Rebuilding RIG with 2 Hard Drives - Need tips

[techhappy]

Okay, so I decided to rebuild my rig to make it a dedicated system for multimedia apps, audio editing/production. I kept hearing a lot of good things about having the OS on one hard drive and the swap file on the second drive, with the apps, etc.

Here is what I'm planning to do, in terms of partitioning, I would love to get feedback on what to do with the space on the drives. As it stands, both drives are SATA I, 7200 rpm and 8meg cache, except the Seagate 300 has NCQ:

Volume1: 200gb Maxtor SATA
C: System - 20 gigs for OS, antivirus, Norton Windoctor, Spyware, PowerISO, AnyDVD, Norton Ghost, Nero, Etc.

D: - 180 gigs left??? Not sure what to put here, should I put apps on this drive instead of the second one?

Volume 2: 300gb(278 gb when formatted) Seagate SATA

D: Swapfile - 8 gigs. 2.5 gig Exclusively for the Windows Swapfile, the rest of the space for and all temp directories that Windows Uses, including temporary Internet Files and Temp foldre for each User under Windows XP. Photoshop Scratch disk here.

E: Applications - 50 gigs(currently all my apps max out at 25 gigs, so I doubled this for expansion)

F: Data - 200 gigs My Documents folder, projects, ISO dvd backups, etc.

G: System BACKUP - 20 gigs backup of OS partition on other drive. Will probably ghost that partition to this, just in case of a problem, etc.

Thanks guys! Let me know what suggestions you have. I haven't rebuilt my system yet, but I will in a couple of days, once I sort out how to organize the data. Basically, I want to max out performance in programs, etc. by not taxing the OS with 1 hard drive.

 

[techhappy]

No one has any tips? Wow, I thought this was a fairly common thing to do in a lot of high end systems, use 2 hard drives together.

 

[kitchenshark]

My tip would be to NEVER EVER NOT IN A MILLION YEARS use any kind of partitioning.

Let me say first that the vast majority never have any problems with paritions. I, on the other hand, have never had a good parition in the past 5-6 years unless it was on Linux. Every single attempt I've made to have a partitioned hard disk has failed, complete collapse of the file system across the disk and total data loss. The disks (of all hard drive types and manufacturers over many years) always worked flawlessly as single drives, but never partitioned.

Now, for the good. I would say that you should have a single whole, unpartitioned drive for your OS and programs and your swap file on it too. This drive should be very very fast, the fastest you can afford. Some research should show either the WD Raptor, or some of the Segate models near the top. The second drive should be for your data, doesn't need to be quite as fast. One thing to remember though, if you get an uber-fast system drive, you'll want to process your video files ON the fast HDD (for hopefully obvious reasons).

EDIT: DOH! I see now you already have your HDD"s! Sorry! Anyhow, I'd still recommend against partitions. Use the faster of the two HDDs for your system/OS/Apps/Swapfile

 

[techhappy]

Thanks for the tips, I've had pretty good luck with paritions in my experience. I would try checking the cables or motherboard to pin down the partition problems you are having, basically, you should be able to do this without problems.

As to the 2 drives thoughts, isn't it better to have the swap file on the second drive? What about the programs too? It seems like there are so many ways to approach this, I would love to hear from people who have tried several different ways and found an optimal setup.

Basically, I want maximum performance from my power apps, audio/music productions programs. Also, for anyone who wants to know, both drives are the same speed SATA I, both 7200 rpm and 8meg cache, the only difference is the Seagate 300 drive has NCQ.

 

[kitchenshark]

I haven't noticed any performance difference having the swapfile on a different hdd than the OS. It's been awhile though.

The other thought I've had about the swapfile, is that you do want it on the faster drive. For simplicity I leave my swapfile on my Raptor with my OS and apps.

 

[techhappy]

Really? I keep hearing how it helps performance a lot? Ah wells, I guess I'll give it a shot, since I have so much free space on my first drive. Any idea what I should do with all that space?

Originally I wanted an 80 gig drive for the OS, but ended up with a better deal with the 200 gig.

I might have to just experiment on my own, since I was hoping to get some good feedback here. Do you know of any older posts that discuss this?

Thanks!