Hard drive setup

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ian D. Weatherall
  • Start date Start date
I

Ian D. Weatherall

Hello,
I have recently purchased a new 160Gb 7200rpm 8mb cache HDD, and have a
question concerning performance when used in conjunction with another 40Gb
7200 2mb cache drive.
I intended to use the smaller drive as the system drive and the larger drive
as storage, but I wont get the performance of the bigger cache setting
things up this way.
Am I correct?
Regards,
Ian
 
Hello,
I have recently purchased a new 160Gb 7200rpm 8mb cache HDD, and have a
question concerning performance when used in conjunction with another
40Gb
7200 2mb cache drive.
I intended to use the smaller drive as the system drive and the larger
drive
as storage, but I wont get the performance of the bigger cache setting
things up this way.
Am I correct?
Regards,
Ian
Click to expand...

depends much on the controller on the motherboard, slower less capable
drives sometimes slow down the faster ones, but not on a properly designed
controller. most of the major part makers have chipsets that properly
control the drives, it's the odd ducks you must watch for.
 
Hello,
I have recently purchased a new 160Gb 7200rpm 8mb cache HDD, and have a
question concerning performance when used in conjunction with another 40Gb
7200 2mb cache drive.
I intended to use the smaller drive as the system drive and the larger drive
as storage, but I wont get the performance of the bigger cache setting
things up this way.
Am I correct?
Regards,
Ian
Click to expand...

Yes you're correct. The (larger) cache being localized to
the new drive, will only be used for I/O to it.
 
Ian D. Weatherall said:
Hello,
I have recently purchased a new 160Gb 7200rpm 8mb cache HDD, and have a
question concerning performance when used in conjunction with another 40Gb
7200 2mb cache drive.
I intended to use the smaller drive as the system drive and the larger drive
as storage, but I wont get the performance of the bigger cache setting
things up this way.
Am I correct?
Regards,
Ian
Click to expand...
I have exactly this setup myself. A 40gb boot drive on IDE1, and a 160gb on
IDE2 divided into four partitions. To make the most of the faster drive, I
have installed all programs, games etc onto it, and I do notice how much
quicker games load from the faster drive than the older one. I use the C:
drive just for windows and storage of files. This setup works fine for me,
maybe Windows does'nt boot quite as fast as it could do but not too worried
about that. It also means I can quickly / regularly create a ghost backup
image of C: onto the bigger drive, just in case.
Graham
 
GTS said:
I have exactly this setup myself. A 40gb boot drive on IDE1, and a 160gb on
IDE2 divided into four partitions. To make the most of the faster drive, I
have installed all programs, games etc onto it, and I do notice how much
quicker games load from the faster drive than the older one. I use the C:
drive just for windows and storage of files. This setup works fine for me,
maybe Windows does'nt boot quite as fast as it could do but not too worried
about that. It also means I can quickly / regularly create a ghost backup
image of C: onto the bigger drive, just in case.
Graham
Click to expand...


Graham,

Since the 2nd/larger drive is faster and has a larger cache, if you have
room or a spare partition on it, you might want to configure windows to
put the swap disk on the 2nd drive. That should help also, plus it'll
free up space in your C: partition/1st drive.

Just a thought...

Jim
 
ohaya said:
Graham,

Since the 2nd/larger drive is faster and has a larger cache, if you have
room or a spare partition on it, you might want to configure windows to
put the swap disk on the 2nd drive. That should help also, plus it'll
free up space in your C: partition/1st drive.

Just a thought...

Jim
Click to expand...
Good point. In fact I have set up the swap disk on the faster drive, just
forgot to mention it!
Graham
 
Graham,
Good point. In fact I have set up the swap disk on the faster drive, just
forgot to mention it!
Graham
Click to expand...


Graham,

I do it habitually on my systems, even when I have multiple partitions
on a single drive, but since you have two drives, you'll get the added
benefit of spreading the accesses across the two drives in addition to
it (the swap disk) being on a faster device.

Jim
 
Thank you for the sugggestions guys,
Sounds like I should seet things up like this:

40Gb 2Mb cache:
P1:Windows
P2:Documents

160Gb 8Mb Cache:
P1:Swap File
P2:Programs

Regards,
Ian
 
*** top-posting fixed ***
Ian D. Weatherall said:
Thank you for the sugggestions guys,
Sounds like I should seet things up like this:

40Gb 2Mb cache:
P1:Windows
P2:Documents

160Gb 8Mb Cache:
P1:Swap File
P2:Programs
Click to expand...

That will do IF windows is smart enough to reload code segments
directly from the executable file, rather than doing a relocate and
swapping things back and forth to the swap file. If it does the
latter both halves of that path will be on the same drive, leading
to thrashing. I have no idea what situation applies and when, I
just know I mistrust all Microsoft software.

BTW, please don't toppost.
 
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