Partitioning dual HDD

[Medic-5150]

Hey everyone,

I just bought the ZOTAC ZT-88TES3P-FCP GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 card then found out that it, by itself was faster than everything in my system except the hdd which is a WD Raptor. So after a very angry to minutes of trying to figure out how to cram a pci express connection in to a PCI, I went back on newegg.com and ordered a new mother board, quad core processor, 4GB of ram, and a 500watt power supply to power it all. Then I realize that I had an extra hdd lying around and I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on how they should be partitioned. I would think I would want to use the raptor for the OS and games and such since it is much faster (10,000rpms vs the 7200 of the other hdd). If I do that should I set aside a separate partition for the OS of around 5gb (windows XP home edition) and just leave the rest as one big partition? And does the other hdd need to be partitioned if it will be used primarily for music, movies, etc....

Thanks guys

 

[SNGX1275]

I would make the Windows partition larger than 5GB, it sucks pretty hard when you run out of space on your Windows partition and have to make it bigger.

I like having Windows and Programs on different partitions, but not everyone does. I don't think it offers you any speed benefits, but it does make things a little nicer if you have to reinstall Windows. So if you want to keep them seperate go ahead, but if you only thought that you should I wouldn't be too concerned with them on the same.

One thing you could try is making a small 2 gig partition at the start of the 2nd disk and placing your pagefile there (be sure you select no page file for C). That might be beneficial when loading programs from the same hd as the OS so that it doesn't have to write anything to the pagefile on the same disk as the OS and program.

So I'd set it up like this:
Disk 1 Raptor: ~12 + or - 7GB for C, and remaining for D
Disk 2 other drive: 2GB for X to contain pagefile, remaining for E for media

 

[Medic-5150]

Thanks for the advice. One question though; how do I change the location of the page file?

 

[SNGX1275]

Right Click on My Computer, Properties, Advanced tab, Performance, click on settings or options depending on what OS you are in it is named different but it does the same. Then go through and change it to No pageing file for C, click set. Then select the partition you want it on, set the max and min to the same size, click set, then click ok.