best configuration for these two hd's ?

[hooligun]

well, what i really need, i think, is a link to some guide or something so i can learn all about the options etc. but anyway, in the meantime; how should i configure my two drives, in terms of partitions and where the o/s should be in relation to the page file and so on?

1. Seagate/Maxtor 10gb 5800 rpm_______2. IBM DTLA 30gb 7200rpm

currently they are both NTSF and winxp is on #1 with swap file on #2

thanks in advance ;]

:afro:

[Thoric]

i would use the 30gb 7200rpm drive for your OS and programs, the faster speed would be better than the 10gb.

im not sure if having the pagefile on a seperate drive is any more beneficial...this is how i would do it:

8gb - winxp and programs
the remaining 32gb (22+10) for games/programs/music etc...

[smokin_pc]

those arnt the best hd in the world, but u can play around with it.

make two 3gb portions and one 4gb portion in ur 10gb HD. then,u can use teh 3 gb portion for linux, while the 4 gb for windows and backup. then, for the 20 gb, make a 5gb portion for games (5-8 games) 4gb for backup and 21gb for normal use.

[Mista K6]

What's the benefit of having seperate paritions? I always wondered that. But, if you do alot of gaming, I think your first set up was the best you have hooligun. Keeping the OS on the slower drive will free up the faster drive for games. Also, keeping the pagefile on a seperate from the OS is very beneficial, especially when it's on the gaming drive. However, it is imperitived that you leave a small, say 20-50MB page file on the OS drive, as if your system goes under extreme load, that will save you OS drive if it needs it. Right now I have my 60GB for system w/ a 50MB page file, and my 160GB for games (it has an 8MB buffer), with a 1024MB page file on it. Games load fast and I can transfer data very quickly with this set up: it works very well :thumb:. : peace2: Mista K6

[hooligun]

thanks for posting.
thoric, i had suspected that o/s might be better off on faster drive but its full of games and i'm not sure how to go about installing it under those conditions.
mista K6, you read my mind? ;] it's all about the games ;] thanks for the tip about the secondary pagefile, i guess i just use the regular method to create it? SystemProperties/Advanced etc etc? OK i just did it ;] :thumb:: peace2:

anyone got pointers on the benefit of partitions etc. ?

:afro:

[Thoric]

partitions are essential these days, having all your OS/games/music/movies etc all on the one partition isnt a smart idea.

i find the greatest advantage is if you want to reformat, it saves you moving all your music and files to another computer; you can just put them on a seperate partition and reformat your OS partition. this saves heaps of time and screwing around.

another one is security, but i think data safety is the main advantage.

[Mista K6]

Yah, but the only time I've ever re-formated is when I lost my old drive... so how does that help? :?: . Right now, I did the default on my HDD when I reformated (I think it was 4kb paritions?). J/w, not like I would lose my data to do it, but are there any performance benefits from having seperate paritions? Is there any good guide on paritions, it seems like it could provide some good reading. Sry for all the questions, I'm j/w, thx, : peace2: Mista K6

[fredvon4]

http://www.storagereview.com/

Has a lot of good advice on formating, partitions, stripe size, cluster size, file system choices and why (FAT 16, 32, NTFS)

Read any of the reviews of modern drives here on this site or any of half a dozen more and you can get a good idea what the newest standards and best methods are.

Generally speaking when you partition a 40GB drive into 4 seperate 10GB partitions, C:\, D:\, E:\, and F:\ the C partition will be the outer ring of the disk platter and have a higher through put as opposed to the F:\ partition.

Also if you have your OS in C:\ as is customery and necessary to boot, and have much of your frequently accessed data and swap file in the F:\ partition, then your drive will slow down considerably as the heads are forced to do FULL STROKE seeking for the files. If your swap is on another drive AND channel it will be faster, but if your two drives are master/slave on same channel then there is no reason to put the swap on a different drive.

As you can see there are many factors that go into determining what is best of fastest.

The type file system has an impact. I don't remember the exact math of it, but I seem to recall that with FAT 32 systems the size of the volume/patition effected the cluster size. There are many different points of view on chunck, cluster, and stripe sizes depending on the typical data file sizes that are most likely to be stored, accessed, and/ or created.

The convienience issue of seperate partitions is still valid with XP as it is still likely that over time the registry gets so full of crap the best method to get a computer straight is to reinstall the OS from scratch. A seperat C:\ partition with only OS and programs is fairly easy to wipe out and rebuild with out messing up the data files in D:\ partition.

In your case I would partition the IBM as 10GB C:\ and remaninig 20GB as D:\ and the Maxtor should be found bu BIOS to be 10 GB E:\ and I would use E:\ as my backup drive unless you are strapped for room.

[Mista K6]

The convienience issue of seperate partitions is still valid with XP as it is still likely that over time the registry gets so full of crap the best method to get a computer straight is to reinstall the OS from scratch. A seperat C:\ partition with only OS and programs is fairly easy to wipe out and rebuild with out messing up the data files in D:\ partition.

That's why you get reg cleaner

It seems that, for the average user, an NTFS set up would be best, without seperate paritions on the drives. Have the two drives on different channels, OS on the slower one, games and Page file on the faster one, like I said before.

[Wiggo]

Quite frankly with that setup of ya's I'd ditch both drives and get a WD JB series HDD (both are small and slow plus both have questionable reliability, especially with the number of them that I've had to replace).

[Mista K6]

Oh yah, I just read "IBM", well that means (Your Computer) :shoot2: , as they probably have the worst track record for reliability.

[hooligun]

thanks fredvon4 and ty 4 the link ;]
wiggo, truedat, but i'm just trying to maintain a fast limp till i can build something around the 64bit AMD ;)

thanks again ladz ;]



:afro: