Single Drive or 2 Drive Setup?

jozi · Post by **jozi** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 9:54 am

I just installed my 500gig samsung to go allong with my 160gig seagate barcuda 7200.7.

The seagate is used for the OS and i replaced a 200gig storage with the new 500gig.

Does it make a big diference performancewise if i partition the drive (already done) and clone my existing OS to the partition so as i can run the pc with 1 drive only?

Jozi

PopCorn · Post by **PopCorn** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 10:48 am

performance wise yes, the way you have it setup is better because, right now if u use a program or something that is on the 500gig drive it doesnt have to pause what the OS is currently seeking for on the other drive...

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 1:00 pm

"technically" yes its faster the way you currently have it.

Would you notice a difference in performance if it was the other way? probably not

jozi · Post by **jozi** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 4:53 am

The fact that one drive is a Sata2 drive doesnt really matter?

I think ill prob go with a 2 drive setup for the moment and leave a small partition on the 500gig drive for if i change my mind at a later stage.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 10:04 pm

I have a storage drive in an external case,USB2,and a benefit is its no noise switched off. I'm wondering if it's viable to put a basic switch on a normal internal SATA storage drive. It's easier to quiet a running internal. Probably a switch could go in-line on the 12v in.

I like keeping my graphics,music/vid,personal files,software installers on a seperate partition,and ideally a second drive. I've had to do a "nuke and pave" of a corrupt OS before,also have had HDDs go belly-up.

A few mobos now have eSATA,allowing full SATA for externals. I have not yet looked into all that could provide.

As to performance,the second drive especially factors when the data is Audio Wave files or Video and you are editing,processing etc. One HDD's heads can deal with the software while the other's handles the A/V files.
In few other situations is it significant.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 5:51 am

jozi wrote:The fact that one drive is a Sata2 drive doesnt really matter?

No. There are no 7200 RPM drives that can even exceed 133 MBps top speed of PATA, let alone approach the 300 MBps of SATA2. Where SATA2 comes into play is if you have multiple SATA disks operating in a RAID configuration where activity spread across multiple drives can really start to add up and easily exceed the capabilities of plain SATA (150 MBps).

kakazza · Post by **kakazza** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 6:17 am

That and Cache-Bursts.