out compared to the old school power and data cable to a SATA drive. I used to have a few hard drives, and would just plug in the one that I wanted to play with at one moment in time. It's more of a pain since M.2 are usually buried under a GPU or under a shroud on the mobo.

On the flip side, I love that M.2's dont require power and data cables and are super small so they don't lead to much clutter.

Click to expand...

Two contrary opinions at the same time! Must be female!

kelper said:

Two contrary opinions at the same time! Must be female!

Click to expand...

hahaha, nope. But technology passionate.

pparks1 said:

Its funny, one of the things that I dislike about M.2 style drives is that they are a PITA to switch out compared to the old school power and data cable to a SATA drive. I used to have a few hard drives, and would just plug in the one that I wanted to play with at one moment in time. It's more of a pain since M.2 are usually buried under a GPU or under a shroud on the mobo.

On the flip side, I love that M.2's dont require power and data cables and are super small so they don't lead to much clutter.

Click to expand...

How often do you switch M.2 drives? It should be like "never" unless you want to upgrade. It is supposed to be for main OS.
For everything else, SATA ports are still there.

badrobot said:

How often do you switch M.2 drives? It should be like "never" unless you want to upgrade. It is supposed to be for main OS.
For everything else, SATA ports are still there.

Click to expand...

I don't switch them often because they are a pain.

But in the past, I would have had a few hard drives in a mid-tower case. If I wanted to run Windows 10, I plug in drive 1. If I wanted to run Windows 11, I just plug in drive 2. If I want to run Linux Mint, i plug in drive 3. If I wanted Windows Server 2022, I would plug in drive 4.

Easy to use the same hardware to run multiple OS's. Simpler than a dual-boot because whatever you do in one, doesn't have any impact to the bootloader of another.