Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > Hard Disks > Performance Set Up - 2 Drives -Non RAID

Performance Set Up - 2 Drives -Non RAID

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - Performance Set Up - 2 Drives -Non RAID

Tom's Hardware: Over 1.4 million members in 6 different countries available to answer all your high-tech questions. Sign up now! Its free!
Ask the community Add a reply
Word :    Username :           
 
Robot1501   03-21-2008 at 11:44:17 PM

Hi First time poster, long time reader.

I recently built a gaming system(e6750, P5KC, 2gb, 8800gt), which i have networked with my 360 and for which my hard drive(320GB) is very rapidly filling up.... I regularly game while my girlfriend streams data from the same 320 GB drive to the xbox360 and it works flawlessly. So today, I treated myself to a new 500 GB seagate 7200.11 drive to accommodate our library.

Now my question is the following.

What is the best way to set up my system, from a performance perspective (remember the gaming!) given that I have two physical drives...

Some recommend separating the OS from programs and files, but my research on this yields contrasting opinions...

1. OS on One Drive (320) - Programs and Files on another (500)
2. OS and Programs on One Drive (320) - Files on Another (500)
3. OS and Programs on One Drive (320) - Files and PAGESYS file on Another (500)
4. Something else .....

I know i could RAID0 it (too risky and too lazy to spend the time) or have purchased a raptor, but i couldn't bring myself to purchase a raptor given that in the next year or two i should be able to get a 32GB SSD.

Given my current set up... What would you do to optimize overall system speed and performance?

Thanks again.

Robot1501

Add a reply
Sponsored Links
Register or log in to remove.
geofelt   03-22-2008 at 12:21:33 AM
- 0 +

The basic principle is to separate the activity to different drives. In your case, try to arrange it so that the streaming data is on a different drive from the one that your games use.

Things change, so optimizing is probably a useless activity. I would probably pick option 3.

Reply to geofelt
Robot1501   03-22-2008 at 01:33:05 AM
- 0 +

Option 3 was what i had planned on doing...

I question if the pagefile.sys transfer to another drive will have an noticeable impact. Ideally game map load times would decrease, but i don`t think that will happen under this set up.

Robot1501

Reply to Robot1501
ZOldDude   03-22-2008 at 02:08:21 AM
- 0 +

Let the GF use the old drive and use the 7200.11 yourself.
Install the OS and set the PF to 2GB (4GB if you installed Vista)...then install the OS updates.
Use TuneUp Utilities 2008 to clean up registry and defrag the registry...then use it to defrag the HD.

Now that the OS and PF are both on the fastest part of the HD go ahead and install whatever you want.
The 7200.11 reads and writes faster than just about anything under 15K rpm (even a Raptor) and Tigerdirrect has them onsale for $99 (500GB + 32MB cashe) this week if you want to pick another one up.


Message edited by ZOldDude on 03-22-2008 at 02:19:20 AM
------------------------------ *While we crash and burn, small, low tech, agrarian societies such as the Hmong in the mountains of Laos will continue on without so much as blinking an eye.*
 Reply to ZOldDude
Robot1501   03-22-2008 at 03:15:23 PM
- 0 +

Thanks for your suggestion...

So if I am to understand you...

Using a single 7200.11 Drive optimized with this tune up software will be faster than using 2 drives (7200.11 and a 7200.10) as a result of the 7200.10 being slower...

This is where i have difficulty understanding what will actually work the best. There does not seem to be a consensus on the best way to do this.

I will give this a shot!

Robot1501

Reply to Robot1501
Ask the community Add a reply
Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > Hard Disks > Performance Set Up - 2 Drives -Non RAID
Go to:

There are 1001 identified and unidentified users. To see the list of identified users, Click here.

Forum map
Bestofmedia Forum ©
2000-2009 Bestofmedia Group
Page generated in 0.320 seconds
Please mind

You are about to answer a thread that has been inactive for more than 6 months.
If you still wish to proceed, please ensure that your posting is original and does not duplicate or overlap any prior responses to this thread.

Add a reply Cancel
Sponsored links
  • Ask the community now
  • Publish
Ad
Related Topics
See all relatives topics
They won a badge
Join us in greeting them