Put Windows on 20GB drive, or partition 250GB drive?

[krackato]

I'm building another rig. I've got a spare 20gb 7200rpm drive around here and I was wondering if it's a good idea to put Windows XP onto that drive and place the 250gb harddrive that I bought as a 2nd harddrive. Or should I just install Windows onto the 250gb harddrive and partition the 250gb into like a 20gb + 230gb drives.

I like to try to keep my cases as clutter free as possible so if there's no real compelling performance reason to add the 20gb harddrive, I'd rather not use up the slot in the case for a measly 20gigs (man, we're spoiled in 2004).

 

[Yolner]

You can always use the extra room for some more pr0n cuz you can never have too much pr0n I dont think it matters what you if you dont need the extra 20 gigs for something.

 

[txxxx]

I'd be pretty sure that the bigger drive would be faster, and improve day to day use of the PC.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

Storage articles point out the performance of having the OS on separate physical hard drive away from the pagefile/virtual memory on another drive.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: txxxx
I'd be pretty sure that the bigger drive would be faster, and improve day to day use of the PC.

that's what I was going to say.
20GB drive probably is no speed demon.

 

[Pauli]

Your 20GB will be noticeably slower. I vote for partitioning the big drive.

 

[chuwawa]

What's the point of partitioning the drive for the OS?

I've always just installed it on the whole thing without doing it.

 

[beatle]

Partition the 250. Partitioning is nice that when you reinstall, you can slick the partition with the OS and start completely fresh without disturbing other data.

I COULD run my OS on my 4.5 gig SCSI drive (different physical drive AND different interface) but it'd be dog slow.

 

[Skiguy411]

Interesting, I would have thought the sepreate hard drive would be faster. Whats the reasoning behind this?

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: Skiguy411
Interesting, I would have thought the sepreate hard drive would be faster. Whats the reasoning behind this?

newer drive = faster

If you do a lot of file copying (or say video encoding) there might be some benefit to having towo physical drives, so you can have source on one and write to the other. Even then it would be better to have the OS on a partition, and the 20gig drive as additional storage.

 

[HappyCracker]

The data on the newer drive's platters is more dense; more data is flying by the heads in any given time quantum. Is the 250 a drive with the 8MB buffer? That would help also.

 

[earthling30]

Another vote for the larger drive.

 

[RussianSoldier]

I was considering purchasing a 160 SATA hard drive, but I copy most of my cds to my computer and use a cd emulator. I was wondering if it might be better to get two SATA hard drives, one for my VCDs...

 

[BespinReactorShaft]

Enlighten me if I'm wrong, but I've always thought partitioning reduces the amount of usable HDD space somewhat (due to overhead used up). Aside from better file/folder separation I don't see any real benefits. That is, the only real performance gain is from having separate physical drives.

As for the 20G drive, perhaps it'd be good to invest in an external USB and/or Firewire HDD enclosure and turn it into a mobile storage device. And as one reader pointed out, it could make an easy-to-stash-away hideout for pr0n. ;=)

 

[krackato]

Went for the larger drive. Thanks guys.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: ming2020
Enlighten me if I'm wrong, but I've always thought partitioning reduces the amount of usable HDD space somewhat (due to overhead used up). Aside from better file/folder separation I don't see any real benefits. That is, the only real performance gain is from having separate physical drives.

As for the 20G drive, perhaps it'd be good to invest in an external USB and/or Firewire HDD enclosure and turn it into a mobile storage device. And as one reader pointed out, it could make an easy-to-stash-away hideout for pr0n. ;=)

The extra overhead from an additional partition is insignificant.

What exactly would you suggest, keeping all 250GB as the C: drive and using it for everything? I think 99% of people would agree that it's better to partition off about 20G of your main drive to use as your Windows (C drive so you can separate your general storage from your system drive. I shudder at the idea of having C:\Windows, C:\Program Files, C:\MP3, C:\Divx, C:\ISO ...

 

[0roo0roo]

that 20gb drive is almost garranteed dog slow. hell, its garranteed. must be old as #@$ and i wouldn't trust data on it.

10GB o/s partition on 250GB. keep nothing but necessary apps on it. no images media etc games. that way when o/s is hosed, format or drive image restore is easily done without data loss.

250gb just density per platter makes it insanely faster. old drives just don't hold up. go to storagereview.com and look up ur drives or simliar drives performace. new drives are quite a bit faster then old ones

 

[gsellis]

If you tinker alot with drivers, betas, and other junk like kazaa, then partitioning may be for you. If you don't, just make it one big C:. Partitioning does decrease performance as there is more seek overhead as the system jumps from C: for OS ops to D: for application loads and data loads. Theoretically, the single, older 20GB as the OS drive 'might' be faster in some configs than a partitioned 250, but I doubt really doubt it - but a newer drive probably would be above a partitioned 250 in overall performance (the 250 would still probably be faster in boot.)

 

[0roo0roo]

no, theres no chance. the 20gb has no chance of being anywhere near fast enough to compete with a modern drive. dog slow. and as for boot, undeniably faster

 

[DJFuji]

i assume you mean the 250gig drive is undeniably faster during boot?

 

[Fuchs]

the only time you would use a different drive is perhaps if you bought a 36gig Raptor and had a 250gig drive in addition. In that case putting the OS on the fastest drive is the best solution.

I have a 120Gig SATA and partitioned the drive 20gig and left the rest for data also. Makes it really easy to reload if you need to without messing with the rest of your drive.

 

[chuwawa]

ROFL!

That's what I've been doing ever since I got my computer. Never thought of it as being bad.

So, the general concensus is to partition my HD for the OS...So when you go to reformat you can just reformat the partition while everything is saved on the other part?

Wow, that's neat! Thanks

Hmm, so where do like the drivers go then? On the OS partition?

 

[SickBeast]

Put Windows on the 250gb drive, and put your swap file on the 20gb drive.