adding 2nd HDD in optical bay. partition question.

I am going to be installing a 7200 WD 750g HD in the optical bay using a newmodus sata to sata caddy. I am not interested in a raid setup.

I use my computer to play Everquest 2 and Archiving/converting videos and editing videos. (lots of swapping when playing everquack and compressing/editing)

My question what is the optimal way to set up the partitions.
main HD will be OS. should I split this into 2 partitions (OS and Program)

Use second HD partitioned as 8gig swap partition in first partition? or last partition?
Video/archive/7zip partition?
Or should I put the programs on the 2nd HD since Everquack is very disk intensive and put archiving and OS on the same drive?

Any advice or wisdom appreciated

 

At first you definitely should make 2 partitions on main hard drive. The reason is simple: if OS partition will be about 30GB all OS files which are responsible for speed and quick response will be situated in the beginning of hard drive. Also if they will be fragmented or situated in different places spinning head still won't need to search them on all HDD (if it several files will be needed) and you will make easy fast defrag of little partition.

About programs. You should not install them on 2-nd partition of main HDD. Do it or on first OS partition either on 2-nd hard drive.

Video and other - wherever you want.

Swap. I would make 8 GB partition on 2-nd HDD. It must be first of course. Also I still would leave 512 MB on the main drive in OS Partition.

Editing video. Simply you should edit video which is situated on 2-nd hard drive but all new video (after rendering or else) should go to folder on MAIN HDD 2-nd partition. So hard drives will work together and won't be a bottleneck.

My God! I guess I carried away typing this

 

You may want to see this thread:

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-hitachi-7k500-benchmark-setup-specifics.html


Especially two or three pages in where a dual drive setup is briefly discussed.

Hope that helps?

 

I'm heading down to Microcenter today to pick up a 7K500 for my incoming M11x. That guide will be tremendously useful. Thanks.

 

Wow that did help and explained alot. however when they were discussing the more partitions the more performance is lost on the drive on page 3-4. I am unsure how much of this is real world loss or synthetic benchmark loss. The part that I really liked is the ingenious way you set up the primary drive. I will do that when I get the 2nd HD installed and start over with a clean install and do that! Awesome advice there!

 

Thanks guys for your insight much appreciated!!