1 hard drive or 2 ?

[Arge]

hey,

Im building a new budget core2 rig around christmas and want to get the best hard drive set up for my money.

Origonally i was thinking sumthing along the lines of 2 x 160gb harddrives, one for the OS + installed programs and one for games/media storage.

I then wondered weather i would be better off with the speed benifits of a single drive of say 320gb. But this would mean i woul no longer have a dedicated games HD.

So my question is.....

Is it better to have a seperate HD for both games and OS. (help load times?) OR Would a single higher capacity drive with the OS and games installed on it be the best way to go ?

Opinions please....

Thanks

 

[squiffy]

Small drive for boot and program files, then another for games.
It all depends how much multi-tasking you'll do. If you play games at the same time as encoding/zipping/unzipping files (all heavy on HD I/O) You should do that on another drive. So boot + games + shrinking drive.

Also if your OS install is borfed you won't lose savegames and documents (don't store my documents on boot drive) although most games will need to be re-installed as they keep stuff in registry.

For now, get a single biggest drive you can afford/or best value for money. You can always add a smaller and/or faster HD (ie raptor) for the boot drive. Or use existing spare HD you have lying around, a 40GB IDE will be more than suitable/fast enough. I use 80GB for boot, and two 320GB for music/games/working storage.

 

[HangTime]

Definitely go with the single drive option unless you want to use RAID. This is becuase:

-Lower power consumption
-Less heat production
-Takes up less space in your case
-Uses fewer channels on your controller i.e. can add more later
-Works out cheaper (until you get to really big drives)

 

[squiffy]

Definitely go with the single drive option unless you want to use RAID. This is becuase:

-Lower power consumption

Wow extra 10W. Compared to CPU, monitor and graphics/dual graphics pales.

-Less heat production

Not a problem, unless your case has no case fans.

-Takes up less space in your case

Again not a problem, as long as it's not SFF/Shuttle.

-Uses fewer channels on your controller i.e. can add more later

Most people won't use up all their channels, I have a total of 4 IDE plus 4 SATA on my motherboard. Still have 2 free SATA and 1 PATA free.

Works out cheaper (until you get to really big drives)

Extra £70 for 320GB, and if you need to space...a small drive ie 120GB for boot, and larger 320GB+ for games.

 

[mrk]

Definitely go with the single drive option unless you want to use RAID. This is becuase:

-Lower power consumption
-Less heat production
-Takes up less space in your case
-Uses fewer channels on your controller i.e. can add more later
-Works out cheaper (until you get to really big drives)

Neither of those are really important though, drives do not generate much heat and they run at room temp anyway. They don't draw much power either to be of concern.

A users data integrity and safety is far more important than either point

Multiple drives is always the best for data and file management especially in terms of loss prevention.

Most new mobos also have several SATA ports as well as the standard 4x IDE ports.

 

[binaryknight]

its good to be able to put the pagefile on a seperate drive as well
i have 3 drives simply because i had them and didnt see the need to upgrade

2x40gbs in raid for os apps etc 1 x 120gb for storage and pagefile
saying that been doing a fair bit of video editing lately and could really use more space!

 

[Captain Fizz]

Depends on your budget.

You say you will be doing a budget system...
Around 300GB drives are the best £/GB at the mo - So it would be best to get 1.

If you are worried about performance, then get 2 drives, and your page file on the 2nd drive.
(Or games on 2nd HDD with OS on first... Depends on how you use the PC)

 

[FatRakoon]

I like to do many jobs at once... I Encode AVI files off my camera to DVD Format, burn Several DVDs at once, defrag my drives and play games all at the same time.

One drive, even 2 drives raided can have issues and slow-downs, but a number of drives on different controlers can be ... Sorry, ARE much faster.


If I was limited to only 2 drives, I myself have them with

HD1 =
C: = Windows and ONLY windows. I find 8GB more than enough
E: = Media

HD2 =
D: = Apps & Games
F: = Junk like The older Docs that I dont need as often as the ones on C:

Ideally though, I go for one partition per drive

My main PC is currently:-

HD1 ( Raptor ) =
C: = 8GB ( Windows )
T: = 65GB ( Games ISOs & Installs )

HD2 ( Seagate 120GB )
D: = Apps & Games

HD3+4 ( 2xSeagate 250 )
E: = Media

HD5 = ( Seagate 80GB )
F: = Junk stuff

HD6 = ( Maxtor 40GB )
M: = Downloads... It was to be a temp drive, but I just cant be bothered removing it.

I also split the Page Fiel across the drives too, as I feel this improves the speed a little ,although there are many arguements both sides of the fence on this one.

 

[Phil2008]

I have 2 drives
Drive 1: c: windows and apps (25gb part)
d: games, photos and music (175gb part)

Drive 2: mainly for backing up the boot partition and important data, plus a 2nd copy of xp incase I cant boot up xp from my main drive to restore xp. (40gb part)