>>>>I will give C: 500 GB and split the rest between D: and E:. Right now the C: is about 260 GB so I will have plenty storage for the future software.
>>>>Thank you very much for your suggestions. While tomorrow some people will be watching this "unimportant event" :), I will be doing something very important :)
>>>
>>>I always try to minimize the OS/C: partition size. I have an xCopy directory outside C:, where all portable software gets installed, which can be used by VMs as well. In dedicated VM C: is between 40 and 90 GB, in long-running machines still below 120 GB.
>>>
>>>As I try to never use documents and settings, only programs need more space, and they are frugal compared to media stuff ;-)
>>
>>Sorry that I don't understand something simply to you. If I want to, at a later date, to install a VM software, will I be able to install it on the existing C: (OS) partition? (provided, of course, that this partition has free space)
>
>Yes. BUT personal experience is that the probablity of screwing up the partition into something unusable is 5 to 10 times higher with the C: partition than with DATA ones. Therefore I reccommend putting the VM files EVERYWHERE BUT into physical C:.

I concur. I have a partition with \apps folder which has survived perhaps a dozen installation of windowses on various c: partitions. You'd be surprised how many apps don't really need the install/setup procedure and simply run as they are, and various registry settings can also be absent. The notorious exception is Microsoft's stuff, which all has to be reinstalled from scratch every time, but I use very little of that - VFP, SQL server (but not SSMS, hate that) and... presently can't remember anything else, and neither can the start menu. I went from Netscape to current incarnation of Mozilla's stuff (email and browser) with the same inbox files, didn't even notice how many times the registry was recreated.