Is it worth using 2 HDD

[mattw1013]

I am building a pc and have a 1tb hdd I am using as my main storage, i also have a smaller hdd from another pc. Is it worth adding it something similar to an ssd to put extra stuff? Just wondering peoples thoughts.

 

[dudeman509]

DO you have a SSD? OS and swap file benefits greatly from being on a SSD.

If not, put the OS on one drive (the faster one) and the swap file on the other. It'll speed things up so the disk isn't scrambling all over the place when swapping things in/out.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there mattw1013,

What are the models of the drives. Take a look at their RPM. Based on that, you can decide which one should be your OS drive.
Apart from that, as dudeman509 mentioned, SSDs are considerably faster than HDDs. My suggestion would be to just get a small SSD for your OS and most demanding games/tools. You can store all the other data and programs on your drive.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there again guys,

I've just came across this thread again, and I will provide some clarification on the matter.
HDDs(mechanical hard drives) are different than the SSDs(solid state drives). The first ones have mechanical moving parts inside(platters, writing head, etc.) while the latter have just electronics(NAND-based flash memory).

HDDs offer large capacity, they are cheaper compared to SSDs but offer poorer performance.
SSDs come with less storage space, they are more expensive than HDDs but have considerably better performance.

Just because of the aforementioned reasons, in case you decide to get an SSD, you shouldn't use it for storing stuff on it. You will benefit the most in case you use it as an OS drive. That way, you can get several times faster boot time. After that, you can use your other HDDs for storing data. You can even use a tool that can clone your current HDD onto the SSD. That way, you will not even need to perform clean OS install.

Having all this information, if you decide not to go with an SSD but you want to stay with the two HDDs that you already have, I would suggest you to use the faster one as your OS drive. HDDs have RPM(rotation per minute). Based on that, you can see which one of the two is faster. Most of the drives have either 7200 RMP or 5400 RPM. You can use the other HDD as a back up drive. Keep in mind that it is always a good idea to store the data that you can't afford to loose on at least two places.

Another thing you can check is whether your smaller drive, which is most probably an older one, is in a healthy state. You can just test it with some of these: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility
The results will provide a SMART report that will show the overall healthy status of the drive. It will not hurt to test your 1 TB drive as well.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD