Windows 7 Setup?

I'm gona install Windows 7 on a 300GB HDD with Komplete 6 in mind so my question is if I should install Komplete 6 on the same partition as my OS or on a separate one? And if on a separate one, how big should I make my partition with the OS?

 

Partitioning is not really going to offer any advantages to you apart from organizational, so I'd say one partition is as good as two. (If you do go with two, then you are somewhat limited later if you outgrow one partition.)

The only thing that separate hard drives (and by that, I mean physically separate drives, not partitions of a single physical hard drive) is that they can yield better streaming speed, and the only components of Komplete 6 that benefit from this are Battery 3 and Kontakt 4. These two, being samplers, often stream their samples from the hard drive, and faster hard drives (or separate hard drives) will give you better performance. But performance with a single hard drive is already very good, so you may not need more.

My bottom-line suggestion: start with your 300GB hard drive, don't partition it, and get to work. If you end up wanting to go faster in the future, add a secondary hard drive later, and move the Kontakt/Battery libraries to the secondary drive, and you may experience a bit of a bump in streaming efficiency. Maybe a little. Maybe negligible. (Depends on many factors.)

 

One thing, if you install the libraries into the OS partition:

When you do an image backup of that partition you will be backing up many many GBs of samples - so it will take much longer and be much bigger.

I aim to keep all my libraries away from the OS partition. Then I can back up the OS and the Libraries separately and at different intervals.

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OS partition for Windows 7 and other software apps (excluding libraries) - I am told that 30GB would be OK. But I have not got Windows 7 myself.
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http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=99515

 

I would recommend having an OS partition and a Data partition.

OS, programs, stuff that needs reinstallation goes on the OS drive
Data, samples, project files, documents go on the data drive

NEVER format the DATA drive. You can erase the OS drive for yearly OS formats/system crashes/whatever. This will make backups easier and if you are good enough at it you can wipe out your Windows install on a whim, with little consequence.

If you *really* know what you are doing, you can install programs that don't *really* need reinstallation (most of the NI stuff is like this, except for the copy protection since Service Center won't recognize them as installed... this is RETARDED) on your data drive, that way they are almost immediately available upon a fresh install -- just copy your shortcuts. Most of my VSTi's work like this... FLStudio, Alchemy, and most of my VSTs work like this... as does Trillian, Winamp, Firefox, and a few others. I can erase Windows and have a ready-to-go desktop within a few minutes...... but ADVANCED USERS ONLY