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games on seperate drive?

R

runLoganrun

Gawd
Joined
Jul 4, 2005
Messages
601
I've read about either partitioning a drive or having a seperate drive for games (and other stuff). What is the advantage of that? And it's just a data drive right, no OS?
thanks.
 
I'm still learning about hard drives and the best way to manipulate them. As far as games go you would want those on the same drive as your OS. However you can install them on a seperate partition on the drive where you have your OS installed.

A seperate drive can be used as a stoarge drive if you want to dump, game saves, mp3s, videos and such.

What I plan on doing with my newest sytem is having a partition with the OS and all of my games and programs. Then I will have a second partition for all of my music and videos and such. The drive will be 250GB so I plan on going 100GB for the first OS/programs partition and the rest for storage of the music and videos.
 
CRXican said:
I'm still learning about hard drives and the best way to manipulate them. As far as games go you would want those on the same drive as your OS. However you can install them on a seperate partition on the drive where you have your OS installed.

A seperate drive can be used as a stoarge drive if you want to dump, game saves, mp3s, videos and such.
Click to expand...

No. A second drive for game installs is a great idea. That we your os can be working at the same time as your game is. Installing a game to the same drive but a different partition is pointless. All it does is make the drive head move more.
 
I use a separate HDD for all of my games, not the same used for my OS. It works flawlessly.
Makes it easier for me to find the files i need for tinkering with games. And It is easy to wipe clean for fresh game installations if there is a need.
 
runLoganrun said:
I've read about either partitioning a drive or having a seperate drive for games (and other stuff). What is the advantage of that? And it's just a data drive right, no OS?
thanks.
Click to expand...

If you can't afford multiple HDD's then partition your hard drive so you don't lose your games and settings when you format the OS. If you can afford multiple hard drives then put OS/Programs on one and then Games on the other. If you like to download in background while gaming I would suggest a 3rd aditional hard drive as this will relieve even more stress of the hard drives.

These are different ways to span your data across multiple hard drives. You can put whatever you want on each but the bottom line is the more hard drives you have to span your data across the longer your hard drives will last because this keeps the read/write access down on each individual drive.
 
Also, try not to have games and pagefile on the same drive either to improve reliabilty and performance even more.
 
all of my games and data are on a diff hard drive as my OS. the main reason being you will find that your game will jitter or slow down during hard visual loading (walking thru orgimmar in World of Warcraft) also another advantage is when you have to reformat you wont lose your games, gaming cfg's or prefferences. i have also tried running a raid to speed the loading while runnig the games on the same HD but that seemed to make it worse.
 
defakto said:
Also, try not to have games and pagefile on the same drive either to improve reliabilty and performance even more.
Click to expand...
LOL defakto, you're the 1st non noobie ranked member to post on this. :)

I have often wondered what the best config is for getting performance out of those old dogs we call Hard Drives. Without the patience to do thorough testing of my own, I have had to rely on others' advice along with my own depth of experience with computers.

What seems to be the general concensus regarding HDDs is to put your OS and games on seperate physical drives. This makes the most sense to me. The question is where to put the swap file. without a 3rd drive to use for that, should I put it on OS or games drive? (assuming equal performance ratings/configs on both drives)
 
I personally put a majority of it on the OS drive in my system because once things are up and running that drive doesn't get hit anywhere near what my other drives do. I also spread about 500 meg across two of my 10k scsi drives as a just in case swap space but that's not really needed.
 
What if I only want a single 250GB hard drive in my system (WD2500KS).?

There may be hard drive lovers in this forum but I won't even fill 250GB. Is it so bad to have a sinle hard drive?
 
Nope nothing wrong with it at all. There are some situations where a multi-harddrive system will almost always, unless they are using old, old tech, come out ahead. When it comes to handling alot of requests, load games, hitting a page file, reading mp3's, while uploading a torrent a single drive cannot keep up to a multi-drive system. You may not notice it ever until you switch to a multi drive system.

