Maxtor 120gb 7.2Krpm + Raptor 74gb 10Krpm. To raid or not to raid?

[Klingon]

I currently have the Maxtor as my system disk, Im not very happy about the performance and loading times so Im going for the Raptor 74gb 10K rpm edition as my new system disk. They are both S-ATA disks. Now should I raid these on my Asus A7NX8-D or would the rpm on my maxtor degrade the performance of the Raptor?

Also how should I partition the raptor if choose not to raid them. The whole thing in C:, and keep the pagefile as default for optimal peformance?

I mostly use my system for gaming, hate my current load time in e.g Battlefield1942.

I know RAM is a big factor aswell so Im getting another 512 stick to bump it up to 1GB.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[Doctor X]

I currently have the Maxtor as my system disk, Im not very happy about the performance and loading times so Im going for the Raptor 74gb 10K rpm edition as my new system disk. They are both S-ATA disks. Now should I raid these on my Asus A7NX8-D or would the rpm on my maxtor degrade the performance of the Raptor?

In short... no. The two drives are too dissimilar.. ( you wouldnt notice anything.) Also, you would throw 46GB away. The only way raid is worth wild is using the same drives.

Also how should I partition the raptor if choose not to raid them. The whole thing in C:, and keep the pagefile as default for optimal peformance?

Dont make your system root drive (i am assuming c here) larger than 35G. I am not sure why, but windows slows down quite a bit if it is bigger than that. I found this out on my own system. Anyone want to confirm or deny this? I have reproduced this in my environment many times. You can have any other partition as large as you want. As for your pagefile, put it on the other harddrive that does not have the system root on (again assumeing c here).

I mostly use my system for gaming, hate my current load time in e.g Battlefield1942.

I know RAM is a big factor aswell so Im getting another 512 stick to bump it up to 1GB.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

good idea.. especially with XP.

Hope this helps.

Doctor X

 

[djnes]

I've had BF1942 use over 650 MB of memory at times....so your system is most definitely chugging through that. Upgrading your RAM would give you immediate benefits.

I could sit here all day explaining why RAID0 is pretty much all hype and no substance, but absolutely everyone would agree it's a no-no when your using dissimilar drives. Unless your planning to built a computer system ode to instability.

Use the Raptor as your system drive, Maxtor as the storage drive, and get you some memory!

 

[Klingon]

Thanks for informative replies!

Im most likely going for a 15gb c: and the rest of the raptor on d: for game installs.
Should I put the pagefile on d: or one of the partition of my other hdd (maxtor) ?

 

[aug1516]

Thanks for informative replies!

Im most likely going for a 15gb c: and the rest of the raptor on d: for game installs.
Should I put the pagefile on d: or one of the partition of my other hdd (maxtor) ?

As long as your Maxtor is a decent HD (7200rpm) you would probably be better putting the page file on it instead of the Maxtor.