dean corso
join:2007-09-07
| [XP Pro] Tweaking XP to take advantage of second HD
Hi everyone
I just installed a 500 GB drive that I bought to store media and take some load off my original 80 GB system HD. Both are 7200 RPM, but the new larger HD tests at 94 MB/s with the system drive at 58 MB/s. What Windows tasks can I delegate to the new drive to increase overall performance and reduce wear on my system HD? Page file? Temp internet files? Nero burning cache? Is this a wise move? I'm looking to share some of the workload between the two drives to possibly increase reliability (had some drives fail at work and now I'm worried about my own).
Also, is it normal for your system drive to get heavily fragmented only a few days after defragging (using Diskeeper)? I realize this depends on usage, but fragmentation seems to occur awfully fast for me.
Interested in any input! |
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herbstreet43325
@comcast.net
| The best thing you could do is put all the data on the 80 gb drive, and ghost it to the 500 gb drive. Then remove the 80 gb drive, leaving only a single 500 gb drive in your pc.
This will give you *slightly* better performance. Other than that, there's not much else you can do other than the obvious installing more ram. Those new hard drives are not much faster than the 7200 rpm drives from 5 years ago, no matter what benchmarks say. |
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Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium,VIP
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30
clubs:
| reply to dean corso
As posted, image the old small drive that is C: and then put that image on the new larger drive, but keep the old drive then reformat that drive keeping it for storage.
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What’s the point of owning a supercar if you can’t scare yourself stupid from time to time? |
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ChiTang
Premium,MVM
join:2002-08-23
Alhambra, CA
| reply to dean corso
If you want to use the 500 as storage, and to seperate DATA from OS, just copy the data to the storage drive.
If your intent is to reduce wear and tear on OS drive, IMO, stop using Diskeeper, stop defragging should reduce the overall wear and tear on the OS drive.
As for cloning OS to new HD and swap them. You will end up with a faster OS HD but lose certain amount of "degree of freedom" in seperating OS and DATA.
IMO, 80GB OS drive + 500GB DATA drive is well balanced.
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I used to be indecisive, now I am not sure. |
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Cudni
La Merma - Los De Aca
Premium,MVM
join:2003-12-20
Someshire
 ·BTOpenworld
| reply to dean corso
having 500gb as the main drive, as suggested, would make all the difference. Running Diskeeper will contribute similar amount to hd wear and tear as the drive itself, without it running, looking for data on a defragmented disk.
Cudni
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"what we know we know the same, what we don't know, we don't know it differently."
Help yourself so God can help you.
Microsoft MVP, 2006 - 2008 |
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Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
| reply to dean corso
First thing I'd do is get rid of Diskeeper. It will ruin your drive. Just use the builtin XP defragger (made by Diskeeper). Only defrag when the builtin one says you need to. For me, that is about 3 times a year.
As others have suggested, I'd use the old drive for images and the new drive as your main drive. Thing is though your old drive is too small to hold several images. I would have bought two 320GB drives and used one for images. Is it a Seagate? You get Acronis TI with Seagates and you could use that to clone the old drive to the new.
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Cudni
La Merma - Los De Aca
Premium,MVM
join:2003-12-20
Someshire
·BTOpenworld
| said by Mele20  :First thing I'd do is get rid of Diskeeper. It will ruin your drive. Just use the builtin XP defragger (made by Diskeeper). Only defrag when the builtin one says you need to. For me, that is about 3 times a year. Lol, and why not set the Diskeeper to the same?
Cudni
--
"what we know we know the same, what we don't know, we don't know it differently."
Help yourself so God can help you.
