I recently installed Linux Mint 22.3 on a 1 TB SSD after testing it for several months. The installation currently uses one main partition plus a small EFI partition, and the drive was wiped before installation. I'd like to keep the operating system separate from my games, files, photos, and applications so that changing distributions later is easier and the system stays organized.
With Windows, I used a 100 GB system partition and a 900 GB data partition, but the system partition filled up quickly. I don't want to repeat that mistake, although Mint should use less space. What partition layout would make sense, and how much space should I allocate to Mint? Would a 100–150 GB system partition be reasonable, or is that unnecessary? Since the system is already installed, would I need to boot from a live USB to resize it? Is there anything important I'm overlooking?
3 Answers
Because Mint is already installed, resizing the active system partition generally requires booting from a live USB so the partition is not mounted. Back up anything important first, then use the partition editor from the live environment. Before resizing, check which partitions and filesystems you actually have. If you use a separate data partition, mount it somewhere such as /home or a custom folder and configure it carefully in /etc/fstab.
You don’t necessarily need separate partitions for every type of data. Linux normally organizes things into directories on the same filesystem. A separate /home partition can be useful if you expect to reinstall or switch distributions while keeping your personal files, but it isn’t a backup and it can make space management less flexible.
That was my main reason for considering separate partitions: keeping personal data available if I change distributions. I’m mostly unsure how much space Mint itself really needs.
For a typical Mint installation, 50–100 GB for the system is already plenty unless you plan to install lots of large applications there. A separate /home partition or data partition can hold personal files, but games may need hundreds of gigabytes, so don’t make the system partition so small that package caches, virtual machines, or large applications become a problem. You can also leave the drive as one large partition and organize everything with folders.
My own installation uses roughly 48 GB with plenty of software, while my home directory is around 66 GB. Games alone take over 200 GB, so the best split depends much more on what you install and store than on Mint itself.
That clears up why the installed system would not let me resize it directly. I’ll make a backup before changing anything and decide whether the extra complexity is worth it.