1HDD vs 2HDD's (1 bad)

[dsr07mm]

So I have question and I dont want to make mistake.

Right now I cant afford any buying so this is what I have and I need suggestion what to do (I'm not worried about loosing data without backup though).

I have
Western Digital 2.5" SATA 500GB 7200RPM HDD Laptop Hard Drive WD5000BPKT-08PK4T0
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Digital-2-5-SATA-500GB-7200RPM-HDD-Laptop-Hard-Drive-WD5000BPKT-08PK4T0-/380938258604

and

Hitachi GST Deskstar 7K160 HDS721616PLA380
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145124

So WD and Hitachi.

WD is 100% healthy HDD and its 500gb, I'm using it for games and recordings through ShadowPlay (I'm youtuber so I need that on a daily base even in newest games).

Hitachi (only acceptable in sentinel with 40 bad sectors) is 160gb, 40gb partition for Windows 8.1 and 120gb for installed softwares since I dant want to mess everything in C.

___________________________________________________________________________

Now I realized that most of my games shutters if Superfetch feature is Enabled despite fact that my games are on healthy WD so I'm thinking about removing Hitachi or atleast leaving him only for recordings.

My simple question is what will bring me or keep performance on same level without loosing performance or getting shutters (in theory).

1) Should I split WD 500GB into partitions and make ~50gb for OS, leave rest for games and softwares, and have Hitachi only for recordings from ShadowPlay ?

2) Or should I remove Hitachi completely and do everything on one HDD ? Or disk usage will affect performance ?

3) Or after all I should leave everything as its now ?

As far as I can see OS is not using disk usage at all, during games nothing goes on 100%, and ShadowPlay is doing already compressed videos so its not like Fraps for example when it should affect performance due to high disk usage.

Any fast tips and help would be appreciated.

 

[i7Baby]

1 - yes. it will also get a reserve partition when you install windows on it.

 

[dsr07mm]

1 - yes. it will also get a reserve partition when you install windows on it.

I always thought that OS and software will affect my gaming performance lol. I just need MSI Afterburning running constantly along gaming, chrome though is another thing running constantly most of the time due to 2 monitors but I feel like that you got a point. Thanks. Any other confirmation will just make me do this even today hah

 

[i7Baby]

As usual - back up your drive before partitioning and installing windows.

 

[dsr07mm]

As usual - back up your drive before partitioning and installing windows.

Yeah I did so many times that shouldnt be a problem. I think that I can probably get one more SATA for free, most likely WD so I will be fine then. I'm still wondering why would Hitachi affect gaming performance on WD since there is nothing which is coming from WD related to game. But I guess bad sectors could affect OS working then.

I know that Superfetch is kinda remembering what I did last time and its storing softwares/apps in memory so that would explain issues on Hitachi, but still.. eh. I will do that today and then just replace Hitachi with new WD in couple days.

 

[MarkW]

If you have enough system RAM, you could setup something like a 1GB or 2GB ram disk, record to that, and then copy the files to the hard drive after you are done recording. That should eliminate the stuttering.

I have not used the following ram disk software, but it is free, and appears to do what I would want it to do.

https://www.softperfect.com/products/ramdisk/

 

[dsr07mm]

Shuttering doesnt happen only when I record, it happens during regular gaming online/offline. Diablo 3, Dota 2, Witcher 3, GTA5 and other older games. 60hz to 59hz kinda helped, but shuttering despite 60fps was due to Superfetch. Now I do have 8gb ram (only) and that wouldnt be enough since I'm doing longer sessions.

It's more about does bad sectors could affect and make that or not, and is it worth to do that during days when I have work to do on PC and try to make space for reinstalling fresh OS on 100% WD instead leaving this as it is for now. But thanks for suggestion. I will try to get one more SATA and solve a problem but for now I was wondering will changing drives help.

 

[i7Baby]

Stuttering will be probably to do with your hardware.

Post your build.

 

[MarkW]

Bad sectors, once identified and replaced by a spare sector, should have a very, very minimal effect on the drive, and only when trying to write over the bad sectors.

I assume that you have turned off superfetch?

And that you have vSync on?

I would record to the newer drive. That way, the older drive cannot be a factor in this.

How big of a file are you recording?

