tech question (about harddrives)

[Blisterz]

Ok, I need your input on somthing.
Pretend for a second you are putting a computer together for a friend.
Athlon 2400
Radeon 9200
512 megs DDR ram
Windows XP

Now as far as Harddrives all you have is a 30 gig 5400 speed. (10.5m real slow)
And the other is a 15 gig 7200.

I was thinking I should make the 15 gig the master and the 30 gig the slave. Put the OS and the games (There will never be more than 4 games installed on the system anyway) and everything else on the 30.

How would you guys do it?

[SlowwHand]

That sounds good to me, from what I've been able to ascertain.
Why games on the master though.
Wouldn't that kind of, in a way, defeat the purpose ?

[alva]

With a system like that it's a shame to use these drives, spend a few $$$ on a new, big, fast one.
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The primary master should be without a slave though IMO. So make them both masters and attach the CD when needed. That's what I do. (and check your cables too.)

[SlowwHand]

Nothing like creating a pain-in-the-ass.

[Fve Crathva]

Unless they've changed stuff over the years, two devices on one IDE cable will both transfer information at the speed of the slowest one.

SP

[MichaeltheGreat]

The bus speed is the same, but that's still much faster than the physical operation of the drives.

New large drives are cheap.

[SlowwHand]

Is the answer bigger hard-drive just part of the question asked?
Having the OS on a seperate smaller drive is not rare.

[Whaleboy]

Faster HDD as master, slower as slave, if possible, get new disks, but still, even 15 will suffice for like you said, 4 games, and presumably basic office work. If you want mp3s and movies, forget it unless you get a bigger (60+ gig) disk.

[mrmitchell]

With a system like that it's a shame to use these drives, spend a few $$$ on a new, big, fast one.

Agreed. I've got 220gbs on a computer with 800mhz, damnit.

Make the faster one the master, slower, slave. Just like everyone else in the thread said.

[Ned]

For you experts, is there a speed and difference between Fat32 and NTFS? Also can you expect better performance if you use a larger cluster size such as 32KB rather than the standard four kilobytes?

[Pekka]

Seems awfully small HDs? You need at least 120 gigs worth of space these days. So you can write many many documents.

[alva]

Ned, Smaller cluter usally is better, less waste.
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No 'real' notable speed difference between NTFS and fat 32
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Only one drive can communicate over a single cable at one time, therefore having two will slow your system down.. (sometimes alot if you're moving big files)

[Urban Ranger]

Hm, as I said before, a HDD that rotates faster doesn't automatically makes it a faster HDD. You need to look at the transfer rate (no, not 133 or 100 or whatever the speed your EIDE is at).

[alva]

True, but bigger drive => newer => (usually) faster.

[Odin]

120Gb!!! I have 30 and I still have plenty of space.