Question about hardrives

Corban227

Corban227

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ok so i didn't know how to title this BUT i do have a couple of questions on how i should use my hard drives...

so i have a 500 gig, 250 gig, and 80 gig hardrive Plus my external 1TB

I know it used to be the smart thing to give windows its own Hard Drive but has that changed?
the 500 gig is the newest one, so i was guessing that i should install windows on that Hard drive but i wasn't sure if i should install it on the 80 gig, but then its the smallest so i might want to get rid of it the soonest, but then again the case has 7 3.5 drive slots...

just need some advice :)
 
probably put windows on the 250gig drive. then use the 500gb and 1tb as storage drives. get rid of the 80gb, or trucrypt it and use it to store porn and shit.
 
you can use the 80 gig for windows if you want.. wont make that much of a difference in performance between the 250 and the 80.. just use the 80 for window.. 250 for applications/games and the 500 and 1TB for storage..
 
What are the specific brands and model numbers to each of the individual hard drives?

I ask because newer technology and larger drive platter sizes have made some of the recently released hard drives faster than those released a year or two prior. With you saying that your 500GB HDD is the newest one, I assume that it's faster than the others... but without know the specific type/model, I can't really say that.
 
yea actually im pretty sure the 500 gig is the fastest one. imma go clean them and then take them out of their external hardrive case (they were internals that i got cases for). ill post their model numbers etc in a bit
 
It'd be best to use the fastest drive for your OS, and create an OS partition on it. If the performance between all the drives is similar, it won't matter which drive you use, but I doubt that will be true for your set of drives. I'd leave the 80GB in its enclosure and use it to store an OS backup image and other important data, or simply sell the drive after DBAN'ing it. You can use HDTune and/or HDTach to figure out your drives' speeds.
 
ok so heres what ive found out

200 gig Maxtor = 150 MBps
Maxtor

80 Gig Seagate = 95 MBps
Seagate

and im not sure the exact Samsung transfer rate, but for sure its fastest.
Samsung

so i have a couple of questions:

1)how do i make a partition in the 500 Gig drive and how big should it be?

2) Is it even worth keeping the 80 gig drive?
a) if it is, how would i make a image of windows for backing up, and then would it be possible to restore windows with that image?
 
That 200GB Maxtor can not sustain 150MB/s transfer speed -- thats only its max. You'd have to run a benchmark tool to figure out its sustainable transfer speed.

1) The Samsung F3 is fast. You can create a partition using either Windows disk management, or almost any tool out there. A popular tool is GParted. For windows, just hit start, run, and type in diskmgmt.msc and run it. You can right click on the drive, create a primary partition of whatever size you want (my OS partition is 100GB, but I only use less than 20GB), and do a quick format for NTFS. Then you can create an extended partition and a logical drive, and again, quick format for NTFS. However, if you're installing the OS onto this drive, you can do this during setup.

2) Worth is up to you... you already have it as well as an external enclosure, so I don't think there's any cost to using it. You can't really sell it for much, either. So, again, its up to you.

3) Yes, you could make an image using Acronis True Image for Seagate. It's free off of the Seagate website. Check the troubleshooting guide sticky for the link (ctrl+F "seagate"). yes, you'd be able to restore windows with that image.
 
would it be better to keep the 80 gig out or should i put it in. i'm trying to save space on my desk and it would be able to be kept cooler on the inside. just wondering if there is any benefit for it to be on the outside?

also, would a 50 gig partition for the os be too small?
 
I would assume if you kept it in an external enclosure, you wouldn't have it powered on all the time, which would help prolong its life. :p Plug it in only when you need to do a backup image of your OS partition.
 
enginurd said:
I would assume if you kept it in an external enclosure, you wouldn't have it powered on all the time, which would help prolong its life. :p Plug it in only when you need to do a backup image of your OS partition.
Click to expand...

o lol that makes sense.

but would 50 gigs be big enough for os partition?
 
Corban227 said:
o lol that makes sense.

but would 50 gigs be big enough for os partition?
Click to expand...

How much are you using right now? or is your OS not partitioned off from your data? hehe... for most people, 50GB is more than enough. For others who install everything and don't uninstall anything, then 50GB is probably too small for OS/Apps. BTW, set your MyDocs folder, if you use it, to your data partition. ;)
 
well im still waiting of the rest of my parts before i can build the comp. what do you mean install everything?

im new to the whole building a comp (first one) :D so im not entirely sure how to partition. i was assuming that the OS is about 20-30 gigs (win7 pro) but i didnt know if there was extra space needed. as of right now i was planning on making a partition for the OS and then the rest of the drive would be for apps etc. probably gonna put music and pics on the 200 gig and put games, apps etc on the 500 gig Samsung and my 1tb external drive

would i need to make an extra partition for my docs or would i just make the partition for the OS bigger and put my docs in there? and would it be a better idea to keep music and pics with the my docs partition?
 
the more stuff you can save to a separate partition aside from the OS the better. it makes it easy to reinstall the os if you need to. my first suggestion of the 250gb as the os drive, it would probably would be best to make a 80gb partition on it to install the OS and main programs...

reason i said delete the 80gb drive completely is because of the extra heat and power you dont need to be making. 80gb is nill compared to what else you have, if anything make it an external drive.
 
im sorry to be asking nub questions, but what do you guys mean by main programs? what are you referring to?
 
Indeed, separate your data partition from your OS/Apps partition.

main programs... All the programs you install... like MS Office, Firefox, Winamp (or iTunes), Anti-Virus, Chat client(s), etc.
 
ok so its best to:

Make a partion for OS and basic apps, such as ms office, itunes antivirus, etcetc
Use the other partition for data such as documents from office, music for itunes etcetc
then install games and other applications on diff hardrive (500 Gig hard drive or TB external)

Right?

And then one more question:

Because the 200 gig is slower than the 500 gig will that slow down my OS, or will i not notice it?
 
Yes, it will, but whether you notice it or not is up to you, lol. You can rune HDTune on them to see how much slower one is from the other.
 
Corban227 said:
ok so its best to:

Make a partion for OS and basic apps, such as ms office, itunes antivirus, etcetc
Use the other partition for data such as documents from office, music for itunes etcetc
then install games and other applications on diff hardrive (500 Gig hard drive or TB external)

Right?

And then one more question:

Because the 200 gig is slower than the 500 gig will that slow down my OS, or will i not notice it?
Click to expand...

i install everything besides games to the os partition. works out well for me, but 80gb is just boarderline big enough, 120gb is much easier to work with in this era of software we are in.

there probably will not be a noticeable difference from the 200 to the 500gb drives... you might get a noticeable gain in transfer speed with the 500gb, but seek times and random access will be virtually the same and so the os will run virtually the same.

also, using the default "documents" and "downloads" folders on the os drive is extremely convenient. but since i dont ever feel safe with data on the os partition, i use a backup program to keep those folders synced to a duplicate on a different computer in the basement.
 
ok, so from the sound of that, it would probably be best to use the entire 200 gig drive as the os/docs hd, put games and apps on the 500 gig and use the external tb for backing up documents and music, as well as extra space for games and apps.

therefore this provides transfer speed when i need it with apps like Photoshop and games while my data and os are the hardrive where speed will not make a difference. also if i ever feel the need to take stuff to another computer i could transfer it to the external (esata connection) and move it.

then i will keep the 80 gig in the external case and place an image of the OS there, so if anything ever goes wrong all i need do is plug in the 80 gig drive and reload the image. the only other thing i would have on that drive is Acronis True Image for Seagate for making the image and restoring it if need be.

if i ever need more space ill just buy another internal HD

does that sound like a solid plan?
 
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