I am planning on building a new computer. I am going to install arch linux. I am going to use a samsung 512gb 950 pro SSD. My question is, how should I partition it? What should the partition sizes be?

How are you planning on using it?

It's like asking: 'how should I design my new house?' Crazy-me does 1 huge room! (all /)
But this web-search turns up a lot: arch linux ssd partition sizes
(I vaguely remember reading concerns unique to SSD [vs. old hdd]; LQgurus' comments?)
Congrats on nice new system! Best wishes & ENJOY!

I am going to use it for everything. It is going to be the only drive in the computer.

Arch is a little different from other Linux distributions. You must read the documentation if you want to have a positive experience!

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Partitioning
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...rtition_scheme

Enjoy!

Couldn't I just use one main partition? I want it to show up as one drive, not multiple drives because it is one drive. If I need to separate files, I will just create folders. Do I need a swap partition? What is it for? I want it to just show up as one drive and I want to have everything on it. I will not be dual booting, so I want to make all of the space on that drive available.

Your questions suggest you have not read the must-read Arch Linux documentation. I'll cut and paste a few excerpts that answer your specific questions (but I encourage you to read the rest).

How big should I make the swap partition of I have 64 gb of ram?

Anywhere from 0gb (no swap partition) to 128gb (twice your RAM), depending on your needs. As the Arch documentation clearly states.

Depends what you're doing but with that much ram and normal type use cases, you would never run out of ram. I have 16GB and never go into swap!!! Exception would be if you intend to "hibernate" rather than "sleep" your system. Hibernation takes the contents of ram and writes it to swap when shutting down the system. When you power up again, you can return to the state you were in before shutdown by reading the ram state from the swap partition and reconstituting it. Sleep preserves the contents of ram by supplying power to ram during sleep and shutting down everything else on your system. Hibernation does speed up the boot process from a standard hard drive but with an SSD there is no speed up advantage on boot when using hibernation.

Long story short, if you intend to use hibernation then you need a swap partition at least as large as your amount of ram. If not, I would use a minimal swap partition of 1 or 2GB and you would probably never use it. The only reason I would include it would be certain processes expect to see swap somewhere and if none is detected it may cause problems. Also, 64GB of ram seems like way overkill for most use cases; 16 to 32GB of ram is what you would normally see in most builds. Exactly what are you planning on doing with your new build and why do you think you need that much ram?

32gb of ram probably would have been fine, but 64gb was on sale for a good price. I ant to do 3d modeling for 3d printing stuff.

3d modeling/printing is ram intensive so 64GB of ram makes sense for you.

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Yea 64G ram! Google: why linux|unix swapping isn't good
*I* 'IMcrazyHO' wouldn't make a swap partition! 'TMI':
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Swap

Jump in & try ... (I'm a fan of 'just re-install' [if I change my mind] )

I want to be able to hibernate the computer. I don't want to have to re install the OS. I don't think I need a 128gb swap partition. How big should I make it? I am not sure so that is why I am asking here. How big would a distro like ubuntu or debian make the swap partition for 64gb of ram? I am just trying to get an idea of how large I should make it.

Don't use a swap partition at all. Set your system up without one (the installer may mention it but will allow it) then, if you find you manage to start to run out of RAM, set up a swap file instead based upon the experience.
As to general partitioning -- having separate / and /home allows for quick re-install without loss of setting information. However, keeping /home between installs may not be worth it.
Keeping a data partition is worth a look, so you don't erase the resuts of your work because you accidentally nuked your system, but means deciding upon a / partition size and that isn't always obvious.
So, in short, if you don't mind losing your data when reinstalling the OS then one partition mounted on / and no swap is fine.

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