what drive should I put windows xp on?

dun-dun-dundun-dun-dun Member
edited July 2003 in Science & Tech
ok I have a question. I have 4 hard drives. A maxtor ata133 60 gig, Maxtor ata133 30 gig, a WD ata100 30 gig, and a maxtor ata133 with 8 meg buffer 160 gig

I want to use the 160 as storage mainly. But I was concidering partitioning 15 gigs as a windows partiton. I will ony put windows on it if its partitoned into 2 drives, not single unpartitioned.

I riun games and what not. The average computer user. What hard drive should I install windoes to for best performance? I know the 160 is what people are going to say (or not), but will partitioning lower speed? or does partitioning not affect the speed?


anywho, what drive do you think?

Comments

  • edited July 2003
    I think I would make the 60 the boot drive. The 160 I would run as a 60 and a 100 GB part. Both as masters unless they are gonna be on SATA adapters.

    while NTFS has no issues really for directory size or entries to speak of (for the things normally done on a computer), FAT32 has a file limit and I THINK you might find a FAT32 part for older programs to live on fun to have. That means that 60 is biggest practical I would stick a FAT32 on. Which leaves about a 100 GB for your NTFS data part. TheFAT32 could be smaller, depends on how many older programs fit like old sneakers and are still wanted. It is less work to put the FAT32 on a different drive than the XP boot drive-- with Partition Magic 8.0 you could shrink the NTFS boot after install and make a smaller FAT, but a wellmanaged XP has no need for more than 60 GB for a boot "drive" and 20 is plenty for XP for boot-- remember your XP SWAP will want to be on first partition of one of these two drives.

    John Danielson.
  • dun-dun-dundun-dun-dun Member
    edited July 2003
    my 160 performs better at read write speeds (amazingly) than the 60. its the new maxtor. I read some review where they compared the 60 and 160 drives. I have the same ones as tested. I was thinking of partitioning 15 gigs off the 160 for windows.

    I think I may just use the 60 gigger, unless anything I said changes what you/ other people think I should do. oh yeah and they arent SATA
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited July 2003
    I've used boot partitions as small as 9GB for windows XP. The OS with all my applications comprised of less than 5GB (at that time). My page file never needed to be larger than 1GB. If I'm doing things that require a larger page file, I need a Raid0 setup.

    I've had to install XP on 4GB drives before, which is still fine so long as the person doesn't have a lot of bulky applications to install.

    I don't think it matters much where you put it, but putting the page/swap file on a second hard drive partition (independent of the boot disk) will increase performance overall.
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    put windows on your fastest drive for best performance ...and page/swap file on the same partition as windows will probably yield better performance as well.
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited July 2003
    Originally posted by csimon
    put windows on your fastest drive for best performance ...and page/swap file on the same partition as windows will probably yield better performance as well.

    The page / swap should not be on the same drive as the applications and their default use drive. Windows on the best performance drive will increase load time for windows and applications, but once loaded, the speed of the swap drive is what counts.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    Originally posted by stoopid


    The page / swap should not be on the same drive as the applications and their default use drive. Windows on the best performance drive will increase load time for windows and applications, but once loaded, the speed of the swap drive is what counts.

    On the conditions of

    A. You use the swap file alot
    B. The other drive isnt crap

    As CSI said, if you have windows and the swap on one drive, you can have all of your programs annd games on the other.

    Win/Win

    NS
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited July 2003
    My thinking is more along the performance line rather than the storage arrangement.

    Anyone who works with any multimedia uses their swap file a lot as very little is designed to be loaded into RAM at any given time, only instructions are usually kept there. Games use the swap a little, but not as often anymore as the textures have to be ready on command, and hard drive acces time just isn't there to load things fast enough for first person shooters.
  • dun-dun-dundun-dun-dun Member
    edited July 2003
    ok this is what I have decided

    since the 160 gig drive out performs the rest, Im going to partition 2 gigs off that drive for the page file. THe rest on that drive is just storage. Then Ill partition the ata133 30 gig drive into 2 15 gigs. And install the windows files there. That way if windows starts being gay I can format JUST the part that windows is contained on, without losing all my crap on the other part.


    Hows that sound?

    oh yeha, how do I change what drive the page file appears/goes on?
  • edited July 2003
    That works, as far as partitioning goes. I will have to look up later how to tweak the drive for swap file def most easiely without using Norton Systemworks.

    John Danielson.
  • dun-dun-dundun-dun-dun Member
    edited July 2003
    bah, Im going the other way around viceversa windows on the fastest frive and page file on the semifastest
  • edited July 2003
    No. Windows XP will move it for you. Rigth back to the boot drive.

    The reason I needed to look something up is something niggled at me. The XP books I have agree on one thing-- that XP needs a 2 MB swpa to store dyn-data for the registry in, and insists on having it on the boot volume. So, to get it to use most of swap on another drive you end up with:

    2 MB on boot partition, and an extra defined larger anywhere you want that is reasonably fast. TOTAL size should not be more than 2.5 X RAM for ideal use (minimum waste, reasonably sure of enough across range of uses a box with XP might be used for).

    XP willlet you set a VM on a non-boot partition, but if you look afterward after first warm or coldboot you will have either one large back on boot volume or two, with a 2 MB on boot.

    Easiest way, then, is to shrink your windows sized one to 2 MB on boot volume. Then you define a second on other HD.

    Effectiveness is based on having the swap on another physical mech from program, not merely on having a swap on another logical drive. Most HDs cannot read from two places at once,nor can they write two places at once.

    But I do not know how to convince XP Pro not to have to store it's dyn_data registry cache in boot partition, so this explanation is best compromise I know of and can get to work on my XP Pro here. I use XP very seldom these days, but do have relaible references for it.

    The one that clued me in to the 2 MB thing was a Que book by Robert Cowart and Brian Knittel called "Special Edition: Using Microsoft Windows XP Professional BestSeller Edition." Also helpful was a book by an MCSE who has written oodles on Windows over the years:
    William R. Stanek's "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" continues the series he authored called the Administrator's Pocket Consultant series.

    John Danielson.
  • dun-dun-dundun-dun-dun Member
    edited July 2003
    wow, I feel stupid right now, I dont know if its the heat, but its difficult for me to make out all of wat you said, but it wont work at all? or it just wont work on a partition?
  • edited July 2003
    Won't work all on one partition other than on boot partition. BUT XP can and often is configured to use multiple swaps and that in this case is what I would try. Leave ti the 2 MB it needs on boot drive. Tell it to use another bigger swap on other HD ALSO (not instead of). It will swap most program stuff to other HD while using main HD to run base system. Because both HDs can be used at once this way things get faster by a bit than sticking all in one place.

    Better???

    John Danielson.
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