Best Config for these two drives

[CTwizzy]

Just bought a new WD 160 gig HD 7200rpm w/ 8MB cache, I also have a 80 gig ST380021A hard drive, which I believe is a Seagate http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/...st380021a.html this is info on drive that I could find. Also seems to be 7200rpm, and I think a 2MB cache.

Now my 80gig currently has windows and all my files on it, but I'm looking for a setup which will give me the best performance.

What im looking at so far is this:

Drive 1 80 gig seagate 2mb cache
C: Windows Xp 5GB
*: Program files 20GB (current program files on hd is 10gigs)
*: data "My Documents folder" 40 gigs
*: Downloaded programs: Originals stored to assist in future reinstallations 2GB
*: Programming - for Java, C, PHP with subversion on the partition


Drive 2 160gig WD 8mb cache
*: Swap File Partition 2GB
*: Temp files and folders - Recent files, Temp, and Temporary Internet files 1GB
*: Backup - for backups of partitions: C:, Program Files, Data, and Downloaded 80GB (needed to backup first drive)
*: Scratch Disk 4GB
*: Extra Data for working with video files and images etc Rest of space

Just a few questions
- Is putting the swap on the second HD the best way to do this, i find conflicting arguments for and against this

- Is there are a better way of doing this?

- Should I create the partitions using partition magic, or wipe windows and create them when I install the OS?

- any other info would be appreciated...

Thanks in advance

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Best Config for these two drives

Putting the paging file on the second drive can mean a lot of performance increases. Make a 2GB (2048MB exactly) FAT32 partition for the paging file using default cluster size (meaning 4KB).

At the same time, it can also be helpful to put program on that second hard drive. This will mean better loading times, while the other option will actually increase performance in some cases as it is like getting faster memory. Well, memory that isn't being used for other stuff as much.

I would recommend you leave the majority of your programs on the first hard drive along with the OS, put the paging file in a 2GB FAT32 partition on the second drive, and store files and programs that can use lots of HDD space (as in file-sharing and video encoding program) on the second HDD in a big NTFS partition (or multiple partitions for organizational purposes). Basically, the way you've got it is good, but I would put the My Documents on the second HDD. I also wouldn't bother backing up your entire first drive. Only files worth keeping should be backed up (just reinstall Windows if something goes wrong... don't back it up), and they should probably be on some form of removable media (CD, DVD, etc.) anyway. And backing up programs can also be pointless as it won't backup the registry entries, some of which they may not function properly (or at all) without.

I would suggest you simply make the first (Windows) partition using Partition Magic, FDisk, or Windows XP itself. Make everything else inside Windows. If you want a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB for some reason (an increase in speed for loading programs, maybe... certainly not for storage), then use Partiton Magic or a similar utility.