OS and games on different drives

[Magic Man]

Got 2 drives.

Both drives have a paging file set.

Is there any advantage to be had from installing the games on the other drive to the OS? I.e. When running a game, will the system be accessing any other files apart from those in the game directory, e.g. windows .dll's, graphic card .dll's etc that would mean that by putting the games on the second drive there wouldn't be any potential drive contention issues anymore?

I'm thinking for games where disk access is quite constant, e.g. flight simulator loading scenery etc.

Ta.

 

[pegasus1]

Put your page file on your fastest drive,
I use the following HDD set up

HDD 1 - OS + Apps

HDD 2 - Games

HDD 3 - Music/Video/Photos/ Pagefile

All are Hitachi SATA 2 drives

 

[bailey12856]

Put your page file on your fastest drive,
I use the following HDD set up

HDD 1 - OS + Apps

HDD 2 - Games

HDD 3 - Music/Video/Photos/ Pagefile

All are Hitachi SATA 2 drives

Im pretty much the same, but my 3rd hard drive (when it comes) will just be used to save all downloads on. My photos etc are still in the My Docs -> My Pics folder. But for my last two pcs ive always had games on a seperate hard drive.

 

[OzZie]

I have mine set out like this:

1x40GB 7200rpm IDE
1x250GB SATAII 16mb

Half the 40GB drive into two partitions, one for Windows and one for a backup. This includes simply drivers and software for a re-install, plus a good 15GB of free space for any emergencies. Windows after a re-format has still about 10GB left even after all the standard apps are installed (Nod, Office, Photoshop etc).

The 250GB drive is for everything else. Documents, downloads, games, music, pictures etc are all on the 250GB. I've never messed about with the pagefile though . This way it is much easier when you reformat because as soon as you add the SATA drive and move the "my docs" target location, you have it all setup in an instant.

 

[agnes]

ive never been a fan of the suggested above.

my setup is as follows

Raptor 150 - XP OS/Apps/Games
Raptor 150 - Vista U 64/Apps/Games
West Digi 500 - Downloads/torrents/music
West Digi 500 - Pictures/Backups/Install .exe's/Drivers

I dual boot, but its been god knows how long ive used vista lol, waiting for sp1 to come out, i only use it for benching in dx10 games (which there are hardly any)

ags

 

[zytok]

I've always liked the three HDD setup as described. OS on one, games on second, docs and downloads on the third. That way, if Windows screws up, I can just reimage the OS drive from an image on the third drive. Don't even have to bother reinstalling most games as most run fine from the .exe. My page file's on the third as well. Like to keep it away from the main drive.

 

[Chronictank]

Drive 1 and 2 in raid 0:
C: Windows
D: Apps
S: Storage
T: Temp (page file, profiles etc etc)

Drive 2:
B: Windows XP
E: XP Apps
R: Backups

I backup the windows drives, saves backing up all the apps

 

[HangTime]

Assuming all drives/arrays are the same speed, the best setup (theoretically) should be something like this:

-1 exclusive channel for windows
-1 exclusive channel for games
-1 exclusive channel for swap file
-1 exclusive channel for optical drive in cases where data is read from it

When playing games it is possible for the first 3 to require access at the same time and therefore it's best to be seperate physical drives on exclusive channels (assuming IDE).

It goes without saying that you will likely be better off doing anything that requires a lot of file movement (downloading, A/V work etc) on a 4th drive so as to reduce the rate of fragmentation on your 3 main drives.

Of course, personally I don't follow the above theory and just tend to treat my disks like dirt (defrag maybe every 6 months!). There comes a point when you'd rather just sit back and enjoy your computer than spend 5 hours tweaking for an extra 0.5% performance.

 

[GazD]

One drive for OS and games
One dive for downloaded items and all media

Thats how I have it setup

 

[agnes]

is there any performance increase in the way its setup then? and which is the best?

i wont be doing any time soon, because id have to shift around a lot of stuff (well over 500 gigs)

ags

 

[Chronictank]

is there any performance increase in the way its setup then? and which is the best?

i wont be doing any time soon, because id have to shift around a lot of stuff (well over 500 gigs)

ags

its better in the sense that your main disks have fewer changes happening so need to be defragged less and are easier to do complete backups of