For the average user it won't matter at all. For the power type users who want as much speed and responsiveness as possible. They will want a setup like that. It follows along the same lines why people use multi-processor systems. The just respond better to load. I can't use my wifes system for anything. Clocked same speed, faster ram, damn good 300 gig harddrive but it 'feels' slow when loading windows or loading up software to run when I compare it to deal with my dual system, 4 harddrives and a nice chunk of slower ram. It's not an exact comparision, it never can be because of the nature of the way the two systems differ but there is a distinct difference in responsiveness.
 
defakto said:
Nope nothing wrong with it at all. There are some situations where a multi-harddrive system will almost always, unless they are using old, old tech, come out ahead. When it comes to handling alot of requests, load games, hitting a page file, reading mp3's, while uploading a torrent a single drive cannot keep up to a multi-drive system. You may not notice it ever until you switch to a multi drive system.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't do all those things at once. I've had a DVD burner since Feb 2004 and still have no idea how to burn a DVD. Multi tasking for me is browsing with Firefox, using Trillian, and listening to mp3s on Winamp.

The question I still have is how should I partition this 250GB drive if at all? Windows, games, programs, mp3s, homework, that's about as complicated as it gets.
 
The choice is yours really. There is no right or wrong answer. It's only limited by how you want your data laid out.
 
u partition it during the installation of your Win XP if you're Win XP if not, you can go to DOS when you boot up and format from there.
 
vmerc said:
What seems to be the general concensus regarding HDDs is to put your OS and games on seperate physical drives. This makes the most sense to me. The question is where to put the swap file. without a 3rd drive to use for that, should I put it on OS or games drive? (assuming equal performance ratings/configs on both drives)
Click to expand...

That's what I'd like to know.

My current setup is this:

1x 74GB Raptor C: 20GB's D: 50GB's

1x 160GB Maxtor G: 160GB's(really 152).

I'm replacing the maxtor with a 250GB Seagate Barracuda that I was originally going to have for media storage. That's what I use my Maxtor for now.

I have my Windows/Apps on the C: partition as well as a small swap file - my Games are on the D: 50GB partition.

All my media is on the 160GB maxtor along with my 1024min 3072max swap file.


What I'm going to have:

1x 74GB Raptor C: 20GB's (Windows/Apps), D: 50GB's

1x 250GB Seagate Barracuda.

Should I put my swap file on the 50GB Partition of the raptor and put my games + media on the Seagate?

Would the swap file and games being on the seagate be slower because of the RPM difference?

I need some guidance. I've always put my games on my OS drive. This new way intrigues me.

What do you think? what should I do?
 
You will notice a slight increase in performance by placing the paging/swap file on the drive that does not contain the OS (in your case the 250GB drive;RPM does not matter). After you install the Barracuda and format it, go to advance settings and place the swap file on that drive. After you reboot, then start loading the drive with your media files. Clean out your 50GB partion so that only games and/or applications reside there.

Good luck.
 
setscrew said:
You will notice a slight increase in performance by placing the paging/swap file on the drive that does not contain the OS (in your case the 250GB drive;RPM does not matter). After you install the Barracuda and format it, go to advance settings and place the swap file on that drive. After you reboot, then start loading the drive with your media files. Clean out your 50GB partion so that only games and/or applications reside there.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Do you think I should put my games on it also? If yes, should I partition it? Like a 50GB for games and a 200GB for media?
 
Raptor
C: OS
D: Games

Barracuda
E: Swap/page file and mass storage

or if you want to go the extra step

Barracuda
E: Swap/page file
F: Mass storage
 
CRXican said:
I wouldn't do all those things at once. I've had a DVD burner since Feb 2004 and still have no idea how to burn a DVD. Multi tasking for me is browsing with Firefox, using Trillian, and listening to mp3s on Winamp.

The question I still have is how should I partition this 250GB drive if at all? Windows, games, programs, mp3s, homework, that's about as complicated as it gets.
Click to expand...
OMG, don't take this the wrong way, but how can you be a "Gawd" in the HardForums and not know how to burn a DVD? :confused: :p
 
vmerc said:
OMG, don't take this the wrong way, but how can you be a "Gawd" in the HardForums and not know how to burn a DVD? :confused: :p
Click to expand...
I guess my knowledge is in other areas, lol. Or I've been asking a lot of questoins.

This damn thread has me wanting a Raptor I know I don't need. I'll have to figure out my lonely WD2500KS by myself.

Also, how do you isolate the page file or tell it which drive/partition to save on?
 
setscrew said:
Raptor
C: OS
D: Games

Barracuda
E: Swap/page file and mass storage

or if you want to go the extra step

Barracuda
E: Swap/page file
F: Mass storage
Click to expand...

That's a good setup, except I wanted to have the games on a seperate drive. How would I accomplish that?


Edit--- Just realized that the Seagate drive isn't much for gaming, it's more for storing media, so it probably wouldn't do to good with the games on it.
 
