Raptor integration

[Zardnok]

I got a deal on a Raptor 150 to go in my new system, so I scooped it up. Currently my system has a 250 Gig Western Digital SATA drive with Windows XP-Pro, Everquest, Vanguard, and various apps installed. I am most concerned with getting the maximum performance from my system in EQ and Vanguard, but faster boot and load times would be nice as well.

Would it be best to use an imaging program to move my OS and games over to my new Raptor? I have seen mention in other posts of keeping the OS drive and game drives separate, so should I just move the game files over to the new Raptor and keep the OS files on the original SATA drive? Should I partition the Raptor and put the OS files on one partition and the game files in another partition??

Do I need to do a fresh install from the CD along with all the patches or do the imaging programs do a decent enough job? Any particular freebie program better than others for imaging my OS over?


System components:
DS-3
e6400 @ 3.2
2 Gig OCZ RAM
2 Gig Corsair RAM
evga 8800gts 640
WD 250gb
WD Raptor 150
Corsair 520HX

 

[bob4432]

i would just image your current os/app/game drive to the raptor. then turn off the pagefile on it and set the pagefile on a different drive to 1.5GB

i use acronis and it has served me very well

 

[Zardnok]

So no need to worry about partitions and such? I did a search on a couple sites looking for some form of definitive answer, but for every person that said, "Don't have your games and OS on same drive/partition", someone else said, "BS it makes no difference".

I am unfamiliar with setting up pagefile, so I will do more research on it. You suggest setting the 250 Gig SATA drive for Pagefile? And 1.5 GB, is that 10% of Raptor drive or is 1.5 GB a standard size. Excuse my ignorance, but I am trying to learn what I can.

PS I like your Gun site. Your craftsmanship and pride really shows in your project pics.

 

[lamere]

Originally posted by: Zardnok
So no need to worry about partitions and such? I did a search on a couple sites looking for some form of definitive answer, but for every person that said, "Don't have your games and OS on same drive/partition", someone else said, "BS it makes no difference".

i have a 150 raptor as a second drive that i load all my big games/apps on, and it works fine.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: Zardnok
So no need to worry about partitions and such? I did a search on a couple sites looking for some form of definitive answer, but for every person that said, "Don't have your games and OS on same drive/partition", someone else said, "BS it makes no difference".

I install games and OS on the same drive (some programs bitch if your Program Files isn't on C) and video/tv shows/music/etc data on other partitions.

 

[Matthias99]

So no need to worry about partitions and such? I did a search on a couple sites looking for some form of definitive answer, but for every person that said, "Don't have your games and OS on same drive/partition", someone else said, "BS it makes no difference".

I'll give you a third opinion -- splitting them up into separate partitions on the same drive can sometimes hurt performance, since any time the game (or another program) tries to do something on the OS partition the drive will have to move the head all the way back to the other partition. This hurts average seek times. If you're running just a game with nothing else going on, it probably won't make much difference, and having it on its own partition might be slightly faster. Putting them on separate drives should never cause lower performance, but it also may not help all that much.

Personally I use one partition for the OS and applications (so I can image it for backups). If you want to split them up for ease of backup/management, I don't think it will hurt or help you all that much most of the time. So yes, basically I wouldn't worry about partitions at all. If you have a faster drive like a Raptor it would help slightly to install the OS and applications on it.

I am unfamiliar with setting up pagefile, so I will do more research on it. You suggest setting the 250 Gig SATA drive for Pagefile? And 1.5 GB, is that 10% of Raptor drive or is 1.5 GB a standard size. Excuse my ignorance, but I am trying to learn what I can.

I would leave the size managed by Windows, but having it on a separate drive from the OS (a separate physical drive, not just another partition) can help a little. That said -- if you hit the swapfile with any kind of frequency, the real solution is to either run less stuff at once or add more RAM. Unless you put your swapfile on an SSD of some sort (preferably a RAM-based one), it's never going to be 'fast'.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Zardnok
So no need to worry about partitions and such? I did a search on a couple sites looking for some form of definitive answer, but for every person that said, "Don't have your games and OS on same drive/partition", someone else said, "BS it makes no difference".

I am unfamiliar with setting up pagefile, so I will do more research on it. You suggest setting the 250 Gig SATA drive for Pagefile? And 1.5 GB, is that 10% of Raptor drive or is 1.5 GB a standard size. Excuse my ignorance, but I am trying to learn what I can.

PS I like your Gun site. Your craftsmanship and pride really shows in your project pics.

oh, i can't take credit for the gun site - i just found it one day and was extremely impressed with the quality of work that guy does. i have emailed him a couple of times and he is a really friendly guy, so i put his site in my sig to show others what can be done. the guy that has that site has industrial equipment, but there are people on his forums that use smaller, home hobby cnc setups that do amazing projects too. if i had a garage, i would have one of the smaller cnc setups in there in a heartbeat

as far as setting up your games and os on the same partition i always just put them on the same drive and don't even worry about partitions for reason that mathias99 writes about.

as far as the pagefile @ 1.5GB, i chose that because then it won't have to change sizes and w/ 4GB of ram (even 3.25 or so in 32bit windows) i doubt you will hit it other than what the computer needs (the computer uses it regardless just for storing stuff for short times and such). i always manually set mine to a certain size, but more important is to get it off the main drive. there is a small performance advantage when taking it off the main drive, small but noticeable if you look for it.

 

[Zardnok]

I have 4 Gig of RAM with 3.5 being recognized by Windows. I have always let Windows deal with my Pagefile before and never worried with it, but once I get the 250 imaged down to the Raptor, I will figure out how to change it over to the old WD250.

With regards to imaging, I would prefer not to clog my Raptor with porn, so is there anyway to selectively chose what is copied over, or is it a matter of me simply erasing all the naughty stuff after it is copied over? That would be easier than mindless patch after patch of a complete reformat and reinstall.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Zardnok
I have 4 Gig of RAM with 3.5 being recognized by Windows. I have always let Windows deal with my Pagefile before and never worried with it, but once I get the 250 imaged down to the Raptor, I will figure out how to change it over to the old WD250.

With regards to imaging, I would prefer not to clog my Raptor with porn, so is there anyway to selectively chose what is copied over, or is it a matter of me simply erasing all the naughty stuff after it is copied over? That would be easier than mindless patch after patch of a complete reformat and reinstall.

you need to get yourself set up w/ a dedicated porn folder

 

[ShellGuy]

No you image drives not folders and such, with Acronis, it is a pic of ur whole drive, so you would have to del the porn after you did the image on to the new drive..



Will g.