HardDrive setup

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Hello, I have a Maxtor Fireball 3 40Gb 5400rpm 2Mb cache drive and a Maxtor
DiamondMax Plus 9 160Gb 7200rpm 8Mb drive. I'm running Windows XP
Professional SP1 using NTFS filing system.

Currently the 40Gb is my main drive, set up as the master on the primary IDE
channel, I have a LiteOn CDRW set up as the slave on the primary channel. I
later on bought the 160Gb drive and hooked it up as the master on the
secondary channel, and the slave has not been hooked up yet but I have a
DVDROM drive I want to connect into the system.

As the 160GB drive is new, its empty except i have set up the virtual memory
to have the swap file on a different drive from the system disk. The system
is in bad need of a complete reformat. My question is what is the best way
to set up my drives to get the best performance potential?

I'm not that worried about games performance, but I'll need acceptable
performance for video editing (Adobe Premiere), audio production
software(Sibelius 2), graphics programs such as Adobe Photoshop 7 and
AutoCAD. It's also used for everyday stuff like MS office, emails internet
and multimedia.

--Should I install XP onto the 40Gb drive then partition the 160GB for
documents/music/virtual memory/programs games etc? Or should I use the
faster drive for the programs and system files then use the slower,smaller
disk for documents?

--Should I change the way I've the harddrives on separate IDE channels, I've
a feeling having the CDRW as a slave may be slowing down my system somehow.

Can someone please point me in the right the direction as I can't seem to
work out the best configuration!

Thanks for your time!
Jake

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

oh and I'm running an AMD XP2600+ on a Gigabyte GA-7VT600(-L) mobo with
768MB PC2700 RAM.

Cheers,
Jake

 

[scotoma]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

"J Bailey" <jbailey@redhotant.com> wrote in message
news:ceo4e4$4aa$1@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Hello, I have a Maxtor Fireball 3 40Gb 5400rpm 2Mb cache drive and a
Maxtor
> DiamondMax Plus 9 160Gb 7200rpm 8Mb drive. I'm running Windows XP
> Professional SP1 using NTFS filing system.
>
> Currently the 40Gb is my main drive, set up as the master on the primary
IDE
> channel, I have a LiteOn CDRW set up as the slave on the primary channel.
I
> later on bought the 160Gb drive and hooked it up as the master on the
> secondary channel, and the slave has not been hooked up yet but I have a
> DVDROM drive I want to connect into the system.
>
> As the 160GB drive is new, its empty except i have set up the virtual
memory
> to have the swap file on a different drive from the system disk. The
system
> is in bad need of a complete reformat. My question is what is the best way
> to set up my drives to get the best performance potential?
>
> I'm not that worried about games performance, but I'll need acceptable
> performance for video editing (Adobe Premiere), audio production
> software(Sibelius 2), graphics programs such as Adobe Photoshop 7 and
> AutoCAD. It's also used for everyday stuff like MS office, emails internet
> and multimedia.
>
> --Should I install XP onto the 40Gb drive then partition the 160GB for
> documents/music/virtual memory/programs games etc? Or should I use the
> faster drive for the programs and system files then use the slower,smaller
> disk for documents?
>
> --Should I change the way I've the harddrives on separate IDE channels,
I've
> a feeling having the CDRW as a slave may be slowing down my system
somehow.
>
> Can someone please point me in the right the direction as I can't seem to
> work out the best configuration!
>
> Thanks for your time!
> Jake
>
>
>
Hi

Fastest HD primary master, slowest HD primary slave. RW as secondary master,
CDROM as secondary slave.
Use the primary master HD for the system and make seperate partitions for
the OS, audio software files, photoshop files, Premiere video files and
whatever else you need to backup incase the OS fails. Plan the sizes of the
partitons to match your needs. Use the slowest HD for office docs etc and
also as a backup of rendered/completed projects. Still backup to removable
storage!
I'm not sure if using your slowest drive (UDMA speed??, RPM, 2MB cache) with
a dedicated partition containing a sysetm swap file would be better than a
dedicated partion on the system drive (UDMA speed??, RPM, 8MB cache)
containing a system swap file.Whatever way, add 33% (rough estimate!) to the
size of swap file to get the size of the partition as some defrag tools need
breathing room to defrag a swap file.

Scotoma

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

"J Bailey" <jbailey@redhotant.com> wrote in
news:ceo4e4$4aa$1@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk:

> --Should I install XP onto the 40Gb drive then partition the 160GB for
> documents/music/virtual memory/programs games etc?