Yes, how does one setup a page file? I read the description from the above link but I don't totally understand how that helps a two (or one?) disk setup function better.
thanks
 
Right click my computer, properties, advanced tab, performance button, advanced, virtual mem settings button. Adjust to taste.
 
cool. One question though about the single drive partition. I've heard a couple things here; I'll have a raptor as my first drive too. I've read to not partition the primary drive because if your using the other one for games then the drive has to search both partitions and it slows it down some. But with the other drive being slower (mine a WD 160 Caviar), if I put the games on that then I won't get close to the fast raptor access times. Right? Or is it better to just partition the raptor?
thanks
 
runLoganrun said:
Yes, how does one setup a page file? I read the description from the above link but I don't totally understand how that helps a two (or one?) disk setup function better.
thanks
Click to expand...

Think of the pagefile as a huge notepad.
You work on stuff for a little while then write yourself a note before you switch to another task. That way when you come back to the first task you can pick up where you left off.

That is in essence what the pagefile does, but it's storing data for currently running applications and the OS, in a place out of the way of the working memory, i.e. your RAM.
And the more RAM you have the smaller your pagefile can be.

The way this helps a system run is it gives the computer a working space that it can write back and forth to when running memory hog apps *cough*BF2*cough* or when multi-tasking.

So you end up with a lot of HD read/writes when a system is paging.

A 2 (or more) drive system benefites when the pagefile is is on a drive other than the OS/App/Game drive because the head movement/data transfers involved with the the paging doesn't interfer with the data access required for the OS and Apps operation. The drawback to this is when your second drive is slower than the primary drive.

If you've got a Raptor, I'd keep the pagefile on it because there is a system lag caused by the time it takes for the system to read/write to the pagefile, and the faster the drive - the shorter this lag would be.

The pagefile usage would acutally be an ideal application for the iRAM drive. It is only 4GB in size and transfers at a true SATA 150 rate and pagefile data is volitile anyway.

As for setup....
Go to System Properties - Perfomance - Advanced and look around for virtual memory or pagefile. depending on what version of windows you are using. Default is to let windows manage it. You can change it to what you want there. Rule of thumb is to set it to 2 X actual amount of RAM. And to set the MAX and MIN to the same value. Other people might have other advice, but this has always worked for me.
If you want to fine tune it bring up task monitor and watch the pagefile usage during the heaviest that you can run your computer. And adjust from there.

luck





 
So do you think I should put my page file on my Raptor and my games on my Barracuda so the page file would have quick access. They are both SATA 150's so they transfer at the same rate, the only difference is the seek times and the sizes.

It's recommended that if you have two or more HDD's that you keep the page file on any other drive but the on that windows inhabits.

It's also suggested that you put your games on another HDD than the one that windows inhabits for faster game performance as the windows drive doesn't interfere with the gaming drive etc...

If those are true, what should I do? What would one do that has two HDD's? If you want the page file on the one opposite the windows drive, that's fine, I'll stick it on the barracuda. If it's suggested that your games go on the drive opposite windows for improved performance, fine, I'll stick those on the barracuda too.

Does that seem plausible? Page file, games, and media on a 250GB Barracuda, Window's/Apps on a 74GB Raptor partitioned 20/50.

How does that sound? Would the page file writing interfere with the game reading too much as to bog down performance?
 
rodsfree said:
A 2 (or more) drive system benefites when the pagefile is is on a drive other than the OS/App/Game drive because the head movement/data transfers involved with the the paging doesn't interfer with the data access required for the OS and Apps operation. The drawback to this is when your second drive is slower than the primary drive.
Click to expand...

So, for example I've got a 120gig HD that has my OS, games, programs, and page file on it. I have another 200 gig HD that is soley for media. The 200 gig HD is faster than the other drive. So you're saying that putting the page file on the faster 200 gig would be a better idea than keeping the page file on the drive with the OS and games on it?
 
Cousin Patty said:
So, for example I've got a 120gig HD that has my OS, games, programs, and page file on it. I have another 200 gig HD that is soley for media. The 200 gig HD is faster than the other drive. So you're saying that putting the page file on the faster 200 gig would be a better idea than keeping the page file on the drive with the OS and games on it?
Click to expand...

Right.....
Unless you have enough RAM to prevent the system form paging a lot.

1 Gig works for most people.
But Battlefield 2 is rapidly pushing that number up to 2 Gig just to prevent horrendous amounts of paging.


 
winston856 said:
So do you think I should put my page file on my Raptor and my games on my Barracuda so the page file would have quick access. They are both SATA 150's so they transfer at the same rate, the only difference is the seek times and the sizes.

