Question about using Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB - OEM as OS Drive

[BBock727]

My current sata drive that i use for my OS is 160gigs but is failing. I heard good things about the WD6400AAKS so i bought it. My question is, if i use this drive for my OS, is it too large to keep it all one partition? Is there a benefit of installing the OS on a smaller partition in terms of speed?

Ive never installed an OS on a drive so large, so id like your opinions. I hear that this drive is pretty fast.

 

[MustISO]

I've never heard or seen any tests that showed speed differences in single partition vs. small partition. I normally create a partition for the OS so that I can quickly and easily restore the OS with something like Ghost or TrueImage. I keep everything else but the installed programs on the OS partition.

 

[tallman45]

Benefits of setting up a partition are many and Yes it is faster if you use the outer edge of the drive, it spins faster than the inner edge

plus

If you just use the entire drive, you will have data spread over 2 platters which makes it longer to access

Defragging your OS drive would take a lot longer

 

[oscar6]

How do you tell which section of the platter the OS will be installed to when using multiple partitions?

 

[BlueAcolyte]

I think it's outside in.

 

[St0ry]

I have the same question and drive so I hope you don't mind me asking my question here instead of making a new thread.

1. How exactly do you know if the partition is going to be on the inner or outer edge? I was planning on dividing it into 40GB for C and the rest as storage.

2. I will be installing XP Pro on this drive and read that the XP install CD doesn't recognize SATA drives, but the article was a few years old. Is this still the case? Can I just stick the XP disc in and boot from the disc to install Windows?

 

[Old Hippie]

Every little thing you'll ever wanna know about partitioning.

Can I just stick the XP disc in and boot from the disc to install Windows?

An XP disc with the SP2 update will work just fine.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: St0ry
I have the same question and drive so I hope you don't mind me asking my question here instead of making a new thread.

1. How exactly do you know if the partition is going to be on the inner or outer edge? I was planning on dividing it into 40GB for C and the rest as storage.

2. I will be installing XP Pro on this drive and read that the XP install CD doesn't recognize SATA drives, but the article was a few years old. Is this still the case? Can I just stick the XP disc in and boot from the disc to install Windows?

As the poster above said, an XP install disc that includes SP2 will recognize a SATA drive just fine.

If you don't have an XP install disc that already includes Service Pack 2, take your old disc and make a copy with SP2 slipstreamed onto it. The instructions for doing so are fairly straight-forward, there are just a lot of steps.

Google "slipstream XP" and you'll get plenty of hits on how-tos.