Hi all I currently use the PC in my sig, but will soon be building a Sandy Bridge system. I am looking to re-use the Samsung F1 1TB and WD Green 1TB. Until now I have had my Samsung as the main drive and the WD as my backup. I will keep the WD as the backup drive, so that won't change. Since building a new system gives me an opportunity to try and get the best HDD setup for boot speeds etc, I wanted to hear your opinions. Do I use the Samsung F1 as a single partition? Or would it be better to do a partition for Windows 7 + a few programs, then another partition for Steam, games and music? Another possibility is that I have also seen some people using smaller capacity (320GB or 500GB) Samsung F3 and F4's for their boot drive. Are they much quicker than my F1? And before you say SSD.....yes I know they are wonderful, but right now I can't afford it. However I would get one when I can afford it Thanks in advance
I don't think that the smaller drives are any faster? The larger drives tend to have some advantage due to aerial density, although the F1 is getting a little old. If you are using a 1TB as a boot drive, I would definitely partition some out - maybe 80GB or so. That's just to allow re-formats or going back to clean(er) installs however. I can't imagine that you would be able to notice any difference in system responsiveness from doing it however. Did you have a look at the bit-tech F3 review? It has some comparisons with the F1. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/06/samsung-spinpoint-f3-1tb-review/8
i know you said don't go to ssd but... with the new gen3 drives coming out, gen2 prices are falling already. there are some very good ssd in the 64-80gb in the £70- £110 range.