It's recommended that if you have two or more HDD's that you keep the page file on any other drive but the on that windows inhabits.

It's also suggested that you put your games on another HDD than the one that windows inhabits for faster game performance as the windows drive doesn't interfere with the gaming drive etc...

If those are true, what should I do? What would one do that has two HDD's? If you want the page file on the one opposite the windows drive, that's fine, I'll stick it on the barracuda. If it's suggested that your games go on the drive opposite windows for improved performance, fine, I'll stick those on the barracuda too.

Does that seem plausible? Page file, games, and media on a 250GB Barracuda, Window's/Apps on a 74GB Raptor partitioned 20/50.

How does that sound? Would the page file writing interfere with the game reading too much as to bog down performance?
Click to expand...


Partitions on a drive doesn't help or hurt the access speed....it's still the same drive, right.

Personally, I've got a 2 X 36GB Raptor RAID 0 array as my primary/boot/OS Drive.
It has my apps, games, pagefile and windows on it. I've also got 2GB of DDR on the motherboard, so I don't have windows doing a lot of paging. And I've got another 2 X 160GB RAID 0 array for data. And I've got an external 300GB USB Drive for backups. Critical data is burned to CD's & DVD's.

And this works pretty well for me. I'm generally the first to get into a map on my clan's CS:S server. And my pings are not the lowest in the clan, so I know it's not due to my network speed.

The absolute best thing you can do for your system's performance is to have enough system memory so your system won't rely on the pagefile.
It doesn't have to be top-of-the-line, super OC-able, highdollar stuff either.
PC3200 will do fine for most non-overclocked systems, because RAM will always be faster than a harddrive.

Hope this helps.

 
Here's my task manager:

tm1yx.png




I've only had windows loaded for about 10mins.
 
That looks about right for just windows and the background apps.


You've only got 53MB in the pagefile and 1GB of physical RAM.

So your system shouldn't be doing a lot of paging.
Remember that 2 X RAM for the pagefile rule of thumb.

Keep the task manager open while doing your normal thing and watch the size of the pagefile and the harddrive lights. If it starts getting bigger and the harddrive activity goes up, you might need more RAM.

 
I have my page file set at 1024 initial and 3072 maximum size. I thought that should be sufficient.

How can I see how much physical memory windows is using?

Do I look under Physical memory? Is that saying I only have 543MB's of RAM left?
 
depends on who you talk to for pagefile size really. I personally use min and max of 1.5* physical ram to eliminate fragmentation of the page file. Setting a range can cause it to be fragmented back in teh day. So it was a habit I picked up and kept past now.
 
defakto said:
depends on who you talk to for pagefile size really. I personally use min and max of 1.5* physical ram to eliminate fragmentation of the page file. Setting a range can cause it to be fragmented back in teh day. So it was a habit I picked up and kept past now.
Click to expand...

Earlier in the thread I said the same thing...but I've always used 2 X RAM.
So, I'm not just imagining that rule. Thanks for the backup! ;)


 
rodsfree said:
Earlier in the thread I said the same thing...but I've always used 2 X RAM.
So, I'm not just imagining that rule. Thanks for the backup! ;)
Click to expand...
That rule is for office workers, and people that have too little RAM to start with. You have 1GB of RAM. Nothing that you will do is going to require 3GB of total memory space.

Think about it. If you are playing BF2, and you decide to add another 1GB of RAM, you aren't going to need to increase your VRAM to 4GB to match the 2x rule. In fact, if you have 2GB of RAM you probably could get away with little or no VRAM at all.

Games use what they're going to use. If it's more than what you have in physical RAM, you're not going to be able to play anyway.

If your system overall uses more than the phyical RAM in your system, then you need VRAM, but if you're playing a game you want to shut down any other programs before you start. With this being the case, the amount of VRAM needed to store anything that might go over Physical RAM is going to be fairly small.

If you use your computer for things other than gaming, I have to wonder what you could possibly load that would require more RAM than the current wave of PC games. Even if you are multi-tasking like a MOFO, you are going to be hard pressed to match the RAM requirements of a single game running. If you're running some huge DB or server on your gaming machine, then I'll just shut up now so I don't get banned. ;)



It's also a good idea to make your VRAM be the same size for max and min. That way the file cannot resize itself and get all fragged up. The swap file cannot be defragged normally, and is a general pain in the neck to get defragged.
 
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