Dual Booting Ubuntu Studio & Windows 8.1 On Two Hard Drives

[Dynamata]

I have a 240GB SSD, 1TB HDD, 8GB RAM, ASUS B85-PRO GAMER MB (UEFI BIOS). I plan to install Windows 8.1 & Ubuntu Studio 16.04.1.

sda (SSD):


40 GB partition for Ubuntu
200 GB free space ( - Unallocated space at end)

sdb (Hard Drive):


500 GB partition for Windows
500 GB partition for Ubuntu Home ( - Unallocated space at end)

Does this look OK, where is the best place to locate swap & does it need to be 16GB ? I will install Windows first. An existing walk-through for this type of setup would be useful. :)

[yancek]

Dual booting windows and Ubuntu UEFI is explained in detail at the Ubuntu documentation site below. Are both drives internal drives?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

[Dynamata]

Internal via hot swap drive bays, thanks for the link. :-)

[oldfred]

With UEFI make sure drives are partitioned gpt.
Windows in UEFI mode on gpt requires several extra partitions.
I still think Windows is better as first drive, Ubuntu is more flexible except on install of grub in UEFI mode. Then grub has to install to the ESP - efi system partition on sda.

BIOS & UEFI Windows partitions, note system has totally different format & meaning between BIOS & UEFI
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn898504%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn898510%28v=vs.85%29.aspx#RecommendedPartitionCon figurations
Microsoft suggested partitions including reserved partition for gpt & UEFI:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/commercialize/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/commercialize/manufacture/desktop/windows-recovery-environment--windows-re--technical-reference
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744301%28WS.10%29.aspx
Order on drive is important: msftres
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Reserved_Partition

Make sure when connecting drives you start at SATA0 and plug drives in SATA port order. SATA0 drive will be sda.
I have skipped ports and had a DVD in between drives and had lots of issues. Device like /dev/sdb can change when plugging in flash drives and manual boot issues of which drive is hd0 and hd1 from UEFI/BIOS and grub.


One advantage of partitioning in advance is that the installer will use the swap space to speed up the install. Thanks Herman for the tip.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DiskSpace

Swap only needs to be 2 or 3GB just to have some. But it probably will never be used, if 4GB of RAM.
With 17.04 they are changing from swap partition to swap file.