2 HDD's, different beasts, what to do?

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ANIR0X2K00L

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Mar 10, 2013
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Okay so I have 2 HDD's, the first is Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB and the second is Seagate Barracude 7200.12 500 GB. The barracuda is around 5 years old and the seagate is around 2 years old.

I need 3 things, windows , games and storage for movies and other data.

I don't want to partition the drives and I can't buy an SSD as of now. So where should I install windows, where should I install games, and where should I store stuff.

The thing is that though the seagate is older, it gives higher sustained throughput so I am inclining to install either windows and games on it and store my data on the caviar black or install windows on the seagate and install games and storage on the black.

What do you guys recommend for fast boot times, fast loading times in games and reliability of data? I play heavy games like Battlefield 4 which really need data throughput for loading.

As of now my system lags when it boots for quite a long time and performing search in the start menu takes time to load. Right now I have windows and games on the black and storage on the barracuda and black.

tl: dr what to install where?
 
Solution
H
Windows may get sluggish over time due to background applications that accumulate if left unchecked. Also due to disk data fragmentation. You can defrag your drive(s) and it may make it snappier.

Merging partitions: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/19b60bc3-86a2-45d1-b2b5-16f9f3671a2b/how-to-merge-partitions-in-windows-7-

Also you might want to get a new graphics card if you play demanding games at 1080p or higher.
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geofelt

geofelt

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Oct 9, 2006
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I would not bother changing anything until you can buy a ssd for windows.

All hard drives perform about the same.
A ssd is 50x faster in random I/O which is what the os does most of the time.
A ssd is 2-3x faster in sequential.

Your windows install current ly in the 1tb drive is likely positioned near the denser outer rings where seek time is a bit less.
From a performance point of view with hard drives, that is the best you can do.
 
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huilun02

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Feb 29, 2008
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I'd put just the OS and games on the Seagate, so at any point in time all of its loading speed will be dedicated to your games and OS while booting.

And everything else on the WD Black, even for temporary download, browser cache and libraries.

That's what I did for my Plextor SSD and WD Black, so as to keep SSD write cycles to a minimum and dedicate its speed to games.

Although it's not going to be as effective with two mechanical drives.
 
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ANIR0X2K00L

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Mar 10, 2013
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The thing is that as of now my windows install doesn't fell smooth, I remember when I just had the barracuda and ran windows 7 how much smooth my system was. So I thought something must give and I gotta replan how I use these drives.

It can't be anything else since I have an i7 4770k, 8 gigs ram and an hd 7770. Really doesn't fell good when windows lags when you got top end CPU.

Ill do what you said and hope it fixes it, the only thing that makes me rethink is that I spent quite a lot of money on the black which is built for performance and using it just for storage feels a waste.

and btw how do I reverse the partitioning I did with my black, I divided it into a 700 gig and 300 gig partition and i want to make it a single 1 tb solution.
 
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huilun02

Splendid
Feb 29, 2008
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Windows may get sluggish over time due to background applications that accumulate if left unchecked. Also due to disk data fragmentation. You can defrag your drive(s) and it may make it snappier.

Merging partitions: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/19b60bc3-86a2-45d1-b2b5-16f9f3671a2b/how-to-merge-partitions-in-windows-7-

Also you might want to get a new graphics card if you play demanding games at 1080p or higher.
 
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