 

[dsr07mm]

Stuttering will be probably to do with your hardware.

Post your build.

It's in signature, and it's not due to that I believe I did numerous tests, benchmarks are fine, numbers are above average with or without overclock.

Intel® Core™ i7-4770K @ 4.0GHz | EVO 212 Cooler Master | MSI GTX970 4GB OC @ 1500MHz Core / 3800MHz Memory | MSI Z87-G45 GAMING | 2x4GB DDR3 @ 1866mhz

Stuttering will be probably to do with your hardware.

Post your build.

Bad sectors, once identified and replaced by a spare sector, should have a very, very minimal effect on the drive, and only when trying to write over the bad sectors.

I assume that you have turned off superfetch?

And that you have vSync on?

I would record to the newer drive. That way, the older drive cannot be a factor in this.

How big of a file are you recording?

I'm thinking the same, and bad sectors are on Hitachi where I have only OS and MSI Afterburner running during gaming. Again shuttering is not cause of recordings so thats not a problem. ShadowPlay doesnt lower neither 1fps. Vsync is always on in my case, lately I'm forcing adaptive vsync for all games since its better and reduce input lag. Unfortunately despite locked 60fps I do get shutters, sometimes on half second, sometimes on whole second. I tried one stick of ram per time, stock clocks on both cpu/gpu, replacing PSU etc etc. Thats why I'm wondering why I have that with SuperFetch enabled since everything is happening on WD which is fine.

And no, not running MSI Afterburner doesnt help neither.

 

[MarkW]

I just noticed your signature... You have some nice hardware there. I see no reason you should be getting stuttering.

Two sticks of memory in alternating slots is what you want. Dual channel is better than single channel. So if we numbered your memory slots as 1 through 4, you would want your memory in slots 1 and 3 or 2 and 4. Check your motherboard manual to see which slots it recommends for the best setup.

Which games are you recording?

 

[dsr07mm]

I just noticed your signature... You have some nice hardware there. I see no reason you should be getting stuttering.

Two sticks of memory in alternating slots is what you want. Dual channel is better than single channel. So if we numbered your memory slots as 1 through 4, you would want your memory in slots 1 and 3 or 2 and 4. Check your motherboard manual to see which slots it recommends for the best setup.

Which games are you recording?

I do have dual channel enabled, slots 2 and 4. So thats fine. If I didnt see bad sectors in sentinel I wouldn't know to blame hdd at first place. I'm recording all new releases, on release date or before since I'm getting preview copies. Full walkthroughs, reviews, benchmarks those kind of stuff. I'm gaming in my free time with some old games or competetive more older though. For example I never have shutter in CSGO, while games like Dota 2 and other AAA games are causing shutter even if fps is locked on 60 and there are no drops during those shutters. But with Superfetch disabled shutters are almost gone, there are shutters here and there but much less.

For example when I do test in Shadows of Mordor, I do get higher AVERAGE fps, but sometimes like 30% of the time at the begining of benchmark I get 20fps instead 60fps so that makes my lowest fps in benchmark much lower obviosly. It's like that HDD is not loading up fast enough game/benchmark despite fact that game is running from perfectly normal and working WD. Thats why I thought that bad sectors on OS hdd could cause performance drop and I was wondering is it smart to run everything on one working HDD instead splitting OS/softwares on HDD with bad sectors and running only games from 100% healty hdd separately.

 

[i7Baby]

Try another monitor cable.

Try another GPU port and monitor port.

Try another monitor.

Try another GPU.

CPU and GPU idle and gaming temps?

 

[dsr07mm]

I have 2 monitors, vga and hdmi, I did tried all combos. I did tried other PCI-E slot. Monitors I already explained. GPU is fine..last 2 drivers were mess but I have all my benchmarks for last 10 drivers and I found most stable.

During idle temps are low as for gaming.

CPU idle 29c, gaming 55c highest core, rendering 61c highest core
GPU idle 29/30c, gaming 55c, manual fans.

I guess I will reinstall OS on working WD and test by myself although I will loose a lot of time but there is no exact answer.

 

[MarkW]

I am beginning to suspect your video card, and that last .5gb that runs at 1/7th the speed of the rest of the memory. Find a way to monitor and log your video cards memory usage. If you exceed 3.5GB at any point, that is going to be where the stuttering is coming from.