Nope.

Or should I use the
> faster drive for the programs and system files then use the
> slower,smaller disk for documents?

Yes but personally I would ditch the 5400rpm 40Gb drive completely (put
it away in the emergency bits'n'bobs box) - or use it mainly for very
static files / ghost images and backups only.

Put everything on your main drive with say a 20G first partition (for XP)
(*)

and then chop the rest into at least two partitions maybe more (depending
on how you work) to make better use of disc sector space.
Set page file to be a fixed size on the big drive as soon as XP has
installed and before you install any other programs or service packs etc.

(*) As you do video editing make C: large enough for the way you work. I
generally configure most apps to write big files to a different
partition, and try to keep C: as reasonably small as possible, but if you
dont do this then your C partition may have to be bigger.

Lordy

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

You would be FAR better off if you did NOT use the Fireball 3 at all. It is
slowwwing your system down too much, and you do not need the 40GB of space
since you have the 160GB drive.

--
DaveW



"J Bailey" <jbailey@redhotant.com> wrote in message
news:ceo4e4$4aa$1@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Hello, I have a Maxtor Fireball 3 40Gb 5400rpm 2Mb cache drive and a
Maxtor
> DiamondMax Plus 9 160Gb 7200rpm 8Mb drive. I'm running Windows XP
> Professional SP1 using NTFS filing system.
>
> Currently the 40Gb is my main drive, set up as the master on the primary
IDE
> channel, I have a LiteOn CDRW set up as the slave on the primary channel.
I
> later on bought the 160Gb drive and hooked it up as the master on the
> secondary channel, and the slave has not been hooked up yet but I have a
> DVDROM drive I want to connect into the system.
>
> As the 160GB drive is new, its empty except i have set up the virtual
memory
> to have the swap file on a different drive from the system disk. The
system
> is in bad need of a complete reformat. My question is what is the best way
> to set up my drives to get the best performance potential?
>
> I'm not that worried about games performance, but I'll need acceptable
> performance for video editing (Adobe Premiere), audio production
> software(Sibelius 2), graphics programs such as Adobe Photoshop 7 and
> AutoCAD. It's also used for everyday stuff like MS office, emails internet
> and multimedia.
>
> --Should I install XP onto the 40Gb drive then partition the 160GB for
> documents/music/virtual memory/programs games etc? Or should I use the
> faster drive for the programs and system files then use the slower,smaller
> disk for documents?
>
> --Should I change the way I've the harddrives on separate IDE channels,
I've
> a feeling having the CDRW as a slave may be slowing down my system
somehow.
>
> Can someone please point me in the right the direction as I can't seem to
> work out the best configuration!
>
> Thanks for your time!
> Jake
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Thanks for your replies!
Both drives are Ultra-ATA/133Mhz and are running at UDMA mode 6, the CDRW
running at UDMA mode 2.
I assume its possible to create, say a 20Gb partition solely for XP on C:,
and then specify a different location (perhaps on a different partition or
physical drive) for XP to create and store the Documents and Settings
folder? Also a partition solely for program files? Should i create the VM
Swapfile partition to be big enough to allow Photoshop etc to use it as a
scratchdisk aswell as XP using it for the swapfile?

Is there a choice during XP installation that will allow me to do this? And
I guess that means I should plan and partition the 160Gb drive now BEFORE
installing XP onto it? Thinking it'd look something like:

A:FLOPPY
B:FLOPPY

-Main 160GB Drive (Primary Master)-
C: XP Drive
D: Program Files
E: VM Swapfile & Temp ScratchDisk


-Secondary 40GB Drive (Primary Slave)-
F: Documents and Settings
G: Finished Projects & Backup


H: CDRW
I: DVDROM
Or else leave out the 40Gb drive and put F & G on the 160 drive, as
suggested using the 40Gb for periodic backup...
Thats alotta drives to remember lol but dnt think it'd b a problem once i
got used to it!

any tips appreciated!
Jake

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

I'm just looking through the Disk Management console, whats all this stuff
about Dynamic and Basic Disks? Should I just keep it as a Basic disk for my
needs?

sorry for the repeat postings
Jake

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

On Wed, 4 Aug 2004 01:05:25 +0100, "J Bailey" <jbailey@redhotant.com>
wrote:

| I'm just looking through the Disk Management console, whats all this stuff
| about Dynamic and Basic Disks? Should I just keep it as a Basic disk for my
| needs?

Yes! Bringing "Dynamic" into the mix can foul things up more than you
have any idea.

Larc



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