I know i want to get an SSD for my OS and main games but it might be awhile longer before i get one. That being said I was wondering the best performance setup I should have for my HDD?


I currently have the following setup:

i7-920, 8g ram, 300x2 Raid-o (i think) HDD, 5670vidcard(will be upgrading to 6870 soon)


I know my HDD and vidcard are my bottle necks with HDD being the worse compared to SSD. I just want to make sure the HDD are in best performance or anything I can do to enhance performance. I dont have much installed on them(not even data) so if I need to reformat i can do so without issues.

 

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if speed is the primary issue, just use RAM-Disk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_disk

 

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so far what i read this doesnt help me.

 

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you said your current harddrives are 300x2 raid-0? raid 0 is a simple stripe set that has no redundancy. write speed is fast since half the data is written to one hdd and the other half to the other. read speed is also fast since both hdds are being read at once.

a mirror or raid1 setup would give you a bit faster read speeds and a little slower writes. you also lose half your space using a mirror :\

in your case what i'd do is break the raid0 and install your OS/pagefile/office/email/etc to one hdd, and all your games to the other hdd.

 

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I never said it will solve your bottleneck issue, I just gave you the option for fastest HD

I wonder if hibernate state works with ram disks...

 

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I go back and forth on which I like better. But here are two things I usually do.


Either I'll put both drives in RAID 0 like you have. And make use of partitions to segregate the drive into different performance zones. First partition being for OS and apps, next partition for Games, last for everything else.

Or I'll run the drives separately. Install the OS on the first partition of the first drive, install Games on the first partition of the second drive. That way the OS and background apps seeking hard drive time won't interfere with the games.

Last option, buy a faster hard drive with a higher density platter. Not sure how old those 320GB drives are. They could be using 2x160GB platters or even smaller. If you can find yourself a hard drive with 500GB platters, that would boost performance up. Unfortunately this is often a bit of a gamble, because manufactures don't disclose platter density and may put whatever they want inside. But I think the Samsung F3 drives should all be 500GB platter models.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181
$85 for a 500GB hard drive is pretty expensive, these were under $50 before the Thailand flood.

Thanks for the suggestions guys.


I wasnt complaining or argueing about ram-disk. i am just not sure what it is. as far as i could see is that i need to buy something to do it. if im going to spend any money i will just go ahead and buy the SSD. I was mostly trying to enhance performance of my current setup.


I only have my os, 2-3 games(rift/diablo2) and couple overclocking apps. i do not have any data or music on it. this is basically a bare unit since i use my laptop for data etc. i am pretty sure im using the raid-0 but ill have to check tonight when i get home. i think the best bet is just to reformat and do multiple partitions for my OS/games etc.

 

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