Limiting disk usage

Hi, 

What can be done to limit amount of space occupied on clone and checkout? I know about shallow clone and sparse checkout, anything else? 

Preferably I would split repository into multiple repositories but I worry that working with multiple directories would be much more troublesome. But maybe I am wrong? I don't have much experience with submodules, repo tool (what else?)

Thanks 
-- 
Piotr Krukowiecki