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Is a 120GB SSD enough for Windows and a Linux Install?

ZacoAttaco
By ZacoAttaco
in Windows
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Hi all,

 

Essentially, I'm upgrading an old laptop that has a very slow HDD. I'm planning on upgrading my Desktop SSD to 250GB and formatting and using the old 120GB SSD in the laptop. I'm not planning on doing anything intensive, it will just be for some upcoming cyber-security studies I will be doing, note-taking, programming etc.. The device will only be complementary to my main desktop.

 

I want to install Windows 10 Home edition + A Linux Distro, either Ubuntu or Fedora. I shouldn't have to allocate space much space for the Linux filesystem and they will share files natively. Worst case scenario I can run a very light Lubuntu or similarly sized operating system. Do you think this is viable? I've heard Windows 10 installs be anywhere from 40-70GB and the Linux install could potentially take less than 15GB but I'm 100% sure.

 

Thanks in advance,

Zac.

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19 minutes ago, duncannah said:

Windows should use less than 20GB, and Linux lesser than that.

Yeah, hopefully should be ok, although Windows updates can bloat the install size so I'll definitely try and download the latest build and tun it into a bootable media.

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Windows with active use is 40-50Gb. So yes, you can fit both but not much else.

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Yes but I would use bleachbit to clean the downloaded packages caches and system logs often 

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Yes, but you'll be tight in space.

 

Just throwing an idea, Windows 10 has Windows Subsystem for Linux which you can enable.

This allows you to install a Linux distro found in the Store (currently: Ubuntu, SUSE Linux, OpenSUSE Leap, Debian GNU/Linux, Kali, Alpine, WLinux (paying) and Fedora Remix (paying - and not official)).

You can install one or many, takes a couple of hundred of MB (these Linux distro starts very lean, you need to install what you need via their distro), and you are ready to go to run Linux programs under Windows. If you want to run GUI based programs you'll need xWindows server, easy to setup, you can find many tutorials online, and a variety of a software of the xWindows Server programs for Windows.

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Windows 10 more than easily fits on a 60GB class SSD and I have one system where it is installed on a 32GB drive! The question then is, how much extra applications and data will you need to store? So in itself, I wouldn't worry about 120GB as long as you're not intending to install large apps or data sets on it.

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44 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Yes, but you'll be tight in space.

 

Just throwing an idea, Windows 10 has Windows Subsystem for Linux which you can enable.

This allows you to install a Linux distro found in the Store (currently: Ubuntu, SUSE Linux, OpenSUSE Leap, Debian GNU/Linux, Kali, Alpine, WLinux (paying) and Fedora Remix (paying - and not official)).

You can install one or many, takes a couple of hundred of MB (these Linux distro starts very lean, you need to install what you need via their distro), and you are ready to go to run Linux programs under Windows. If you want to run GUI based programs you'll need xWindows server, easy to setup, you can find many tutorials online, and a variety of a software of the xWindows Server programs for Windows.

If he's doing cyber security studies some programs don't work into WSL such the ones with direct hard disk access and network interfaces

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6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Yes, but you'll be tight in space.

 

Just throwing an idea, Windows 10 has Windows Subsystem for Linux which you can enable.

This allows you to install a Linux distro found in the Store (currently: Ubuntu, SUSE Linux, OpenSUSE Leap, Debian GNU/Linux, Kali, Alpine, WLinux (paying) and Fedora Remix (paying - and not official)).

You can install one or many, takes a couple of hundred of MB (these Linux distro starts very lean, you need to install what you need via their distro), and you are ready to go to run Linux programs under Windows. If you want to run GUI based programs you'll need xWindows server, easy to setup, you can find many tutorials online, and a variety of a software of the xWindows Server programs for Windows.

Is this essentially Virtualization through an app in the Windows Store? I wasn't aware of this ata ll.

6 hours ago, porina said:

Windows 10 more than easily fits on a 60GB class SSD and I have one system where it is installed on a 32GB drive! The question then is, how much extra applications and data will you need to store? So in itself, I wouldn't worry about 120GB as long as you're not intending to install large apps or data sets on it.

I shouldn't need much local files, I'll use Google Drive extensively. I've not come to a single conclusion yet, I might just use 500GB HDD which should be plenty of space at a performance degradation.

6 hours ago, Lukyp said:

If he's doing cyber security studies some programs don't work into WSL such the ones with direct hard disk access and network interfaces

Yeah, I don't know if I'll need a Linux install, I'm assuming I will but it'll just be a good way to learn the system better, it's a real gap in my knowledge at the moment.

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56 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

Is this essentially Virtualization through an app in the Windows Store? I wasn't aware of this ata ll.

I shouldn't need much local files, I'll use Google Drive extensively. I've not come to a single conclusion yet, I might just use 500GB HDD which should be plenty of space at a performance degradation.

Yeah, I don't know if I'll need a Linux install, I'm assuming I will but it'll just be a good way to learn the system better, it's a real gap in my knowledge at the moment.

Neither nmap works in WSL...

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18 minutes ago, Lukyp said:

Neither nmap works in WSL...

What distro would you recommend from Nmap and general programming? I was thinking Ubuntu or Fedora? I haven't tried Fedora yet but I'm curious.

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Just now, ZacoAttaco said:

What distro would you recommend from Nmap and general programming? I was thinking Ubuntu or Fedora? I haven't tried Fedora yet but I'm curious.

Kali has all the utilities for cyber-security, can be used also for general programming as it is basically Debian

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1 minute ago, Lukyp said:

Kali has all the utilities for cyber-security, can be used also for general programming as it is basically Debian

Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out for sure. At this stage it looks like I'll be installing multiple operating systems, so I'm going to need more than 120GB, I'll probably just use an old 500GB HDD I have lying around.

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8 hours ago, ZacoAttaco said:

Is this essentially Virtualization through an app in the Windows Store? I wasn't aware of this ata ll.

Nope. It runs natively. Now, it does means that Linux is limited by Windows abilities. And currently services don't work (you need to manually run them or set a startup script)... but all that is being worked on.

You can follow the progress here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/release-notes

It is updated with Windows Insider Builds, so you can expect most of the time a new Build entry each week.

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