Whats the best hard disk setup?

kazzer

When I say best I mean performance, speed wise. Lets say I have a 160GB hard disk, how should I install everything. Should I partition it, and how many? One for OS, one for programs, one for data etc? Should I get a separte disk just for the OS?

I also have a small 20GB disk, and an external 60GB disk, how can I best make use of these?


Thanks.

Sherifu

Id use the 20GB for os purely so if anything went wrong i could wipe it and keep the 160 with all the data.
Dunno if this is the most efficient set up tho.
Maybe someone else can tell you......

deckie27

partion some of the 160gb say 20-30gig
You should not use the 20gb of the OS as the chances are it is an old drive. Slow

Dec

kazzer

If I were to install Windows XP on this 20GB disk, is it possible to setup the 'My Documents' folder on another disk, because I will have alot data that I would like to store on a bigger disk. I want to use this folder so that I can keep my data private. (the computer is shared).

Thanks again.

kazzer

You should not use the 20gb of the OS as the chances are it is an old drive. Slow

Yes its a few years old - 5400rpm.

Sherifu

kazzer wrote:

If I were to install Windows XP on this 20GB disk, is it possible to setup the 'My Documents' folder on another disk, because I will have alot data that I would like to store on a bigger disk. I want to use this folder so that I can keep my data private. (the computer is shared).

Thanks again.

Ya its possible.
Thats what i did with my music folder and it worked fine.
There are options to change the default path.
Forget exactly where, if you're stuck ill dig it out of my brain.

deckie27

kazzer wrote:

Yes its a few years old - 5400rpm.

Go with the Partition then.

if you right click on the !my Documents" you can set the data to where ever you wish.
If you wish to keep data safe secure setup different logins. ie One for you with full admin permissions and another for guests

Dec

stuey

for setting the default path for my documents go into my computer. you have to have the left hand toolbar enabled. (The one that says My documents and a whole pile of other crap) right click on my documents and the properties(i think). and you can change it in there

Im not on a win xp machine at the mo so i cant tell you exactly how i did it. sorry!

kazzer

Thanks for that help guys.

Mutant_Fruit

give your OS partition at most 10gigs (mine is 6.8gigs, and i ahve no space problems on the XP partition).

NOTHING goes onto this drive except for the OS and stuff that absolutely must install onto the os drive.

Everything else can go in the remaining 150gig partition. Then all you need is proper foldering of your stuff, and you'll easily be able to find anything quickly. Partitions can mean wasted space... suppose you split the 150gig into a 100gig and 50 gig, and they both fill up over time, and you end up with 3.5 gigs free on each, and you want to download a 4 gig file....

the 20gig would make a grand drive for backup or just general storage for music/video etc.

Capt'n Midnight

If money was no object you can get solid state hard drives made from batteries and RAM sorta thing. http://www.bizrate.com/marketplace/product_info/overview/index__cat_id--410,prod_id--5177249.html

Flash cards aren't an option with windows it writes too much - most forms of linux will happily exist on Flash, they could also allow you the option of setting up a remote boot from a RAM image across gigabit ethernet, but of course you'd need another PC on all the time..

Or if you have a LOT of RAM you could setup the system to have NO Swap file and also set DLL's to not swap out of memory. Windows would not start up any faster but the second time you did anything it would be faster since it would not have to wait for the disk.

Mutant_Fruit

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

If money was no object you can get solid state hard drives made from batteries and RAM sorta thing. http://www.bizrate.com/marketplace/product_info/overview/index__cat_id--410,prod_id--5177249.html

I'm really tempted to get about 20 of them and raid em up! Just imagine 2 gigs of solid state harddrive

HungryJoey

I have a 160GB hitachi Serial ATA and a 40GB IDE MAxtor.The way i configured them was ... 10GB ) Purely Windows
20GB ) Games
10GB ) Accident Partition ...to lazy to fix
120GB) Storage...MUsic back up...Important files back up and i ahve about 20GB Of games downloaded and stored here...

I use my 40GB IDE For everythnig to store...all my files and programs get installed here aswel...My music is played from here aswel around 15GB's MP3's. And about 5GB's of just random downloads and pictures, and files.

I ahve alot of this Stuff backeed Up on the 120GB Partition incase the 40GB MAxtor fails and if it does, atleast i got all my stuff abcked on the 120GB.

Performance wise it is great. Never got such great performance out of a PC. You really should always try to install Windows on a separete Partion or Hard drive. Really speeds things up.

TemplarBarna

I'm makeing a new system soon. Can I set the size of the partition for the OS at the fresh install of the drive. Or do I have to use something like PartitionMagic later on...??

bbbbb

recently asked a question about partitioning:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=196410
and was pointed to some useful tools.
One in particular, partimage, allows you to make a back up of a partition and restore it, but only to a partition of the same size (or the original presumably).

Would need to investiagte it further, but if I was starting again, I would have once partition just for the OS (maybe only 5-10 GB?), a second of exactly the same size, once I had my OS installed and configured the way I wanted, would make a back up. You need to know a bit of unix/linux, mounting file systems etc. though for this particular tool.

Dr Bolouswki

I can't say I've noticed much of an improvement from ahving Raid 0, but maybe I'm mad... however, I can't believe everyone with important data (ok music an movies!!) hasn't got raid one, storage is pretty cheap these days....