Small Hard-Drive For OS?

Hessian

Hessian

Hessian

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6 Jul 2007
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Sussex, UK
As you know by now I'm building my first PC, at the moment I've got 2 x Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache. I was wondering whether it'll be worth me buying a small hardrive solely for my OS, and then use the 2 I have at the moment for applications and documents in some sort of Raid format?

Is this a good idea or pointless, or won't work or other options?

Cheers,

- Hessian
 
I have my HDD set up as thus.
  • 1x80Gb drive for Windows and programmes.
  • 1x74Gb Raptor for games.
  • 1x200Gb (now dead, I think GRRRRR) for music, movies, TV shows etc.
This seems to work pretty well and means if you have to reinstall Windows, you don't lose too much and it doesn't take too long.
 
I use a 37gb raptor for my OS drive so as to improve boot up time and page file access.

Then like me you could use you other two drives for tools and games etc.

Taff
 
I have seperate HD for OS too, 80GB PATA WB 7200rpm.
320GB and 250GB for games and other data. I want to replace the 80GB OS drive for something a bit faster, I think the PATA interface is causing some slow down.
 
Nice one, thanks for the replies, I'll see if I can get a cheap small one. Got any recommendations for fast small HD for OS only.
 
80Gb drives only seem to be about £10 cheaper than 160Gb drives. I think the Samsung T166 drive would be a good choice for overall noise/power consumption/performance.
 
I plan to have mine setup like this.

36/74GB raptor ( haven't decided which yet ) for the OS/'s
150GB raptor for games and programmes
500GB+ 7200rpm drive storage elsewhere for everything.

This seems a popular configuration that works well. Gives fast boot times and fast load times in games, while you still get mass storage.
 
Is the extra noise of 2 raptors really worth the extra seconds gained on boot time and game loading time, I mean do you really care if your the first person on the server? :P

Just leave your PC on, then you dont have to worry about a boot time :P
 
squiffy said:
I have seperate HD for OS too, 80GB PATA WB 7200rpm.
320GB and 250GB for games and other data. I want to replace the 80GB OS drive for something a bit faster, I think the PATA interface is causing some slow down.
Click to expand...


No, it not. it'll be the drive itself thats slow. new drives are a good 25-30mb/sec faster now, even on a pata interface.

Hessian said:
As you know by now I'm building my first PC, at the moment I've got 2 x Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache. I was wondering whether it'll be worth me buying a small hardrive solely for my OS, and then use the 2 I have at the moment for applications and documents in some sort of Raid format?

Is this a good idea or pointless, or won't work or other options?

Cheers,

- Hessian
Click to expand...


james votes no. huge waste of money.
 
Last edited:
After thinking it over again and looking at the price, you can save a good £100 and have extra storage space by opting for 7200rpm. £100 could go on much better things really.

One more thing though, what are the speed differences between WD, seagate and samsung ?
 
Hessian said:
I leave my current PC on far too long.
Click to expand...

I was talking to f0rb.

<F0rb> said:
One more thing though, what are the speed differences between WD, seagate and samsung ?
Click to expand...

Depending on model, but if your talking about the fastest models of each, they are in order of WD, Seagate then Samsung - I would have thought a few MB/s in difference.
 
Hessian said:
Yeah I know :P
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littlebritain.gif
 
Fobose, I've got a raptor in my tower case which is approx 25cm from my head and the noise has never been an issue for me.

I'd recommend a raptor as a boot drive, i saw a hugs difference in boot times and critical app starts ups.

But is it for everyone, No I wouldn't say it is as the solution is more expensive.

Depends if your requirements are space or speed.

Taff
 
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