Hard Drive For Operating System Only

[Unoriginal Name]

I would like to add a second hard drive to my computer and have it only for the operating system. I have Vista 64-bit. What size drive should I be looking at for just the operating system? Any recommendations on a drive?

Thanks in advance.

[Yoda4561]

I assume you're talking about SSD. Assuming no apps/games/downloads are put on the drive, and it's OS only, then a 60 gigabyte drive is a good size. 30 gigs is marginal at best for a vista installation, and 120 gigs will be wasted space.

[DonDon]

What is your budget and your goal for this little adventure? Are you just looking for a fairly fast setup for a modest price, or are you looking for the fastest no matter what the cost? Are you willing to deal with a RAID setup?

Don

[Unoriginal Name]

My goal is to keep Windows separate from the rest of my files so that in the off chance my operating system becomes corrupted and I need to wipe it clean I won't have to do anything with the other data and files. I would like to keep it under $100. Speed would be good but I don't want to spend a fortune.

I don't know too much about RAID but what I've read about it I don't think it is something I want to deal with. With what I want to do would it really be worth it?

[Zepher]

WD 640GB Black series. Just partition it into 2 partitions, 60 or so only for the OS, and you can use the other partition for whatever or just leave it unformatted.

[InvisiBill]

Partitioning your current drive would provide the exact same level of protection from OS corruption.

[Unoriginal Name]

Partitioning your current drive would provide the exact same level of protection from OS corruption.

But I can't do that now without erasing what I already have on my current drive correct? I'd have to copy everything to something else first?

[DonDon]

But I can't do that now without erasing what I already have on my current drive correct? I'd have to copy everything to something else first?

Thanks for clarifying your needs for us.

+ 1 for a Wd 640 Black. Well within your budget, you can partition off an OS section (100 gig or so,) use the rest for data.

You should always have a backup of important data. Your hard drive can fail at any time with absolutely no warning. I would recommend picking up a USB external enclosure for your old drive and use it for backing up your main drive.

It is important to keep the backup physically outside the main computer so a catastrophic failure does not get all copies of your data.

I like to reinstall Windows from scratch when I move to a new drive. Gets rid of all the windows shmengies that slow your system down over time. Then you only install the apps that you are currently using.

Don

[InvisiBill]

But I can't do that now without erasing what I already have on my current drive correct? I'd have to copy everything to something else first?

There are a number of tools out there than can modify partitions without completely deleting and recreating them. Parted Magic (http://partedmagic.com/) is supposed to be pretty good. Partition Magic is probably the best known, but it's commercial and outdated now (which can cause issues with newer filesystems).

With one of these tools, you would shrink your current partition down by 50GB (or however much you want for the new OS partition), move it to the end of the drive, and create your new partition at the beginning.

Depending on how much data you have, how big your current drive is, and how much you can afford, it may be easiest to just buy a new drive. The WD Blacks are great performers, and starting with a clean drive will be simpler than shifting all your data around (especially if you don't have much free space).

[vsboxerboy]

I would recommend picking up a USB external enclosure for your old drive and use it for backing up your main drive.


QFT

HDD space is so cheap nowadays that there is no excuse for not having at least one proper backup. If possible, you should even consider keeping a copy your really important stuff offsite as well. My pictures (valuable to me) are kept on my computer, on my external, offsite (friend's office) and even on flicker just in case of theft/act of god.

[Unoriginal Name]

QFT

HDD space is so cheap nowadays that there is no excuse for not having at least one proper backup. If possible, you should even consider keeping a copy your really important stuff offsite as well. My pictures (valuable to me) are kept on my computer, on my external, offsite (friend's office) and even on flicker just in case of theft/act of god.

I actually already do that. I have an old 40 GB IDE hard drive that I wasn't using anymore so I bought an enclosure for that and I back all my important stuff like pictures on there. I am looking in to online for the pictures as well. Is Flicker pretty good?

