More HDs = Slower OS Boot?

[the.ronin]

Does having more hard drives slow down Windows boot from post to the login screen? Or from the login screen to the desktop?

 

[sub.mesa]

No, but additional controllers in your system might take more time to initialize after initial POST (Power On Self Test).

 

[the.ronin]

Thanks, sub. These are HDs just connected directly to the SATA ports on the MB. No RAID setup with separate hardware controllers if that's what you are referring to.

 

[OldMX]

Not here, currently i run 2 drives, but a couple of weeks ago i had 6 sata disk without slowing the boot down.

 

[drescherjm]

I believe it adds a few seconds (2 to 10) to the boot even on i7 machines with 12GB of ram. At least that is what I have witnessed. After the delay to examine the drives the system operates at the same speed as it did before adding additional drives. This may be caused by the AV scanner, windows or a combination of the two.

 

[rays87turbo]

In my experience if you have several drives, and you do not set the boot order properly it can take a long time to boot. If the OS drive is the last drive in the boot order, your PC will eventually try to load an OS from it after checking the devices ahead of it in the boot order.