SATA HDDs: Raptor and Caviar together??

[siroperez]

Hi, I am new to this forum, and have limited knowledge about hardware, so please excuse me if my questions are too naïve for this forum...

Well, I shall be buying a computer soon, and after reading some Anandtech's reviews, I have some further questions: I would like to buy some good HDD. I have been reading about RAID 0, and it definitly seems not necessary for me (http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101). Nonetheless, I would like to buy one of these new WD Raptor 74GB, and another WD Caviar 200GB to have more storage space (many photos, ripping a DVD now and then..). I shall be buying a computer with 1GB DDR400 RAM (possibly Corsair 3200 XL Pro), so there shouldn't be much swapping to disk... My questions are the following:

1) What would be the best way to install the disks? Is it better to place them on different SATA buses? Will the controller be able to manage two disks of different speeds (10000 and 7200 rpm?)?

2) I had thought I could put the different OSs and programs on the Raptor, and my data on the Caviar, as I think data would be accessed less frequently (I do not do video editing or whatever, usually Office, Photoshop, games, etc). Am I right? Because I have read this other review (http://www.anandtech.com/stora...c.aspx?i=2073&p=9) where it says: "Both games were installed to a clean drive without anything else present on the drive (the OS is located on a separate drive).". So I am no longer so sure about my assumptions....

Sorry about the long post, but I couldn't get answers in other forums, and I think this may be the proper place...

Thank you,

Siro.

 

[beatle]

1) One controller will have no problem taking care of both disks. Spindle speed is not an issue. I'd just use one controller to free up resources.

2) Keep your OS and all apps on the Raptor. Data on the secondary. This will be the fastest way to load your apps. Keep your swap file on the Raptor.

Welcome to the forums, btw. 😎

 

[jvarszegi]

Originally posted by: beatle
1) One controller will have no problem taking care of both disks. Spindle speed is not an issue. I'd just use one controller to free up resources.

2) Keep your OS and all apps on the Raptor. Data on the secondary. This will be the fastest way to load your apps. Keep your swap file on the Raptor.

Welcome to the forums, btw. 😎

Okay, here's another question. Lots of programs store files (sometimes even large ones) in the user's "profile", his/her area under "C:\Documents and Settings". Lots of programs also store (sometimes quite large) files under their install folder, which usually defaults to a subfolder of "C:\Program Files".

I have a hunch that most of the disk access on a system drive, even in a multi-drive system, is often due to program files, especially if you set up the system to cache frequently accessed files! I like the recommendation from another AT poster to redirect the profile to another drive, but I'm probably not going to do that; instead, I plan to install applications to a non-system drive for my new build. This will allow fast disk access for all program files without negatively impacting the OS, even when it accesses the user's profile.

Do you like this idea, and if not, why not?

 

[jvarszegi]

bumpity bump bump bump

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: jvarszegi
I have a hunch that most of the disk access on a system drive, even in a multi-drive system, is often due to program files, especially if you set up the system to cache frequently accessed files! I like the recommendation from another AT poster to redirect the profile to another drive, but I'm probably not going to do that; instead, I plan to install applications to a non-system drive for my new build. This will allow fast disk access for all program files without negatively impacting the OS, even when it accesses the user's profile.

Do you like this idea, and if not, why not?

If the drives are of equal speed, why not...but in the OP's case, the gains by putting OS and programs on different drives would be lower than the gain by putting programs on a faster disk.

Modern computers really don't access the hard drive that much unless you're loading a program, and when you load a program pretty much the drive's entire resources are going to that. I don't think there would be much of a speed gain by putting the OS and programs on separate disks.

Now, putting the swap file on a separate disk DOES have a very small advantage.

 

[beatle]

Originally posted by: jagec
Now, putting the swap file on a separate disk DOES have a very small advantage.

This is really only true if the other disk is equally fast or faster than the primary AND it can be accessed concurrently. Meaning, the drive is on another ide channel, or the other drive is SATA or SCSI. Keep your swap file on the same drive. If you have 2 identical drives, then by all means move it. 🙂

 

[jvarszegi]

Originally posted by: beatle

Originally posted by: jagec
Now, putting the swap file on a separate disk DOES have a very small advantage.

This is really only true if the other disk is equally fast or faster than the primary AND it can be accessed concurrently. Meaning, the drive is on another ide channel, or the other drive is SATA or SCSI. Keep your swap file on the same drive. If you have 2 identical drives, then by all means move it. 🙂

Even better, don't swap at all.

 

[gobucks]

hey, another option would be the Maxtor Diamondmax 10 300GB drives. The 16MB buffer makes it nice and speedy, and the NCQ is nice for mobos that support it. While it's slightly slower than the raptor, it's a hell of a lot faster than another 7200RPM drive, so stuff like games will load faster, and the drive is a hell of a lot cheaper than the combo you're talking about. Seagate has new 7200.8 drives, which support the same stuff, but the 16MB buffer versions aren't yet available.

 

[Makaveli]

I have it setup this way.

I have a 74 GB Raptor as my OS and appz HD
and a 120GB WD for Data.

From what i've read it was better to have the swap file on the second HD if u have 2 in your system.
So I switched the swap to the Data HD. Don't swap that much with a Gig of ram.

 

[uOpt]

The drives don't have to be of even speed for RAID-0 to lead to a speedup. You can pretty much bind anything together and get a good throughput. The more uneven the more you should benchmark different sector spacings.

As always, I recommend software RAID instead of that stuff built into the el cheapo SATA RAID controllers.

If you do RAID-1 or 5 for safety reasons, I think it is an excellent idea to have different harddrives. If you have the same drives you risk that all your drives may come from one bad manufraturing or transport run.