Moving from 2x IDE HDD to 1x SATA Drive

[Bonesdad]

Hi all

I currently use 2 IDE drives in my system
1x 160 GB Seagate, partitioned with 50 GB "OS Drive" and a 120 GB "Data Drive"
1x 120 GB Seagate, no partitions. Drive used for storage of photos, movies etc.

I have purchase a WD 640 GB Caviar Black Edition which will replace both the old drives. What is my best option, partition or no? Will I lose anything by partitioning say 100 GB for OS+software installation and leave the rest for data or partition 3 drives for OS, Software and photos etc? My main use is gaming and photo management/editing etc.

Does partitioning impact system speed at all for these uses? Thanks!!

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Partitioning is essentially for organization only. Some are for it, others are against it. Partitioning the system data vs user data does have the benefit of if you need to format, you can format C: and all of your documents and data on D: is still there. Also, it makes it easier to backup your user data if it is all in one partition. As you can see, I am for partitioning, but really it comes down to whatever floats your boat. And from what I understand, there is little if any impact in performance.

 

[SunSamurai]

Partitioning can be great if you use it lightly. Put the OS and your most used applications on the first partition and you will get the best speed the disk has to offer, and system files wont deviate from those fast parts of the drive. I think that along with organization are the two key reasons to do it. The next inline would be ease of reinstalling a fresh OS. You only have to backup the main OS partition onto the data partition and you're done. Easy as cake.

The drawbacks i would say are unless you have a really good idea of what you want to install on the main OS partition, you can either have dozens of GB wasting away, possibly cuaseing an issue where if you fill up the data drive tothe brim, you will be looking at those GBs on the OS drive in lament. Or inversely you can simply run out of GB on the main OS drive and, well, thats no fun.

 

[Bonesdad]

Well, I've a 50 GB partition with the OS and my most used apps on it now and it's sitting at about 60% full right now. my data partition is about 70% full, and as I just got a new slr digital camera for Xmas, it'll fill up faster. Will I see much of a jump in speed going from these 5 year old drives to the Caviar Black? Thanks for your help all!

 

[j0j081]

I just went from a Maxtor 200 GB IDE drive (one of the fastest 7200 pata drives made) to the WD 640 GB Black and the difference is night and day. In a way it feels like I have a whole new system now as far as responsiveness goes. I've always liked to partition for the reasons already mentioned in this thread. Here is how I have mine setup in case you want to try something similar.

C: 60 GB Vista and apps drive
D: 237 GB Games
E: 298 GB Storage (media backup files etc)

The reason I divided the 2nd two partitions at uneven numbers is because I calculated C + D to be the first half of the drive.

 

[taltamir]

what is the point of seperating games and media? Both are untouched by a reformat.
partitioning has no performance impact, you partition in order to keep the OS seperate from everything else, so you can just format without need to backup.

My recommendation...
OS partition: 70GB.
Everything else: rest of space.

 

[j0j081]

Originally posted by: taltamir
what is the point of seperating games and media? Both are untouched by a reformat.
partitioning has no performance impact, you partition in order to keep the OS seperate from everything else, so you can just format without need to backup.

.

well whatever partition my games are on becomes high fragmented so I just prefer to keep them alone.