Microsoft MVP, 2006 - 2008 |
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Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
| I believe the latest Diskeeper Pro I have is either ver 7 or 8 so I don't know about currently, but Diskeeper, when I was using the pro version on XP, will tell you it needs defragging when it doesn't. That is the entire thing for Diskeeper. Executive Software has to create a supposed need for all this frequent defragging and that is exactly what they do...CREATE a need. That is why I said get rid of Diskeeper. Diskeeper Pro told me I needed to be defragging all the time in the background. If I refused, then it kept telling me it needed to defrag almost daily. Yeah, really. The builtin defragger only says I need to defrag about 3 times a year. With it, I get to read the analysis and I can choose to defrag even if it says I don't need to do so, but I go with it's recommendation. I forgot to do an analysis recently and I was wondering why my computer seemed a little sluggish. The fragmentation had reached about 40%! It had been over six months since I defragged. If I defrag about every four months that is all that is needed, but Diskeeper Pro would have me do it all the time in the background or scheduled every few days.
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"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason |
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Grail Knight
Who Dares Wins
Premium
join:2003-05-31
Erie, PA
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to dean corso
As herbstreet43325 & Doctor Olds said you could also take that 80gb drive after it is removed from the pc and buy a Hard Drive Enclosure for it and turn it into an external backup drive.
Suggested usage would be personal data, text, images, etc...
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"Lego Succurro Lima" |
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JimmyCarter1
Premium
join:2008-09-02
GURU-USA
| reply to dean corso
Dean Corso
The most important aspect about your drive you don't mention so I will infer from your OP point that your {system drive gets heavily fragmented only a few days after defragging} HARD DRIVE needs more free space. Tell us what percent of unused space is left on the 80 GB drive.
Better yet post a picture of your 80 GB drive {disk management}and we can tell you more about why it is slower than the new 500 GB drive.
If you do decide to move the 80 GB drive to the 500 GB drive it is very very easy to do. Having done it many many times the utility that I like to use is Mastor Max Blast 5 provided by Seagate.{Which now owns Maxtor}.
»www.techspot.com/downloads/32-se···ast.html
If your 80 GB hard drive has adequate free space than I do suggest moving the OS from the 80GB to the 500 GB hard drive because the difference in speed is due to the health of the smaller 80 GB hard drive.  |
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Grail Knight
Who Dares Wins
Premium
join:2003-05-31
Erie, PA
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to Mele20
A comparison of XP vs Diskeeper shows exactly what the built-in XP defragger is lacking vs Diskeeper Pro. Other Commercial Defraggers have similar comparisons if you look.
»www.diskeeper.com/diskeeper/home···home.asp
You may not realize this buy if you open up the Options of Diskeeper you can change how often you want it to run and get this even turn off background defrag.
Of course a company will attempt to create a need for their product(s). Do you use a horse & buggy or gasoline powered vehicle? Both will get you to your destination but one has obvious advantages over the other.
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"Lego Succurro Lima" |
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Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
| said by Grail Knight :A comparison of XP vs Diskeeper shows exactly what the built-in XP defragger is lacking vs Diskeeper Pro. Other Commercial Defraggers have similar comparisons if you look. » www.diskeeper.com/diskeeper/home···home.aspYou may not realize this buy if you open up the Options of Diskeeper you can change how often you want it to run and get this even turn off background defrag. Of course a company will attempt to create a need for their product(s). Do you use a horse & buggy or gasoline powered vehicle? Both will get you to your destination but one has obvious advantages over the other. I know all that. I was a dupe. They are extremely slick and I didn't know the background of the company or I would never have touched Diskeeper other than what is in every OS. I find it disturbing that Microsoft chose to do business with them and put their defragger in every OS....but then MS has never had the good of the user at heart. Once I learned about the company, I couldn't get Diskeeper Pro off my computer fast enough. They are so persistent that to this day I keep getting emails from them trying to entice me back but I'm not impressed by Tom Cruise.
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"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason |
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ChiTang
Premium,MVM
join:2002-08-23
Alhambra, CA
| reply to dean corso
said by dean corso :Both are 7200 RPM, but the new larger HD tests at 94 MB/s with the system drive at 58 MB/s. You can't simply use these 2 figures as a comparision. They are both 7200 RPM, one could be SATA/UDMA133 and the other is IDE/UDMA100. Also OS drive has overhead, it is constantly being used by the OS. May be Diskkeeper is the reason for its slowness as well.
