Any reason not to use larger hard drive for system files?

[Shade]

While putting in a new hard drive, I noticed my system drive is making some really unhealthy noises. In the system right now I've got the following drives, all Western Digital : 120 GB ATA100 (the drive that's going south), 250GB ATA100, 250GB SATA 1.5, 500GB SATA 3.0 (WD5000KS).

A ways back the bigger drives tended to be slower than the smaller ones. From what I've been looking up tonight, it looks like that's no longer the case. From some of the comparison charts I've checked out on THG & Anandtech, it looks like the bigger drives are faster overall.

So I'm thinking about using the WD5000KS for the OS. Anything I'm missing here? I was expecting to have to pick up something like a 160GB for the OS, but it looks like my 500GB will be faster.

I'm using the machine mostly for gaming & some HTPC duties. If you think I would be better off with a smaller drive, I'm open to suggestions. Just no Raptors, the machine's in the living room & I don't want the noise.

Thanks

[Guest " "]

I would not turn the computer off until you are ready to swap out the drives. Assuming the sound is not a dirty fan, your hard drive is in it's final hours.

once you get over the drive size of 120 (128 formated), all the issues are the same...no diff between 250 and 500gb. The next set of issue won't present itself until you hit 16 tera-bytes.

The only checkpoint item is to determine if the operating system drive (I am assuming it is the 120 drive) is using the NTSF file system. You can right click on the drive letter icon in explorer to determine the file system type. If it says fat32, you will need to run the convert c: /fs:ntfs command. If this is not done, the utility that comes with your hard drive to move your data will install a boot loader that will later complicate any system recovery efforts.

If your not using a manufacture supplied utility to move your files and you plan to just reload the operating system, the ntfs vs fat32 is a non issue.

If you currently have NTFS enabled, you can use a product called "ghost" to clone your old drive to your new one. It will expand the partion out to the max size automaticlly.

If you use "ghost" remember not to let the system reboot with both your old drive and new clone drive installed. Ghost will prompt you to reboot at the end of the cloning process, follow the instructions to reboot, but once the screen clears, shut off the computer. Remove the old drive, and leave the new drive in. If you allow it to reboot, one of the drives will be set as a d: drive, and you won't be able to get rid of that tag. Meaning, if you leave the incorrectly tagged drive in, when viewed thru explorer, it will indicate drive d:, even if it is the only drive in the system.

The only other consideration, is if you move files from your old drive to another drive using the DOS xcopy command (from the new drive, run xcopy c:\*.* /s /d /c /h /r /y) you will get out of memory errors if the path lenths to the files are more than 128 characters. The out of memory error is a stack buffer error and not an operating system ram error. The error is frequent in system directories used for system recovery and patch roll back. The error is a stop error and the copy process will stop.

using the gui backup process to move the files avoids issues. provided the drive that will hold the backup file is NTSF.

[Shade]

Thanks for the advice. I was thrown off a bit by the drive performance/size thing. Glad to know I'm not missing anything there. I'll just use the 500gb for the system drive then.

I'm using NTFS on all the drives, so no problems there. First thing I did when I noticed the system drive was shot was back everything up to the new 500gb. Going to back all that up to girlfriend's laptop tonight so I can repartition the 500.

I've got ghost, but never got around to trying it out. Gonna try that out tonight if I still have time.

[Jay481985]

I'm late on this but I brought in August a Seagate 320 gig Perpendicular drive which saves both vertically and horizontally on the hard drive platelets. This means less searching and more space ( hence the 750 gig ) It is also pretty fast as it is 16 meg cache.

[Megaohm]

Your best bet is to get one or two 150GB Raptors and an auxillary 500GB drive to store your media (music,pictures, doccuments, movies, etc) on.

Here is how I have it set up:

Two 150GB Raptors: One holds the operating system and related stuff. The second Raptor has all my installed programs on it. This method is better than RAID 0 and it offers better mulititasking ablilites and program load times. Do not install any non-os related (updates, patches,etc) on to the OS drive (C:\). Install all programs on to the (D:\) second Raptor. Mixing programs with the OS drive can hamper performance.

The Thrid Drive is one large 500GB for all my songs, pictures, bit-torrent, downloads, drivers, etc.

I also have a 320GB 1394 Mybook that I use to as a back up my pictures, music, Chipset drivers, and NIC drivers. No other drivers need to be saved or backed up, they can be re-downloaded once the chipset and nic have been installed.

-Megaohm

CompTIA Member

[tc3sean]

Theres no problem with that. But if you want a tadd more increased system performance, I would partition 10 or 15 GB of hdd space just for windows. Then make another partition for Installations.