Search
Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Solved

New computer hard drive setup

Last response: in Storage
Share

Hey all. I build a computer recently and have finally gotten all my data backed up on carbonite. I am trying to determine how I should set up my hard drives on this system.

I have an older 80 gig 7200rpm WD hard drive and a newer 640 gig 7200rpm Seagate hard drive. A lot of what I am readying these days discourages partitions and that's fine. My previous installation with XP (by the way this is windows 7 now) was
640 gig HD
C: XP OS
D: Programs
E: Games
F: Files

80 gig HD
G: Video Archive from video editing.

I used RenkinWonder Junction Link Magic software to create Junction and Mount Points so that
'c: program files' actually mounted to 'D:'
'c: program files/games' mounted to 'E:'
the swap file and temp files and such all had a home in 'F:' so that my OS partition (which was only 4 gigs) never got larger or smaller. This way I never had to change to C:whathaveyou to d: or e: when installing programs and games. Wouldn't want to confuse the wife.

This time around I am thinking about making my 80 gig hard drive one partition with the OS and Program/Games installed on it, and the 640 hard drive to hold all the files. Probably using junction points and such again but just a single partion for each drive. Is this a good idea or should programs and games and file all be on the larger drive with just the OS on the one smaller drive. Maybe partition the smaller drive in half for OS on one and Programs and such on the other half. I would love some opinions especially as to any drawbacks I might have in using junction and mount points as well as where to put my programs and games.

More about : computer hard drive setup

Register or log in to remove

yeah i hear people say at least 40 gigs for win 7. I guess part of the question is, if OS and programs should be on same drive should i just put it all on the 640 and just use the 80 to back up some of those video files?
Storage Expert

Well, if you've got lots of programs, then yes, I'd consider using the 640 gig drive for the OS. If you don't want to use the entire drive for the OS, then you can create an OS partition on the drive around 120gig or something.
Related ressources
Ask the community

i'm using 80gb for my OS drive & programs. its about half full but i only install programs and games that i use currently. if you have an excessive amount that you want installed then yes, using the larger drive is better.

as for partitions: if you just want to store data on a different partition then go for it. i never had a single problem with doing this. however, using your program wouldnt it be just as easy for you to create artificial mycomputer items linking to subfolders? the only things i've read to watch out for is installing programs cross partition or cross drive. however, in the past i've done this without issue (until it came time to reinstall xp).

Best solution

Storage Expert

None, unless you fill the drive up. Windows performance may decrease when you get around 80%-90% full. Also, I'm not sure how much free space the Win7 defragger needs to defragment the drive, but this could become an issue once the drive gets near full.

not too worried about it. I don't have a whole lot of programs and games. Most of it is old stuff anyway that doesn't take up a lot of space. Battlefield 2 and halflife 2 primarily but MS Office. Everything else should be pretty small.
Register or log in to remove
 
Ask the community
Read discussions in other Storage categories
!