 

[i7Baby]

I'd check core and memory speeds when stress testing. Just to make sure the card is running up to speed.

What make and model power supply you got?

 

[dsr07mm]

It's not gpu guys.. GPU doesnt goes anywhere near 3.5gb of vram usage, and even those games where it goes, it works fine and its using over 3.5 actually with MSAA. Core and memory speeds are fine, as I stated I did tried on both stock and oc speeds. Doesnt matter. I tested gpu on other PC and it works fine.

It's just matter of question does OS hdd with bad sectors can actually affect gaming at other hdd.

 

[MarkW]

At the most, while you are playing, the game might be reading some data from the hard drive, but you have said your games are on the good hard drive. So whatever is going on here is not hard drive related.

Does your memory usage ever get above 4GB?

 

[dsr07mm]

Not in current games.

I might noticed a problem but I did reinstall OS recently so I dont think its related to software.

While I'm playing game my bad hdd Hitatchi get to 100% (monitoring on second monitor) and during that time I get shutterin in games while fps remains at 60. WD where my actual game is never goes above 5% except during loading screens 80-90% usage. Which means that something on C:/ is using hdd for something. Question is..can that be a problem at first place ? I mean does bad sectors or corrupted hdd have a issue to get random 100% usage ?

During 100% usage I can hear my HDD a bit louder though, and as I said there is no fps drop but there are spikes and shuttering.

 

[dsr07mm]

It's proccess "System" which from time to time goes on 100% disk usage and then shutter occures. Games which I'm testing doesnt have autosave feature though, I believe that its corrupted HDD. I will reinstall OS and hopefully till tonight be able to test this again by leaving Hitatchi for recordings and then in 5 days hopefully get new hdd.

 

[MarkW]

Well, you've never said the old drive was pegged at 100% before. That changes things.

Since the games are not stored on the old C: drive, I suspect the pagefile is what is being used. So lets move that file to your D: drive, and see if that helps. Here is how to do that.

Open the Control Panel.
Open System.
Click on Advanced System Settings.
Click on the Advanced tab.
In the Performance "box", click the Settings button.
On that panel, click on the Advanced tab.
Click on the Change button.

That should bring you to this panel:

Now, uncheck the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives checkbox at the top, and the other items will become active.

I am assuming that the old drive is drive letter C:, and the new drive is drive letter D:
Click on the D: drive and select either a fixed size or system managed size, and then click Set.
Click on the C: drive, and change it to No paging file, and click on Set.
Now click on OK 3 times, and you should be prompted to reboot the system.

Once you have rebooted, test to see if you still get the stuttering.

 

[dsr07mm]

I did mention that couple times 😛

Right before you responded with this I was googling about pagefile. I can confirm that every spike occurs with random disk usage. It literally makes me think that SATA1 is not enough for gaming on this machine..

I did tried to make system managed size on partition where is game, now instead on C:/ I had 100% disk usage on F:/ and my game spikked again.
C:/ - OS Partition - Bad HDD
D:/ - Software Partition - BAD HDD

E:/ - Backup partition with files which I need
F:/ - 450gb partition for games and recordings

I also tried to disable pagefile completely but I got error during games
"Windows successfully diagnosed a low virtual memory condition"

So basically my SATA's are preventing me from playing games smoothly, bad sectors on Hitachi are not a problem 🙁

 

[MarkW]

OK... Go back to that page where you moved the pagefile to the F: drive, and set a fixed pagefile size of 16184.

I am pretty sure the SATA ports are not the limitation. They can run so much faster than your hard drives can. Hard drives max out around 100MB/s, and the SATA II ports support triple that, and the SATA III ports support 6x the hard drive max speed.

 

[dsr07mm]

With risk of being retarded, I dont see fixed size. Does that means that I need to enter same value in both Initial size and Maximum size ? Since beside that I see only Custom size which enables previous 2 fields and there is No Paging File.

I will try that.

Well my WD SATA hdd is perfectly fine, and by seeing shuttering even after setting pagefile to that hdd I'm worried. So I should use 16184 value in both initial and max size ? Thanks and I will report once when I test that.

 

[MarkW]

Yes.