1HDD vs 2HDD's (1 bad)

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dsr07mm

dsr07mm

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Aug 26, 2013
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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.

 
Solution
MarkW
Yes, if you can get a 60GB SSD for your boot drive, it should help. A lot. If there is still some stuttering, then you will have to save up some and get another SSD when you can. I hope this fixes it for you, and it should. Unfortunately, Samsung no longer makes 64GB SSD's. And I'm not sure what SSD's they sell in Serbia. I guess all I can say is try to get a 60/64 GB SSD from an international company. Kingston, SanDisk, Adata, ... Even the older model Samsung 64GB SSD's are gone now.

If you can get one, make sure it can read in the 500MB range, higher is better, and for writes, 400MB range or higher. Last thing you want is a slow SSD.
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Thats what I wanted to see... And yes, I think you just proved that having the OS on F: would not resolve the problem.

I only see two options left. And you may end up taking both options, if you can afford them.
1) Buy a memory kit of 2 x 8GB 1866 memory. I know, you already have 8GB of 1866 memory. Sell the memory you have now. By doing this, you are assured that the 2 larger sticks of memory will work with your system. Adding 2 new sticks to the older 2 memory sticks may or may not work well. This should help reduce pagefile swapping.
2) Buy an SSD. or two. Let me explain this for a second. First of all, a fast SSD reads and writes at least 4 times faster than a hard drive can. So if the stuttering is because of the system using the pagefile, and you can push that data to the SSD 4 to 6 times faster, that alone could reduce or even eliminate the stuttering. Second, if you were to buy say a 128GB SSD for Windows, and a second SSD for your games and recordings, say 256GB or 512GB, then anything that your games need will also be coming off of the drives 4 to 6 times faster than a hard drive. And with anything windows needs to write out going to the boot SSD, and the games reading from the games and recording SSD, both on different SATA ports, there should be zero chance for stuttering.

If you can do this, I would suggest buying Samsung 850 Pro SSDs. They are some of the fastest SSDs out there, and they are extremely reliable. In fact, these drives come with a 10 YEAR WARRANTY! Try getting that on a hard drive!! BTW, I just peeked at the pricing on these at Newegg... $97.99 for the 128GB drive, $144.99 for the 256GB, and $257.99 for the 512GB unit. Just to give you an idea of the money I'm talking about here. You may be able to find them cheaper elsewhere... I just wanted a quick reference to give you on money.
 
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Thanks for suggestion. Although where I live in Serbia prices are much higher, payments lower so I'm not gonna be able to do that.

If pagefile is problem, would it work in theory to buy 60gb SSD only for pagefile and OS ? Haha :) I've never used partition larger then 40gb's anyways for OS so that might do a trick ? As long as I can neutralize pagefile disk usage up to 100% and keep shuttering away.

Or perhaps pluging in third SATA only for pagefile ? Or its gonna be connected again to overall shuttering ?

Because I needed to sell my 1866 rams and I got 1333 sticks just to get other laptop, so I would need to buy completely new 16gb's of ram without actually getting some money by selling current since price is low for them.

Thanks for suggestion and atleast finding what was the problem at first place.
 
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Yes, if you can get a 60GB SSD for your boot drive, it should help. A lot. If there is still some stuttering, then you will have to save up some and get another SSD when you can. I hope this fixes it for you, and it should. Unfortunately, Samsung no longer makes 64GB SSD's. And I'm not sure what SSD's they sell in Serbia. I guess all I can say is try to get a 60/64 GB SSD from an international company. Kingston, SanDisk, Adata, ... Even the older model Samsung 64GB SSD's are gone now.

If you can get one, make sure it can read in the 500MB range, higher is better, and for writes, 400MB range or higher. Last thing you want is a slow SSD.
 
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Solution
Thanks, there are SanDisk ssd's for about 60-70$ at 60gb range.

Just realized that WD healthy hdd is working at speeds around 110/110, while Hitatchi is working at 70/74 Mbyte/sec. So its definitely slower but I will try and get that SSD instead another sata.
 
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Let me know how things go when you get it. And when you do get it, remember to turn on the AHCI setting in the BIOS. You need to turn that on anytime you have an SSD in the system.

When we put time in working with someone like this, its always nice to hear back in the end find out if what you did really resolved the problem or not. :)

 
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No. When you get the SSD, I would unplug the old drive while you install Windows, and then once it was working for you, if you are going to continue to use the bad drive, just plug it into another port, and format the entire drive to make sure its not trying to compete with he SSD for boots. You should also update the boot order in the BIOS when you get Windows on the SSD. It selects what gets to boot based on name of the device.
 
