One Hard Drive or Two?

[Jazar]

I just ordered a 100GB 7200 rpm WD HD (2MB Buffer) and I was wondering if it would be worth it to get an extra smaller 7200 drive and place it on the second IDE controller for virtual memory? Something like a 3 to 10 gig drive. Or I could use the smaller one for Windows and the larger for applications. Would the performance gain be significant in any way or is it just a waste of $$?

Thanks.

 

[Slogun]

You are likely to get many different opinions on this issue ranging from possible slowdowns with virtual memory, waste of money, the benefits of partitioning your 100 gig drive, etc.

For me, I like to have two hard drives, the second (D drive) one for data storage such as photos, MP3s, documents, email store folder.

When it is time to reformat my C drive and/or reinstall the operating system, I feel more secure that my data is separate. There are folks who swear by partitioning for this purpose, but that is not MY preference.

 

[Jazar]

I'm of the same mindset of having two logical drives but lately i've been hurting for $$ so I'd like see if the gain is substantial.

 

[Ilmater]

If you're really in need of virtual memory, then just get more RAM to alleviate that need. In the next week or so, RAM will drop to the lowest prices that it will ever hit IMO. Manufacturers are now selling RAM at cost, so those savings should trickle down (huh, Reagan rules) to the consumer in a week or so. That'll not only alleviate the need for virtual memory, it'll speed up your system in general. But don't get more than 512MB as it would be a waste.

 

[Jazar]

I've already got 512MB of Ram. This is on Win98SE btw.

 

[Whitedog]

Then you shouldn't be concerned with the swapfile... Just set it to a static size... be the same thing as having it on a partition or another drive by itself.

With that much ram in 98se, you shouldn't even worry about the swapfile. You're not going to "gain any performance" doing anything like putting it on another hard drive or partition. If it's static in size, you don't have to worry about it fragmenting your C drive, even if the swapfile itself is in several fragments... When you set it to a static size, the file never resizes nor changes locations on the disk.

nuff said about this.

 

[Jazar]

Thanks!

I'm just concerned because my old drives (both 5400 RPM) crunch like mad even though they've been defragged and even re-formatted. I'm hoping that a faster drive will resolve the problem.

 

[Whitedog]

They make good souvenirs. I've a shoe box full of old drives...

After loosing data to dead hard drives (now I have a good backup system) I made my mind up to just Retire old hard drives... they aren't worth the trouble or risk.

Good luck with the new 100GB drive! You'll be pleased with the increased performance.

 

[Ipno]

If you really want a serious boost from your filesystem, and you have about $130 dollars to spend on it, I would recommend taking advantage of this deal and getting a 18 gig 15k RPM scsi drive and use that drive for your operating system, swap file, and any other file you do want high speed access to. Then use the slower IDE drive for things that don't need a lot of speed but take up a lot of space. Like movies, MP3s, etc.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Ilmater
If you're really in need of virtual memory, then just get more RAM to alleviate that need. In the next week or so, RAM will drop to the lowest prices that it will ever hit IMO. Manufacturers are now selling RAM at cost, so those savings should trickle down (huh, Reagan rules) to the consumer in a week or so. That'll not only alleviate the need for virtual memory, it'll speed up your system in general. But don't get more than 512MB as it would be a waste.

Price drop? I hope so! I'd like to see Crucial's PC2100 DDR RAM fall from $100+ to around at least $60 for one 512MB DIMM.