I have a 500 GB hard drive now which I still have quite a bit of space left on it. When I built the computer I never thought to partition the hard drive and keep the OS separate from the rest of the hard drive and now I would like to do that. I'm leaning toward adding a whole new hard drive instead of repartitioning my current one. Would there be any pros/cons to adding a small drive with just the OS as opposed to a large drive like the 640GB Black mentioned and partitioning it? Or is it essentially the same as long as I make sure to keep up on my external backing up of important files? How do some of you guys have your drives partitioned?

Also my current drive has a 8 MB cache...I saw that the 640GB Black has a 32 MB cache. I know this means better performance but what exactly does this influence?

Lastly, this would leave me with a ton storage space and I have noticed on here people using a great amount more of storage space...what do some of you guys use all this storage space for?

Thanks again for the advice.

[DonDon]

I actually already do that. I have an old 40 GB IDE hard drive that I wasn't using anymore so I bought an enclosure for that and I back all my important stuff like pictures on there. I am looking in to online for the pictures as well. Is Flicker pretty good?

Cool, you are way ahead of the curve then, and smarter than the average bear!

I have a 500 GB hard drive now which I still have quite a bit of space left on it. When I built the computer I never thought to partition the hard drive and keep the OS separate from the rest of the hard drive and now I would like to do that. I'm leaning toward adding a whole new hard drive instead of repartitioning my current one. Would there be any pros/cons to adding a small drive with just the OS as opposed to a large drive like the 640GB Black mentioned and partitioning it? Or is it essentially the same as long as I make sure to keep up on my external backing up of important files? How do some of you guys have your drives partitioned?

The problem is that about the base price where a reatiler will bother to sell a hard drive is $40 to $50 bux or so. If you can find a small drive, it will be a couple of generations old, and slower than the current production. The WD 640 Black is only $69 bux delivered from Newegg. Why not get the latest and greatest?

Also my current drive has a 8 MB cache...I saw that the 640GB Black has a 32 MB cache. I know this means better performance but what exactly does this influence?

16 MB seems to be the point of diminishing returns for on board cache. But hey, 32 is more. Basically, if you read 1 sector from a track, the hard drive controller will read the entire track, assuming you may be needing some of the adjacent sectors soon. It is hard to benchmark the specific affects of cache. It has just gotten bigger as the drives have gotten faster.

Lastly, this would leave me with a ton storage space and I have noticed on here people using a great amount more of storage space...what do some of you guys use all this storage space for?

Let's see, some people like to rip all of their DVDs. Others use it to store their stolen credit card info from their Botnet. I personally have about 30 gig of MP3s, about 15 gig of photos and docs, and about 600 gig of my...... ah my performance art collection. Yea, that's what I will call it. Performance art. Pr0n for short.

Don

[InvisiBill]

I have a 500 GB hard drive now which I still have quite a bit of space left on it. When I built the computer I never thought to partition the hard drive and keep the OS separate from the rest of the hard drive and now I would like to do that. I'm leaning toward adding a whole new hard drive instead of repartitioning my current one. Would there be any pros/cons to adding a small drive with just the OS as opposed to a large drive like the 640GB Black mentioned and partitioning it? Or is it essentially the same as long as I make sure to keep up on my external backing up of important files? How do some of you guys have your drives partitioned?

Like DonDon said, there's sort of a price floor for any new hard drive. You can buy a 40GB drive that's a couple years old (but still new and unused) for $50 or whatever, or you can buy a brand new, top of the line WD6401AALS (or similar) for $70. My WD6401AALS is quite a bit faster than my Seagate 7200.10 500GB (i.e. not that old), so it's going to be way faster than any drive that's actually considered "old".

Basically, for a few bucks more you're getting a lot more space and a lot more performance too. You might consider something like the WD3200AAKS, which should be essentially half of the WD6400AAKS, but that's still $55. For $15 more, I'd personally go with the one that's twice as big.

[MR_PERFECT]

Parted Magic is the best choice and you can back up your windows also on your second partition.That away, you will always have a good windows back up for crunch times.Lets say your windows disk is misplaced,scratch or is just where you can get your hands on it.Your back up will always be there.Well if your harddrive dont go bad on ya.