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Thanks. While I'm waiting my payment If you dont mind I have couple more questions since I cant find proper answer on internet.

How much Pagefile actually shorts life of an SSD ? Is it really that much ? I mean will SSD be normal for atleast 3 years ? I will have warranty on atleast 3 years and I dont really need more for 60 bucks lets be real :)

And in that case, Pagefile could go on Hitachi as 3rd HDD where is nothing other then Pagefile and backup files or that will affect performance again due to low speed ?

But as I see I need raw 20gb's for OS and drivers, even with Pagefile of 16gb's that is around 35gb's overall, lets say 40gb's. There are again 20gb's free on SSD so I dont mind using that method as long as I dont have shuttering.
 
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How much Pagefile actually shorts life of an SSD ? Is it really that much ? I mean will SSD be normal for atleast 3 years ? I will have warranty on atleast 3 years and I dont really need more for 60 bucks lets be real :)

Do not worry about the data that will be written to the SSD. It will last much longer than the 3 years, unless there is an electrical failure. And that is what the warranty is for.

Remember that the Samsung 850 Pro series comes with a 10 year warranty if you are concerned. But the smallest SSD in that line was 128GB.

And in that case, Pagefile could go on Hitachi as 3rd HDD where is nothing other then Pagefile and backup files or that will affect performance again due to low speed ?

No. The whole point of getting the SSD was to speed up the reads and writes of the pagefile to try and stop the stuttering.

But as I see I need raw 20gb's for OS and drivers, even with Pagefile of 16gb's that is around 35gb's overall, lets say 40gb's. There are again 20gb's free on SSD so I dont mind using that method as long as I dont have shuttering.

SSD's need free space to function properly. So just use it for Windows, and the pagefile.
 
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I think you observed that moving the pagefile to the new drive, despite the fact that it is a faster drive, still did not resolve the problem. And that is when I suggested replacing the bad drive with the SSD. I still feel that is the best way to resolve the stuttering.

I also just noticed the power supply that you have. I had never heard of the unit, so I did a search in our power supply list, only saw 1 entry and that unit has never been reviewed. So I did another search, and I came across the thread below on that thing...

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/290727-28-power-lc6650gp3-green-power

Poor quality power supplies can cause systems to do some very strange things. I wish I had noticed this earlier. But I just saw it.
 
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I did tested PSU due to coilwhine and other stuff before. PSU wasnt the issue. I'm still playing games and it still works smoothly. I will give a time till tonight, then install OS on WD with separated partition for games/softwares and then leave Hitatchi for Pagefile.

I will get SSD anyways but I wanna make sure that this could be a solution aswel. Because 99% of people recommend repositioning Pagefile to slower HDD instead SSD so then I dont see purpose despite fact that I would leave it on SSD as you said.

Btw yes I did tried that but my games were running from WD SATA not from same SATA where is OS. So placing game on same SATA where is OS is what gives me performance and removes shuttering by a lot, and completely removal of shuttering was solved with moving pagefile to second idle sata. Atleast for now.
 
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Well, I just do not see how what you are planning on doing there will solve the problem. You are just moving the problem from point A to point B, and then back to point A again. And we pretty much did that yesterday.

But do try it. I could be wrong.
 
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What we did tried yesterday is:
- Always run game from WD

While we are changing pagefile from Hitatchi to WD (in both cases pagefile was causing shuttering on Hitatchi where is OS and on WD where is game runned from)

What I tried today:
- Running game from Hitatchi where is OS, and moving Pagefile on idle WD where 100% disk usage couldnt affect and its not related to my game at all, neither directly to OS hdd.

Thats why I wanna test this and see if it works. I did installed new OS, I will need couple hours to set everything correctly and I will report back with what I got.
 
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This did fixed problem for me completely. Installed Shadows of Mordor, Witcher 3 and GTA 5. No shuttering at all while pagefile start writting at around 50MByte/s on Hitatchi hard drive which is completely empty with backup installations. Pagefile is going up to 8000mb's while I'm in games though - monitoring through Rivatuner OSD ingame. I did set auto size though. I have a lot of free physical ram though, should I decrease that ?
 
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Looks like that simply hdd's are slow to support smoothly game and pagefile or OS and pagefile without lowering performance. I will get another SATA in day or two anyways almost for free and then get SSD couple days after. All in all thanks for suggestions, ideas and guide for SSD 😉
 
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