Hard Drive Schemes

[ilovesocks]

So, let's say you have two hard drives of equal speed and size, and you don't want to RAID them. You've got to decide where four major groups of data go: Windows, games, apps (i.e. Photoshop, Flash, Google Earth, OpenOffice.org, etc.), and storage (music files, pictures, videos, documents; anything you save). What's the best place to put what, and why? Assume you only have one program or game open at a time, and you're most concerned with game performance and application loading.

I'm guessing you'd put Windows and storage on one drive, and applications and games on the other?

Opinions?

 

[Trotter]

On the first drive, you put three partitions- one for Windows, onwe for your swap/page file, and one for aplications.

On the second, make two partitions- one for games, and one for staorage.

Keep your storage off the drive with your OS, so it is protected from an accidental reformat while reinstalling.

Oh, and I could be wrong about having two partitions on the second drive, but it made sense to do it that way.

 

[XFlamez]

i have two hard drives

first hard drive, i put windows, apps, and games

second - simply data such as movies, mp3s, and documents
you can put the ISO for games in this also

this is how i thought about it
windows you can reinstall, apps you can reinstall
games you can reinstall using the images from the second hard drive

edit: forgot to mention, i didn't partition any of them

 

[CitizenCain]

I agree with XFlamez.

Personally, I'd use one drive for storage and one drive for the apps and games and OS. That way, when windoze screws itself up (as it always will eventually), you don't have to worry about all your storage stuff - movies, music, CD images, etc when you have reinstall or format.... and if you keep all your app and game images on that storage drive, reinstalling all your stuff is easy too.

If you're looking to boost your perfornace a bit, you can always put your swapfile on the storage drive as well - that way when you're playing games or photoshoping huge files or whatever else you're doing that's going to need the swap file, one drive can be accessing your game/photoshop/etc files and the other one can be accessing your swapfile, at the same time.

IMO, it's not worth the risk of losing all those storage files by putting them on the same physical drive as windows. I keep my storage files seperate (in external firewire enclosures) and everytime I have to make a major system change or format, all I have to do is plug the firewire cables back in and all my storage is back again.

 

[chevytrucknut]

What's a swap/page file?

 

[ilovesocks]

The page file is space on your hard drive that the computer can use like RAM. You'd think there'd be no more need for it, but apparently there is, because if you look at the Performance tab in the Task Manager, you'll see some of your page file is being used. Dunno what for.

So what's wrong with, say, putting apps and Windows on one drive, and putting games and storage on another? Wouldn't games load/run faster if they're on a separate drive from Windows?

 

[CitizenCain]

So what's wrong with, say, putting apps and Windows on one drive, and putting games and storage on another? Wouldn't games load/run faster if they're on a separate drive from Windows? [/B]

Nothing wrong with it, but it seems to me like a normal home system isn't going to even put a dent in a decent sized drive with just windoze and apps on it... so you're wasting all that space by putting the games on the drive where you need the space for storage. As for performance, you think it should help putting games on a different drive, but ask yourself how often your hard drive is going to be hit for windows operation while you're playing whatever game you play. Not a whole lot, excluding the swap file. And if you put the swap file on the non-game drive, that solves your problem.

 

[ilovesocks]

Nothing wrong with it, but it seems to me like a normal home system isn't going to even put a dent in a decent sized drive with just windoze and apps on it... so you're wasting all that space by putting the games on the drive where you need the space for storage. As for performance, you think it should help putting games on a different drive, but ask yourself how often your hard drive is going to be hit for windows operation while you're playing whatever game you play. Not a whole lot, excluding the swap file. And if you put the swap file on the non-game drive, that solves your problem.

Ah, so:

1) Windows, apps, games
2) Page file, storage

Trotter, what's good about partitions? Just having separate drive letters for better organization? I don't see how it could be faster.

 

[CitizenCain]

Ah, so:

1) Windows, apps, games
2) Page file, storage

That's how I'd do it.

 

[strikermed]

I would agree with XFlamez

I'm a big adobe premier pro editor, and i use photoshop and paintshop pro... I also like to record shows with my all in wonder card.... So what you do is have one hard drive for your Windows operating systhem and all your program installs.... Then you have the second for your files... like MP3 MPEG's and Pictures... And when you set up your programs... like i do in premier, i select a scratch disk and save them all in certain folders i created.... I have a second hardrive that has about 8 folder in it, with certain catagories. and this system has worked great... YOU JUST HAVE TO REMEMBER WHERE YOU PLACED THINGS.... because you can get confused unless you organize it yourself.