HDs for Windows gaming

[irishgrizzly]

I've got a 2008 Mac Pro and want to reconfigure my HDs for gaming when I install Windows 7. Can people recommend two drives; a boot drive where I'll keep the OS and another for the games?

Is this the best setup? I've never messed about with RAID.

Also, does anyone know how much RAM windows 7 64bit needs?

 

[Gav Mack]

Fastest are SSD's, the Intel X-25 E but seriously expensive. 64Gb = 750 USD. Conventional Hard drives - the WD 300Gb Velociraptor at 300 USD. I use one in my primary Windows box and don't feel the need to run a pair RAID 0. You could probably run a pair instead with games/images on the second drive.

7 64 runs ok in 4Gb ram but the more the merrier...

 

[irishgrizzly]

Fastest are SSD's, the Intel X-25 E but seriously expensive. 64Gb = 750 USD. Conventional Hard drives - the WD 300Gb Velociraptor at 300 USD. I use one in my primary Windows box and don't feel the need to run a pair RAID 0. You could probably run a pair instead with games/images on the second drive.

Thanks for reply. I'll stay clear of SSD as they're still too costly for my wallet (although I'd love the idea of 4 silent SSDs in my mac). Do bigger HD mean slower HDs if by the same maker/config or is this difference very slight?

 

[Gav Mack]

Thanks for reply. I'll stay clear of SSD as they're still too costly for my wallet (although I'd love the idea of 4 silent SSDs in my mac). Do bigger HD mean slower HDs if by the same maker/config or is this difference very slight?

I'm staying with mechanical HDD's for a while, will probably move to a hybrid platter/small SSD design in the future cos I reckon that will give the best aspects of both designs when the big drive makers start churning them out in volume.

The Velociraptor despite a 10k rpm drive is 2.5 inch notebook sized with a 3.5 heatsink and runs quieter than my 3.5 drives. I get about 125Mb/sec from that and the nearest any of my other 3.5 inch 7.2k drives manage is 85-90Mb sec so yes it's noticeable. A standard 3.5" 2Tb 7.2k drive costs the same so you're paying that premium for the performance. I use the VR as my XP boot drive and my older WD 150Gb 10K Raptor with twin partitions - one for the paging file and the other for video encoding, then a pair of 'normal' 1tb 7.2k drives for storage that doesn't need the speed.

For another cheap performance boost you can also stick a high speed USB flash drive into one of the rear usb ports and enable readyboost. I use a 4Gb Corsair Flash Voyager in my (soon to be replaced by 7 RTM) MCE Vista box and you notice that too. 7 differs from Vista removing the 4Gb limit and enabling multiple USB drives.