Dedicated gaming HDD?

AssaTM

AssaTM

AssaTM

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I saw someone mention that they're gonna buy a smaller HDD along with there HDD they will use for there OS, data etc, just to install games on, I just wondered if there is any advantages to this? as it would seem that'd it'd take a lil while longer to go to the 2nd hdd to read the data, or? any help would be appreciated, ty :)
 
No it'll be quicker, they're on seperate hard drives and channels.
However if you have lots of RAM it'll help even more, as swapping from HD to RAM is much slower than improvement of seperate hard drives (windows really doesn't tax that much if idle) if you're running out of RAM.

Seperate hard drives helps when you're doing two heavy hard disk accessing at the same time. ie defragment your hard drive and play a game from it at the same time. Or reading in data from optical drive(s) to that hard drive whilst gaming.

Also useful if you're burning off data from a hard drive whilst doing something heavy with the other, you don't want buffer underuns.
 
AssaTM said:
I saw someone mention that they're gonna buy a smaller HDD along with there HDD they will use for there OS, data etc, just to install games on, I just wondered if there is any advantages to this? as it would seem that'd it'd take a lil while longer to go to the 2nd hdd to read the data, or? any help would be appreciated, ty :)
Click to expand...

If it's a Raptor hard-drive they were referring to, then they're very quick (10,000RPM rather than standard drives, which are 7,200RPM), but then they are more expensive.

The only slight issue I can see with buying a deliberately small drive just for games, is that smaller drives tend to be older generations, and so aren't as quick as the newer drives. I've got 3 Seagate drives from different generations (7200.7, 7200.8, and 7200.10, from oldest to newest), and the oldest drive is also the slowest one, whilst the 7200.10 is noticeably quicker. That's why it's only ever a good idea to use old drives for regular storage, and nothing that's particularly speed-sensitive.

For what it's worth, on my 320GB drive (the 7200.10) I have a 20GB partition for Windows and my program files, whilst the rest of the drive is another partition on which I keep my games installed, as well as my music and some other stuff. Has the benefit of allowing me to completely format my C:, re-install Windows, but leave all my other files like music, documents, movies and games intact, without having to copy stuff over or re-install them.
 
Hmmm well what if the drive is 10,000rpm, and is the newest generation of HDD's, would there be a significant benefit to doing that? sorry about the questions but this has interested me :p
 
The spindle speed of the drive is only one part of the equation. By spinning quicker than other SATA drives the Raptors have a lower average seek time than other drives but the data density on the platters isn't that high so their sustained transfer rate isn't as spectacular. In fact the 36Gb & 74Gb models are actually slower than Seagates 7200.10 range and the upcoming 7K1000s from Hitachi could well be quicker than the 150Gb Raptor.

With that in mind I don't really see what the benefit is from paying 4 times the price per Gb for the Raptor.
 
Hmm, well now I see no reasson for people to buy it just for games then, I mean i've never seen a problem playing games and doing other things from the same HDD ;p
 
IF the OS is on a seperate physical hard drive from everything else (games, photos, movies, apps etc) then it can be contained in quite a small partition. A small partition is much more manageable in terms of backing up and restoring. Rebuilding an OS from scratch is a real chore - it takes days to get the drivers, updates, utilities, user settings etc just right. Reinstalling most apps and games is a trivial exercise.
 
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