I'm setting up a new laptop and want to work on RNA-seq and other genomic datasets in R, Python, Perl and R. I've got a 1 TB SSD and have a few days before it arrives to decide how best to partition it, and was wondering what advice anyone has on proper partition sizes should be including a recovery partition.
The preinstalled OS is Windows 8 and I'll be adding Linux Mint — there doesn't seem to be any overwhelming warnings against this distro for bioinformatics.
This isn't asking for any guidance on how to partition, just the recommended sizes for a bioinformatics machine.
Sorry if this is a basic question but I can only find advice for "video editing" and things, which I'm not sure is really compatible, and "gaming" is more graphics-oriented so I don't quite know what I'd compare "bioinformatics tools" to.
As with anything it depends what you're doing. I couldn't do my RNA-Seq work on anything other than a server with a few TB of disk space. There's a big difference between doing mammalian sized genomes with dozens of samples and doing it on prokaryotes with a few samples. So what exactly are you hoping to achieve with your laptop setup. "RNA-Seq" is not descriptive enough.
I'm an undergrad just at the half-way point in my degree so it's kind of an open question based on how my work develops, so sorry I can't be more specific. It's for getting to know bioinformatics and I know RNA-seq will be a component soon for a couple of projects that haven't been spelled out in full yet. I'll probably have access to servers if greater horsepower is necessary but ideally I want to have a good setup myself. Thanks for the feedback though, v helpful in weighing things up
These folks know everything and more. You should follow their advice.
Use an operating system, remove Windows (this laptop is for working, not for gaming right?) ;)