Hard Disk help

[yamangman]

First off i'm planning on getting this drive and just wondering if any of you have had any experience with it:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=74108

It will be an addition to the two 80Gb PATA hard drives I have already (Both WD 7200 RPM 8Mb Cache).

I want to have XP Pro installed and SuSE Linux and was wondering if anyone has any dieas about the best disk 'layout' in terms of (mainly) speed. Bear in mind I have no RAID interface for my IDE drves.

My thinking:

HDa = 80GB PATA
HDb = 80GB PATA
HDc = 200GB SATA

HDa : Partition 1: 80Gb : Windows XP + Games

HDb : Partition 1: 1Gb : Linux Swap
HDb : Partition 2: 10Gb : Linux
HDb : Partition 3: 69Gb: Windows Drive for Games

HDc : Partition 1: 100Gb : Windows Drive for Games
HDc : Partition 2: 100Gb : Windows Drive for 'stuff'

Is this the best kinda layout?

Cheers

[yamangman]

Any help?

[yamangman]

Would my games load faster if I had them all on the SATA drive rather than on the PATA drives?

[myth]

Would my games load faster if I had them all on the SATA drive rather than on the PATA drives?

I'd put all my games and storage on the sata,

HD1 80gig= windows + linux swap

HD2 80 gig= Linux + windows swap

HD3 200gig= Games and media storage....

[skattrd]

Would my games load faster if I had them all on the SATA drive rather than on the PATA drives?

They would probably load a bit quicker from the SATA drive.
Personally I have a 10Gig partition for windows and program files and have games on another drive, but use the rest of the windows drive for storage. That way the windows partition can be formatted and windows reinstalled without having to reinstall all the games or backup and reload the storage.

Having swap/pagefile on a different drive to the o/s can help performance as well.

I haven't tried the Seagate Baracudas myself, but I've heard good things about them and they do have 5yr warranty as well.

FYI 200Gig when formatted is approx 186Gig and 80gig formatted is 74Gig - you loose approx 7% space

[TooNice]

Would my games load faster if I had them all on the SATA drive rather than on the PATA drives?

I disagree with the above. Get SATA for the conveniency (nicer cable etc.), not for performance (which for the same drive will have little effect).

[myth]

I disagree with the above. Get SATA for the conveniency (nicer cable etc.), not for performance (which for the same drive will have little effect).

Yea, there isnt a difference...