Minimum space

I plan on installing XP via Bootcamp onto my MBP, since some of my production software is only for PC. What's the minimum amount of space i need for XP to run? I have an external 320 GB hard drive too, so that was what i was going to be using to install the proigrams onto. The programs aren't bery large in size, probably 500 MBs totaled up.

I believe it's 2 or 3 gig. Microsoft says 1.5 gig, but it requires more than that, thats just for minimalistic installs. Plus they leave out the allocation.

So I'd say, drop a 8 gig partition or so and you'd probably good to go

I'm sure with that, i won't even have to worry about installing the programs i want to be using on my external hard drive. I do have one question though, would that slow down the OS if i had so much space on there?