# WIndows 10pro install , saying 120gb SSD is to small ? 165gb Min



## neko77025 (May 12, 2017)

I am really confused right now.

I am trying to install windows 10 pro to A 120gb SSD on A HP ML350 g6 Sever.

When I get to where you pick the HD/SSD it is telling me.

"the Amount of free space on the Selected partition is Smaller than 165,959 Mb  ( 166 GB ). ect ect "

Few notes. 

I have already had installed win10pro64  and have CD key attached to it before ... was thinking I did it with this same drive (Brand / Version )  ADATA SU800 120gb ... But I am not sure its been a few months .. and I have so many drives going on right now.


Anyhow ... any know anything about this ?

When I googled it ... I see something about Cisco servers .. and that the HD size is based on how much ram you have installed   Have 144gb of ram on server....

Server Spces
2x X5670s 2x 6c x HT =24Threads 2.933ghz
144gb ECC DDR3 133 (18 x 8GB)

2x LSI HBA, Sata 3 PCIe , G710, 2x Quad NiC.
3x 3tb NAS drives, ... A bunch of drives ... all for VMs / FreeNAS ect ect...  
(all drives are not attached when installing this windows 10 )
only 120gb SSD is installed 

( before you say anything about why am I installing windows on this ... it will be dual boot, Main use is ESXi VM server ... however I want A pure windows boot for Handbrake and A few other threaded Apps)


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## Batou1986 (May 12, 2017)

That's a weird one I assume you tried formatting the drive as blank with no partitions, if your trying to multi partition the drive install windows first then re size and add partitions as you like.
Windows installer is real pissy with partitions and being able to make its own randomly sized recovery partition.

The only other thing i can think of is its trying to make a pagefile as big as the ram which would be insane but with windows 10 who knows.


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## eidairaman1 (May 12, 2017)

What SSD?

Storage makers measure in Gigabytes still, ram makers and MS still measure in Gibibytes/Mebibytes.


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## neko77025 (May 12, 2017)

Batou1986 said:


> that's a weird one i assumed you tried formatting the drive as blank with no partitions, the only thing i can think of is its trying to make a pagefile as big as the ram which would be insane but with windows 10 who knows.



After first try , I ran it threw Partted magic and  Cleared it all out and refromatted , still did not work ... reformatted it on my PC... nothing ... windows is telling me I need 165gb min.



eidairaman1 said:


> What SSD?
> 
> Storage makers measure in Gigabytes still, ram makers and MS still measure in Gibibytes/Mebibytes.



ADATA SU800 120gb



New info,  So I put the drive in my PC and started to install windows to it ... worked fine zero issues .. did not ask for 165gb ...   So I am sure the drive is good and works.

going too .. uninstall some ram and see if I can get it to install... ...  think I will do 8 x 12 ... 96g ... and see .


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## alucasa (May 12, 2017)

I have mine (Win 10) installed on 128gb Evo 840 fine.

I have had Win 7 and 8 installed on 64gb SSD as well.

I had Win 7 on 32gb SSD once some years ago when SSD was still costing a lot.


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## eidairaman1 (May 12, 2017)

Physical Memory Limits: Windows 10
*Limit on X64*
Windows 10 Enterprise 2TB
Windows 10 Education 2TB
Windows 10 Pro 2TB
Windows 10 Home 128GB

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-specifications.

Something dawned on me about this, the Hibernation File tends to equal the amount of ram the system has, if that amount of ram is greater than the SSD size, that can be a problem, this is possible.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/much-space-need-run-windows-10/

if there is a way to prevent hibernation setup from occurring that may fix it...

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3120262/upgrading-windows-windows-small-ssd.html

I wonder if that file size can be shrunk down or is configurable for it


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## Batou1986 (May 12, 2017)

eidairaman1 said:


> Something dawned on me about this, the Hibernation File tends to equal the amount of ram the system has, if that amount of ram is greater than the SSD size, that can be a problem, this is possible.


seems legit
thanks microsoft


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## alucasa (May 12, 2017)

eidairaman1 said:


> Something dawned on me about this, the Hibernation File tends to equal the amount of ram the system has, if that amount of ram is greater than the SSD size, that can be a problem, this is possible.
> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/much-space-need-run-windows-10/



Interesting. I may have a chance to test this once I fill up my rig's RAM slots. I got 6 more RAM slots to fill.


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## newtekie1 (May 12, 2017)

This has to do with Hibernation.  The more RAM you have, the more space it needs to create the hiberfile.sys to allow hibernation and fast boot to work.  If you have 144GB of RAM, Windows requires 144GB of free space on the system drive to hibernate.

