Do i really need to keep Vista seperate?

Xion

Xion

Xion

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4 Dec 2007
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322
Hi everyone,

Hope your all okay and had a nice long bank holiday weekend!

I was just wondering if you could all help me out on something that i am trying to understand...

Basically,

I am wondering if there really is much difference if i have Vista Home Premium (64-bit), installed on one Hard Drive, and have a 2nd Hard Drive for everything else when taking into account my PC use:

Now one important thing i need to mention here is that i would only really use about hmm 100MB or so at the moment including Vista?

I don't really have too much music/films and stuff on my PC, and don't really install too many games at one go, (maybe 2-3 installed). The main use is mostly for gaming, mainly Lord of the Rings Online, browsing, and playing the odd new single player games that are out (i.e. Crysis), but i hardly install many and keep them on my machine.

Now my dads PC is pretty similar spec to mine, and i would only have a few more things installed than him, he is using a:

Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10000RPM SATA 16MB Cache

I have just ordered one of these:

Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10000RPM SATA-II 16MB Cache

Now that should be okay for my use i guess...i mean a few people have advised having Vista on a seperate HD, but is it REALLY needed and am i loosing out on much? I guess in terms of heat, having one HD would be more efficiant for me too?

Also should i have gone for a:

Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB model?

I really would not even use up even 400GB i don't think, so would that just be not really efficiant? Therefore i thought the WD VeloiReaptor with 300GB would be just right for me.

Hope what i said made sence, i just want to make the right choice really :) Anyone else got the Veloci Raptor by the way and can say its good? ;)

Other spec is as follows:

Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 Black
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz
Zalman CNPS9700-LED CPU Cooler
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI
Asus P5N-T Deluxe nForce 780i
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1
Vista Home Premium 64-bit
4GB OCZ Ram
 
You can use a single hard drive fine, I have used all kinds of configs with Vista. It doesn't mean you'll get stuttering or anything like that, totally usable :)
 
One drive will be fine, network the PC with your dads, and then duplicate any of his important files on yours, and vice versa if you have any important stuff you are woried about.
 
i think what he was asking tho, and also what i want to know is.

is it a BETTER option to have just the OS on one drive?

i was thinking of getting the 74GB Velociraptor and putting the OS and all applications (office, firefox, msn messenger) on that drive. Then all music and videos and Blu-Ray rips etc on a 2x 7200 drives in RAID-0?
 
I can't see any good reason for keeping the OS on a seperate drive, if you have a low amount of RAM and the OS then does a lot of 'paging' then maybe, but surely the solution is to increase the ram rather than seperate the harddrive. Most people talk about keeping their OS on a seperate drive to allow them to format and reinstall without losing games, apps etc in the event of an OS failure, but this should not be a problem if you backup regularly.

In the case that you specify using a Velociraptor for the OS, ideally you would use this for everything, however I am assuming that you think it too expensive to use for normal storage? It is the same with SSD, too expensive for normal storage use, so it is used for the OS where the speed gains are most noticable.

I would consider investing in RAID1 (mirroring) for you music etc, smallish cost to avoid having to re rip everything if one hard drive packs up.
 
I think the replies here have answered the question though, that i don't really need 2 Hard Drives, one for the OS and one for everything else for optimal performance taking into account my PC usage...

I'll use the WD VelociRaptor and install everything just on that drive :) Any future upgrades now on my rig should be either RAM or Case i think, i think i'll be sorted with this HD.
 
Of course you don't need more than one drive but it can make things a lot faster as the heads can only be in one position at a time. So if you're copying/extracting within a drive it's dog slow, or if you're reading/writing something big and you have another process trying to use the disk at the same time.
 
One thing I would recommend though, is that you keep games installed to a separate partition. it'll reduce fragmentation and make defragging more effective.
 
Hmm thanks, some really nice mixed responses now :) There are just quite a few options and I was thinking I may just have everything onto the one drive, as I really do not have too much to place on. Either that or partition that drive into 2.
 
I have the 300Gb VRaptor and everything is installed to the 1 drive. My files etc are all stored in a Windows Home Server machine in my spare room. I see no point in having 2 seperate drives with OS on one and applications etc on the other, you still have to format both when re-installing. If you want to splash out on 2 raptors, then RAID-0 them. Just remember that access time will increase.

I am more than happy with mny VRaptor, I used to have a 150gb one and find this one noticeably faster than it. I wouldnt even consider going to a 7200RPM drive now. My next full build will either keep this VR or go to SSD (Assuming price is right).
 
I have always asked the same question.. i thought, Eff it, ill try it out. 2 drives is great.. simply because i personally multi task the **** out of my computer so the hardrive doesnt have to zip around like a monkey on caffeine drip..

But.....

The only REALLL 100% downside to having two hard drives is that the second one has to load momentarily after turning your computer on so i have a shortcut bar down the right hand side with my D drive games.. It takes approximately 3 - 5 seconds to load up the icons where as my C drive shortcut bar is ofcourse instant.

Is that really a downside.. no, i dont think so.

Both are pretty much the same so i wouldn't worry too much about it.

WIN

EDIT:

DONT PARTITION.. THIS IS MEGA FREAKING SLOW. I promise ya, ive had more problems than a giraffe with a neck the size of a moles.
 
I'm running with a 250Gb drive partitioned up into four drives -

1. System (Windows etc)
2. My Documents
3. Photos
4. Data (general storage

I've not noticed any performance issues - but is this recommended? I'm in the market for a big drive to partition in a similar way, and would like to know what's the best option? I like things partitioned for backup purposes (using Ghost).
 
Well thanks for the advice all, got my drive in now. Installed everything I normally use on my pc (including Vista/apps/LotRO/some pictures and music) and I'm left with 205GB free space still now :)

The pro's I have noticed from a previous WD 150GB Raptor X I had were:

- A lot quieter !!!
- Can notice some difference in speed in OS
- Shutting down and booting to Vista is noticeably quicker !

Overall I am impressed with this drive :)
 
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