!
!
If can't compare performance of OS drive vs non-OS HD. You can however, compare performance on OS HD before and after the defrag (with diskeeper disabled). From the two figures, then you can determine if defrag benefits you or not.
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I used to be indecisive, now I am not sure. |
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Grail Knight
Who Dares Wins
Premium
join:2003-05-31
Erie, PA | reply to Mele20
I use O&O Defrag 2K and run it once a month.
No hard drive issues ever.
Had Diskeeper Pro but like O&O 2K better.
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"Lego Succurro Lima" |
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cork1958
Cork
join:2000-02-26
Fruitport, MI
 ·Charter Pipeline
| reply to dean corso
Wow! Would've never thought there would be so much resentment towards Diskkeeper. Used to ALWAYS be topics on here about the ultimate defragger and people always argued about how great DK was!
Just using the windows defragger is quite sufficient, or you could use this great free one, »www.auslogics.com/en/software/re···y-defrag
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DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
·Bell Sympatico
| said by cork1958 :Wow! Would've never thought there would be so much resentment towards Diskkeeper. Used to ALWAYS be topics on here about the ultimate defragger and people always argued about how great DK was! Just using the windows defragger is quite sufficient, or you could use this great free one, » www.auslogics.com/en/software/re···y-defrag I have DK on two computers, running on XP and in background. Zero problems. I installed it because one of the computers (spouse's Lenovo desktop) was bogging down. Disk kept thrashing. Standard XP defrag solved nothing. DK resolved the issue.
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Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
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dean corso
join:2007-09-07
| reply to JimmyCarter1
said by JimmyCarter1 :The most important aspect about your drive you don't mention so I will infer from your OP point that your {system drive gets heavily fragmented only a few days after defragging} HARD DRIVE needs more free space. Tell us what percent of unused space is left on the 80 GB drive.
Almost 3/4 free after moving over most of my media. I also disabled the Windows indexing service which constantly runs in the background to create index lists of your files for when you perform a search.
In regards to Diskeeper, I've been using it for years and have experienced zero problems. I only run it when I want to (any background defrag processes are disabled). Always thought it was more thorough than the Windows defrag utility, but it's interesting to hear some people are totally against it. I'll have to do some research I guess. |
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JimmyCarter1
Premium
join:2008-09-02
GURU-USA
| Dean
I have also googled what these people have said about diskeeper and so far can't find any experimental evidence to support their charges that "it will ruin the hard drive" and like you I have used it for years with no problem..
OK, now here is what I would do...
Move the small 80 GB hard drive to the new 500 GB hard drive. There is little reason the new one should be that much faster then the old one other than health.
Also, it is remarkable the difference the hard drive makes on the speed of a computer...A top grade hard drive is worth it's weight in gold.
I have done many experiments with different hard drives and was just amazed at the difference a good hard drive makes {all other components being the same.}
Hope this helps..
PS: Dr. Olds, if you are lurking... you never answered my post offering to help you build your son a computer. Did you miss it? |
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bullsit
@shawcable.net
| reply to dean corso
Well first of all get 2 500gig drives sata stripe them raid 0 then a fresh install
you will see an improvement on your drives for sure then use the file and transfer wizard on your old drive then use that as an external back up drive
i use diskeeper all the time set it and forget it mode
this bullshit about damaging your drive is just that (bullshit) |
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Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
Premium
join:2005-03-12
| reply to dean corso
You should probably split the pagefile over the two drives; everything else being equal, it's better than hammering away at one drive when paging. I have it split equally over both my drives. You could (in theory) put the entire pagefile on the second drive, but without a pagefile on the system drive (C:) Windows will not be able to generate a memory dump in the event of a crash so it's not usually recommended.
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