What can I do with these 3 drives?

[SRT-4me]

I have the following hard drives and was wondering what my options are to get the best performance out of my system:

 

- WD Caviar 40GB IDE (4MB cache)

 

- WD Caviar 120GB IDE (8MB cache)

 

- WD Caviar 320GB SATA2 (16MB cache)

 

I don't know a heck of a lot about setting these up. Do I put everything on the SATA and just run that because it's faster? Do I put the OS on one and everything else on the other? Do I throw the 40GB in the garbage? Any help would be .... helpful I guess. :tooth:

[ReelFiles]

I would use the 320 for the OS, with part of it partitioned off, for storage. I would use the 120 to link to your documents folder and the 40 to backup some important stuff.

[visionviper]

I would use the 40 for the operating system, the 320 for all your applications and games, and the 120 as a backup drive.

[Coors]

I would use the 40 for the operating system, the 320 for all your applications and games, and the 120 as a backup drive.

 

And your OS would run like s***. The 40gb drive is an ide with 4mg of cache. The 320 with 16mg of cache is the no brainer to use as the OS drive.

[krazypoloc]

And your OS would run like s***. The 40gb drive is an ide with 4mg of cache. The 320 with 16mg of cache is the no brainer to use as the OS drive.

 

Word Raiderfan. I agree completely with Reelfiles.

[taowulf]

I suppose juggling is not an option?

 

Ditto on what Reelfile and raiderfan said.

[suedenim]

What you aiming for as in what do you do the most on your PC?

 

I haven't really looked or experimented but can anyone comment on the day to day performance increase of SATA over IDE?

[slick2500]

I would just say read this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

[SRT-4me]

What you aiming for as in what do you do the most on your PC?

 

I haven't really looked or experimented but can anyone comment on the day to day performance increase of SATA over IDE?

 

I mostly do Internet, gaming, and Excel based stuff. I've just been updating the computer for overall performance increases. I found a good deal on the bigger HD at Newegg and figured I'd get something a bit more technologically advanced than the old HDs I had. There is a noticable difference in numbers running HD Tach on each of them.

 

So if I make a partition for the OS on the 320GB HD, will that allow me to reinstall Windows at a later date without having to back up everything else before doing so? I'm trying to read up on partitions so I can do something like that, but the amount of information is kind of overwhelming and is taking a while....

[ReelFiles]

I usually split my system drive in two partitions; one of the OS one for documents. That way I just format the C: drive and reinstall Windows, then link my documents folder to the second partition again.

[SRT-4me]

How big does the OS partition need to be for XP?

[krazypoloc]

Well XP requires 1.8 GB of HDD space to install. But I usually make mine around 70-80 GB depending on if you want your program files on that same partition, which is what I would suggest. It also depends on how many game you have installed at the same time. 70-80 GB should give you plenty of headroom for your progams, games, and system updates.