Running O/S on different HDD than games?

[Laztlain]

Got a small 80GB HDD in my gaming rig but I am out of room. Its an older IDE drive, but I have a MOBO that supports SATA drives (Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe). I want to purchase either the Seagate 320GB or WD3200KS drive soley for loading games onto but keep my 80GB drive as-is with Windows XP on it. Bad idea?

 

[Slick5150]

Actually, I believe that makes things run faster if anything.

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

I agree with the last poster, that it will likely be a bit faster that way. But if it were me, I'd probably just image the 80GB drive to the new SATA and ditch the 80GB altogether...or maybe just keep it around for backup purposes. You will be happier with your overall system performance and your swap file will be faster.

Of course you could move your swap file to the new sata, leaving the old stuff on the 80GB...but that would also lead to some contention with your games...some...

In general though, I would just move everything to the new SATA. If your 80GB is full, then it's likely slowing down...and will continue to do so until it's completely full. Your swap file is likely slower because of this, leading to slower general responsiveness.

In my experience, I have noticed the biggest general performance gains in my system, by optimizing the hard drive layout. I have a RAID 0 for my boot and it flies.

That's my 2 cents at least.

 

[Laztlain]

sounds like a very good idea - I have never "imaged" a Hard Drive before; but if I remember correctly my older drive came with Norton Ghost or something like that. Would that be the right way to go?

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

yeah, it's pretty easy to image the drive. If you get a retail SATA kit, it might even include a utility disk that will do this for you. Otherwise get the trial version of Acronis and use that.

 

[Davegod]

I just got a new 500gb SATA drive and copied the 'old' 160gb IDE/PATA drive onto it. I'll give it a couple more weeks just to be sure everything is A-OK and then wipe the 160gb, use it for backup plus the swapfile (which was and is currently what the even older 40gb drive is doing).

It was very easy too, and if you have a maxtor or seagate you can download their software free, which worked great for me.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: Slick5150
Actually, I believe that makes things run faster if anything.

:thumbsup:
/thread

 

[MegaVovaN]

Well I have 2 drives in my system, both SATA.

80 gb Hitachi with 8 mb cache - this drive is OLD, and I mean like 3+ yrs old.
320 gb 7200.10 Seagate 16 mb cache - much newer drive.


OS and program files are on 80gb. Games and data are on 320. When system goes bottom up I format 80 and install OS on it again (many programs won't work with new OS if I install them on 320 and try to open on new OS).
This is my C2D set-up (thanks AT for helping me with parts, still getting ready to write feedback!)

In fact, I just handed down my older system (socket A set-up) and aligned hard drives almost same way: 80 hitachi system+games, 320 seagate data (data-only drive).