The trick I use is to take some RAM out, install the OS with as little RAM as possible to boot the computer.  Once you are in Windows, use the command line to disable hibernation.  Turn off fast boot too.  Then install all the RAM back in the computer.


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## Duality92 (May 12, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> This has to do with Hibernation.  The more RAM you have, the more space it needs to create the hiberfile.sys to allow hibernation and fass boot to work.  If you have 144GB of RAM, Windows requires 144GB of free space on the system drive to hibernate.
> 
> The trick I use is to take some RAM out, install the OS with as little RAM as possible to boot the computer.  Once you are in Windows, use the command line to disable hibernation.  Turn off fast boot too.  Then install all the RAM back in the computer.



Was just gonna say this. Also, windows often bases your page file size based on how much RAM you have. In combination with hibernation, that's why you're getting this.


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## DeathtoGnomes (May 12, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> This has to do with Hibernation.  The more RAM you have, the more space it needs to create the hiberfile.sys to allow hibernation and fass boot to work.  If you have 144GB of RAM, Windows requires 144GB of free space on the system drive to hibernate.
> 
> The trick I use is to take some RAM out, install the OS with as little RAM as possible to boot the computer.  Once you are in Windows, use the command line to disable hibernation.  Turn off fast boot too.  Then install all the RAM back in the computer.


neat trick, good to know when installing windows on those 60Gb SSDs.


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## newtekie1 (May 12, 2017)

DeathtoGnomes said:


> neat trick, good to know when installing windows on those 60Gb SSDs.



Hah, I have it installed on a 32GB...


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## GreiverBlade (May 12, 2017)

ohhh interesting thread, question and answer (thanks @newtekie1 and @eidairaman1  )

i have my Win10 on my 120gb SSD but for the next install/build i would gladly use my 60gb SSD and keep the 120 for a little more than "just 1 game" 


orrrr i could buy a 480gb to replace my 60gb ...


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## neko77025 (May 12, 2017)

So last night I did remove 6 sticks of ram and it would install with 96gb.  ran updates ect ect .. shut down comp and reinstalled the ram.  It would not boot after the ram was installed.   (this was all pre the last few post info) .. So i was sure I would need an SSD > the ram amount.  So I just ordered A 256gb SSD and moved the 120gb to VM use.

I did not try " Once you are in Windows, use the command line to disable hibernation. Turn off fast boot too. Then install all the RAM back in the computer. " ... Have already ordered the SSD and to take the ram in / out of this system is A bitch .. ... have to removed 3x plastic shrouds and one of the CPU heatsinks , to remove one of the Fans to remove some of the ram. ....


But thank you everyone,  never new that about windows.


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## OneMoar (May 12, 2017)

set page file to manual is all you needed todo

you can configure it with the windows setup xml
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749585(v=ws.10).aspx


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## RejZoR (May 14, 2017)

That's weird. I never had problems installing Windows 10 Pro on my laptop with 128GB Crucial M4.


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## newtekie1 (May 14, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> That's weird. I never had problems installing Windows 10 Pro on my laptop with 128GB Crucial M4.



I'm just going out on a limb and guessing your laptop doesn't have 144GB of RAM in it either.


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## alucasa (May 14, 2017)

Never had more than 16gb of RAM in my whole life so far.
Going to break that record soon though. Ran out of memory two times this year, so it looks like 32gb is going to be my new record soon.


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## RejZoR (May 14, 2017)

Install without most the RAM, disable/decrease pagefile and stick all the RAM back. Some fiddling but you should be done in few minutes then.


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## newtekie1 (May 15, 2017)

Yeah, we kind of went over that already.


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## yotano211 (May 15, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> Hah, I have it installed on a 32GB...


32gb, I have windows installed on a 16gb m.2 card, its win 10 pro on a mining machine. The m.2 card was used for some chromebook it went on a mining rig since it leaves less wires.


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## RejZoR (May 15, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> Yeah, we kind of went over that already.



There are 3 files that depend on RAM size. Pagefile, swap file and hibernation file. If none of this affects it, it's clearly an unpredicted bug because scenarios like this are rather unlikely.


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## newtekie1 (May 15, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> There are 3 files that depend on RAM size. Pagefile, swap file and hibernation file. If none of this affects it, it's clearly an unpredicted bug because scenarios like this are rather unlikely.



