Windows Xp and 2 HDDS

RTilbury · Jan 21, 2005, 10:24 PM

Ok this is what i am running on now:

Windows Xp Pro on 1 80gig ultra ata seagate 8mb cache
120gig external for downloads and mp3s

I want to buy another 80gig internal HDD. Sata of course.

I would love to buy 2 80 gig sata and run in Raid 0 but i dont think i would really need to, I am not a hardcore gamer and do not usually do crazy intense things. And i dont really have the moola to buy 2 hdds right now, unless i find a veeerryy good deal. I do play hl2 and ffxi a lot though.

Would it be good for me to buy the 80 gig sata and install windows on it. Use my ultra ata 80 gig for programs, swap files, and games.
and keep my external 120 for all other misc files?

What would be the best config for me with 80gig sata, 80 gig ultra ??

Or would it just be a waste unless i run in raid. The thing is i really need atleast one new 80 gig hdd so i can have a bit more room with games and stuff.

p.s. my seagate ultra ata is 8.5ms seek time. I am looking at some Western digital SATA drives and they are 8.9. Am i gonna notice the loss in speed?

CDsDontBurn · Jan 21, 2005, 11:04 PM

well, if you want to run in RAID 0, i strongly recommend that you run two identical drives. That way you won't run into as many issues if any. If you're going to set up the RAID 0, try not to keep it as your back up of everything. Reason is, if you lose one drive, you lose EVERYTHING.

I'd have it set up so that your smallest HDD is your OS and games, and all the other HDDs in your system are simply used for storage.

The way i have my HDDs set up are my 36Gb Raptor as my OS, my RAID 0 as all my stuff. I need to get another large HDD so if incase i do lose one of my two HDDs, i don't lose everything myself

.

mkk · Jan 22, 2005, 03:34 AM

Consider getting a single drive at about 160GB instead to give you more storage for the money. Having several smaller drives might start getting to feel like a hindrance a couple of years ahead. Avoid RAID-0 until you find some real need for it, on account of the increased risk of data loss.

8.5 or 9ms won't make a practically noticeable difference.

If you have a Seagate and get a WD you might notice an increase of noise though. If you try to run a silent system then go for Samsungs instead, and the current 7200rpm 8MB Samsungs perform well too.

RTilbury · Jan 22, 2005, 04:22 PM

Ok, so if i buy a samsung 160gig sata and install that. What should i install my windows on? The 80 gig ultra ata or the 160 gig sata. Should i partition them? Will the sata be a lot faster then the ultra ata?

mkk · Jan 22, 2005, 07:23 PM

I'm sure that the Samsung SP80 160GB is at least as fast as the other drive, though how much faster depends on the exact model of that drive. Install on the new drive the next time you want to install WinXP anew. It would be a good idea to make a separate partition for the system and one or more for "the rest". A partition of about 10GB would be plenty for the operating system itself and your other non-game applications. Making that partition at the beginning of the drive ensures that the operating system files keeps at the fastest portion of a drive and makes defragmentation processing much faster compared to having all kinds of files mixed with the operating system.

Lastly, note that installing WinXP on a SATA drive requires having the SATA-drivers handy, typically on a floppy disc and one such floppy is usually supplied with a motherboard. It is also possible to make a new installation CD for WinXP with such drivers integrated with the help of a program like nLite, but it might take some time to learn the process even if nLite is an excellent utility.

Drakon · Jan 22, 2005, 08:37 PM

Quote:

It would be a good idea to make a separate partition for the system and one or more for "the rest". A partition of about 10GB would be plenty for the operating system itself and your other non-game applications. Making that partition at the beginning of the drive ensures that the operating system files keeps at the fastest portion of a drive and makes defragmentation processing much faster compared to having all kinds of files mixed with the operating system.

so how do u do that?

Quote:

Lastly, note that installing WinXP on a SATA drive requires having the SATA-drivers handy, typically on a floppy disc and one such floppy is usually supplied with a motherboard.

so do u install these drivers during the installation of windows? can u install them after windows has been installed? also if the drivers haven't been installed, would they cause any problems, like crashes, random reboots and such? i'm asking because i have 2 SATA drives and i recently installed windows without making a partition for it and didn't install the drivers for the SATA drives...

mkk · Jan 22, 2005, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drakon

so how do u do that?

Partitioning a new drive can be done during the WinXP installation routine, or in advance through the Disk Manager (Administrative Tools/Computer management) in WinXP. Some customised/brand name machine installation CD's may not present this option during the installation though.

Quote:

so do u install these drivers during the installation of windows?

At the beginning of the installation where it asks if you want to install a separate SCSI or RAID driver by pressing F6. It then asks for the floppy. SATA interfaces sort of fall under the RAID category even if no actual RAID'ing of drives is being carried out.

Quote:

can u install them after windows has been installed?

Yes, as long as the installation was possible to carry out without them being installed first. I've read about some motherboards possibly being able to give access to SATA drives without the need of a driver for installation, in some sort of legacy mode that might be slower but fully working. Usually though there has to be a separate driver involved since WinXP does not contain such drivers in itself. If through whatever method one has installed WinXP one can then install or update a SATA interface driver, so unless it's needed during the installation it's no problem to add it later. If the motherboard manufacturer does not supply such a driver or if it seems old then it's best to look at the chipset manufacturers website.

Drakon · Jan 23, 2005, 05:37 AM

well thanks for the info, mkk. one question though, since i didn't create separate partitions before installing windows, i would have to delete the old large partition before creating new partitions and reinstalling windows, right?

mkk · Jan 23, 2005, 06:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drakon

well thanks for the info, mkk. one question though, since i didn't create separate partitions before installing windows, i would have to delete the old large partition before creating new partitions and reinstalling windows, right?

Correct. Standard partitioning software would only give you that option. However with some special tools like Partition Magic(commercial software from Symantec) there are ways to split an existing partition, keeping the data. Though such a maneouver is not quite failsafe and there is always some risk that data will be lost anyway. If one can it's always safest to copy data over to another disk and then delete/create partitions with standard tools.

Drakon · Jan 23, 2005, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mkk

Correct. Standard partitioning software would only give you that option. However with some special tools like Partition Magic(commercial software from Symantec) there are ways to split an existing partition, keeping the data. Though such a maneouver is not quite failsafe and there is always some risk that data will be lost anyway. If one can it's always safest to copy data over to another disk and then delete/create partitions with standard tools.

thanks mkk. i was going to copy my files over to my other hd before reinstalling windows. i dont have much data on the 1st hd anyway.