Optimal Partioning!

[NosBoost300]

okay... i've tried a bunch of different ways of working w/ my 2 hard drives

-250gb caviar
carries media files and windows vista... 2 partitions, windows vista, and then the media files
-74gb raptor
carries games and windows xp (1 partition)

now this setup has sucked.. lol, so i'm wondering something better to do... what i was thinking.. was creating 3 partition on my caviar... 1 for xp 1 for vista and 1 for my media

while the raptor is just run as completely games.. because i've come to find.. games eat a CRAPLOAD of space nowadays... when 1 game takes up about 3 gigs... thats insane!! then we got Steam.... and i have just about every HL game ever made.. including the old originals.. that too takes up a hefty amount...

anyway... does anyone have any better ideas.. or does mine sound okay?

i've always had my games on the raptor.. so i don't really know the difference between load-up times on the raptor and on the caviar...

but i have had my operating system on both.. and having it on the raptor did make a bit of a time difference... less bars loading windows.. thats pretty much it.. so i'm willing to toss that out...

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Is there any particular reason why you need both XP and Vista? I'd personally say put XP and Vista on the 74GB and all the media files on one big partition on the 250. That way you don't have to worry about media getting lost should your OS drive break (considering it gets much more wear as the computer constantly reads the OS files). You can install Windows programs on any Windows partition, so if the 74GB isn't enough for your games (which I think is totally insane, yes games take up a lot, but you must have a serious load of games to take out a whole HDD with them), then you can install them on the media drive (it will make a folder called Program Files on the media drive).

 

[NosBoost300]

i want xp as my regular user.. and vista, because i wanna play some dx10 games.. such as bioshock and crysis.. and a few select others that are gonna be coming out...

dx10 is the only reason i choose to keep vista...

 

[CrazeD]

Lol, a game that takes 3GB is a lot??? Medal of Honor Airborne takes 10GB, I believe. Call of Duty 4 takes around the same.

 

[NosBoost300]

holy dear jesus... actually i expected that.. seeing as the demo was 1.5gb or something like that... ya.. games are getting insane.. i should just buy a new hdd for games.. lol

 

[Trotter]

Yeah, split the Raptor for the OSs, and use the other for everything else. Make three partitions on the WD... one for XP games, one for Vista games, and one for media. On second thought, you might want to invest in more hard drives...

 

[veedubfreak]

Gears of war was 12 gig *cries*

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I don't really see the point in 3 partitions. If you install each game on only one OS, then they shouldn't conflict with each other. If you do install on both OS'es, then it should also work because both registries would have the information pointing to the same spot. One big open partition means that you don't have to worry about resizing should a new Vista game need to occupy some space in your XP partition or whatever. If you're going to be playing games exceeding 10GB though, maybe you will eventually need a new HDD. However, 250/10 is still 25 games...25 really insanely big games...so you have a while to go before you need another...unless you have a lot of media.

 

[Trotter]

Separation is a good thing, especially when you start messing with multiple OS.

 

[veedubfreak]

Ya, right now i'm running 2 160gb drives, and when i switch over to vista next week, im actually going to have to do some cleanup to make enough room on the data drive to use it for a vista dual boot. All these freaking games are huge now and taking up all my space.