Split Windows Install between Two Drives

[Oh yoU iN]

I'm building a system based on two fast 36GB SCSI drives (SAS interface) for the OS (Windows XP 32 bit) and two large (300GB) SATA drives in RAID0 for data. All drives will be backed up regularly. Hard drive speed has always been the bottleneck in my previous systems and I wanted to get the fastest storage system I could afford. Smaller / faster drives are fine for the OS, as I usually don't fill up more then 20GB with a typical windows install. This will be a single user computer for photo, video, and audio editing.
I've read many places that RAID0 is not good for your boot drive because of more seek times and smaller files loading and not taking full advantage of RAID0 sustained transfer rates. Also I really wanted to try out the newest SCSI tech.
I wanted to split the OS between the two SAS drives a faster response time and quicker program launches (of course) . Also, most of the programs I work with will allow me to set a primary and secondary scratch disk.
I split the OS between two PATA IDE drives years ago in the Win9X days. It really seemed to improve performance, or maybe it was the placebo effect.

My current thinking is that I should put the System (Windows directory),"Documents and Settings" directory and the pagefile on the first (C) SAS drive. Then put "Program Files" and "Temp files" (Usually in C:\Documents and Settings\"User Name"\Local Settings\Temp) on the second (D) SAS drive. All other data (graphics / audio / video) would be on the RAID0 SATA drives (E).
I've read that the pagefile should be on the least used physical drive. With this setup it seems the first drive would be used less if I set the second drive as the primary scratch disk.
Does anyone have another opinion of where to put the page file and / or how to best split the directories for the System, Program Files, Documents and Settings, & Temp files between two physical drives?
I'm using nLite to prep the OS install, so I can move any of these directories to either drive.

PS This is my first post here, please be gentle

 

[Talonz]

Sounds good to me. I did the same a while ago, but then found that I liked the flexibility of having my program files and my windows installation on the same drive.

 

[ClintE]

Regarding where to store programs or data, it depends on how you use them.

I usually make a swap file partition on the same drive as the operating system. However, I've been experimenting with other configurations, such as making a partition at the beginning of a different drive for the swap file (short stroke type of thing), and formatting the rest of that drive for other things.

This seems to work quite well, even if this drive is taken out of service, as windows xp will create a swap file on the boot partition if it can't find its normal area for swap file storage. Then I just delete the temp swap file later after booting with the normal swap file drive in place.

I've done this with a Dell M70 notebook with good results, using a second drive in the multi-bay where the optical drive is normally installed. Since I hardly ever use the optical drive very much, this config works very well.

Does it improve performance? Seems to, but maybe it's the placebo effect mentioned before. The system is using both ide channels this way, so possibly it does increase drive performance.

One disadvantage to this particular setup is that the system won't allow me to remove the second drive while in windows, since it has the swap file open and will not allow the "safe drive removal" procedure. I've found this not to be a problem, because a shutdown and restart is quite fast. I just have to make sure I don't put any files to be written to optical disc on the second drive, and most cd-writing programs allow the user to set where they want those files to be stored.

In multi-drive systems, I often have a "Program Files" directory on more than one drive, depending on what I'm installing. Smaller utilities and programs essential to windows operation get installed on the boot partition, and large programs and games get installed on a different drive. One main reason for this is so that when I create an image of the boot drive, it doesn't take as long. I have found that when keeping the boot drive as small as possible for quick image runs, I tend to do this more often, which is definitely a good thing now that I'm using the 2 wd raptor 150's in a stripe array. Rather a waste of drive space, but they're the fastest sata drives I've found. They were the best system speed upgrade I have ever installed. Simply amazing.

When testing different configurations, I have found a drive imaging program to be very helpful, if not essential. I have even used a partition manipulation program to resize and move the operating system partition to different places on the drive. Recently I discovered that I can move the os partition to the end of the drive, create a swap file partition at the beginning of the drive (for short stroking performance), then move the os partition right up to the new partition and resize it to take up the rest of the drive. Been using Acronis Disk Director for this with excellent results. Just have to be careful where I tell windows to put its swap file; generally keep it on the boot partition until all moving and resizing is finished, then make one change at a time and reboot between each change, such as relocation of the swap file. I also found that moving and resizing a partition in one operation can be done, but is probably not the best practice. And I always create an image before attempting any partition manipulation.