And the only one of those with a large required size is the Hiberfil.sys, there has to be enough space on the system drive for hiberfil.sys to be the same size as the amount of RAM in the system.  The pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys will be adjusted as necessary to fit on the system drive, the minimum allowed being 16MB.  Contrary to popular belief, modern versions of Windows do not create a pagefile that is the same size as the amount of RAM in the computer.  For example, Windows 10 when installed on my system with 32GB of RAM created a pagefile that was just a little over 4GB in size.

The problem is hibernation.  We've already addressed this in the thread.  We've already advised that the OP remove some RAM when installing Windows. There is no need to adjust page file size, Windows will handle this automatically.  So I'm not sure what you're adding to the thread.


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## FreedomEclipse (May 15, 2017)

Remember the days when 8-16mb system ram used to be all the rage??


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## R0H1T (May 15, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> And the only one of those with a large required size is the Hiberfil.sys, there has to be enough space on the system drive for hiberfil.sys to be the same size as the amount of RAM in the system.  The pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys will be adjusted as necessary to fit on the system drive, the minimum allowed being 16MB.  Contrary to popular belief, modern versions of Windows do not create a pagefile that is the same size as the amount of RAM in the computer.  For example, Windows 10 when installed on my system with 32GB of RAM created a pagefile that was just a little over 4GB in size.
> 
> The problem is *hibernation*.  We've already addressed this in the thread.  We've already advised that the OP remove some RAM when installing Windows. There is no need to adjust page file size, Windows will handle this automatically.  So I'm not sure what you're adding to the thread.


You can always reduce the hiberfil size, 40% (of total RAM) is the lowest IIRC with *win10* though I don't remember hibernation being turned ON by default anytime I've done a fresh installation.
Then again I always reduce the hiberfil & pagefile size before the first reboot.


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## newtekie1 (May 15, 2017)

R0H1T said:


> You can always reduce the hiberfil size, 40% (of total RAM) is the lowest IIRC with *win10* though I don't remember hibernation being turned ON by default anytime I've done a fresh installation.
> Then again I always reduce the hiberfil & pagefile size before the first reboot.



The size of the hiberfil.sys file will vary.  Windows only uses as much as it actually needs to save all the contents actually in memory.  However, it requires there to be enough free space on the system drive to allow hiberfil.sys to be equal in size to the amount of memory installed in the system when you are installing Windows.

It is always on be default on both Windows 8 and 10.  It is how fast start up works, which is also on by default.


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## R0H1T (May 15, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> The size of the hiberfil.sys file will vary.  Windows only uses as much as it actually needs to save all the contents actually in memory.  However, it requires there to be enough free space on the system drive to allow hiberfil.sys to be equal in size to the amount of memory installed in the system when you are installing Windows.
> 
> It is always on be default on both Windows 8 and 10.  It is how fast start up works, which is also on by default.


That's why restricting the size of hiberfil is a good idea, Windows will not exceed the allocation size.

That might be true for desktops, the last few installs I did on a laptop always had hibernation turned off by default. The next time I do a reintsall or fresh installation I'll be sure to take a SS.


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## trog100 (May 15, 2017)

my entire C drive weighs in at just over 39 gig used space with loads of app installed and junk on my desktop.. a virgin windows install without disk space set aside for page and hibernation files is less than 20 gig.. 

i have my page file turned off.. but its interesting to know that if you have huge amounts of ram windows wants huge amounts of disk space to set aside for its imaginary page file.. 

the fact my system works fine with its pagefile turned off (its been off for the last 10 years or so) confirms to me that it never uses its pagefile.. it does like to set aside disk space based on installed ram size just in case it ever needs to though.. if it ever needs to use its pagefile its just a sign a system needs more of the real stuff.. a disk based page file does keep a system going but pretty slowly.. he he

windows virtual memory is limited only by free disk space.. but the machine would be that slow it would be useless.. 

i do have windows 10 installed on an 8 inch tablet.. it only has a 32 gig solid state drive and 2 gigs of memory.. the tablet was originally a dual boot machine android or windows 10.. i am assuming i am going to have problems with the next win 10 major update.. i had problems with the last one finding enough free space for it to install.. 

trog


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## newtekie1 (May 15, 2017)

R0H1T said:


> That's why restricting the size of hiberfil is a good idea, Windows will not exceed the allocation size.
> 
> That might be true for desktops, the last few installs I did on a laptop always had hibernation turned off by default. The next time I do a reintsall or fresh installation I'll be sure to take a SS.



It is always enabled, it just might not give you the option on the start menu.

And if you are going to limit the size, I'd rather just disable hibernation completely.  I don't really see much point in limiting the size over just disabling it.


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