Steve Easton

Ah, Ok.

With the scenario you posted below, it makes perfect sense that the machine would boot faster.
You've significantly reduced the size of the Master File Table for the C drive and also greatly reduced
the area that the drive has to search during the boot sequence.

My reply applies to when the machine is up and running, reading and writing files.
If you really want to see a significant performance boost, run two drives with data files and the paging file
on the "Drive" separate from the OS.

fwiw I run a Dual core machine with 1 GB of Ram and 2 160 GB sata drives.
Dual boot with XP and Vista Ultimate.
Both clean installs on brand new drives.
The XP paging file is on the Vista drive
The Vista paging file is on the XP drive

Contrary to what others have posted, Vista is "much" faster than XP
with this set up.


--

Steve Easton





"Joel Dahl" <JoelDahl@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1AA39047-45E9-4564-9020-34BE5E081B9D@microsoft.com...
> I've seen that said elsewhere, and as I posted above, I don't even vaguely
> have the technical training to argue one way or the other on that point,
> however my past experience proves otherwise.
>
> So, while I'm not challenging you on this point, allow me to describe why my
> past experience leads me to believe that moving data onto a separate
> partition on the same physical drive improves performance, and perhaps you or
> someone else can explain to me the real reason for why this happens.
>
> I had a Windows XP machine with a 40 GB physical hard drive, the entirety of
> which was formatted as a 40GB C: drive. I noticed with this machine (and
> with other machines I'd had previously) that its performance generally seemed
> to slow down over time, the longer I had the machine (and yes, I did have
> general system maintainance performed regularly, defragmenting the HD, etc.).
> My presumption was/is that as time passed, I created and saved more data
> files, so there was more data for the system to have to churn through the
> longer I had the computer.
>
> It got REALLY bad when I took my entire CD collection and imported it all
> into iTunes (about 15 GB worth). Basic windows processes (booting up,
> minimizing or maximizing a screen) would have a noticeable lag with an
> hourglass on screen before anything would happen).
>
> A friend suggested to me that I separate my C: drive into a 17GB (the
> minimum for XP, apparently) C: drive, and leave the remaining 23GB as a new
> D: partition, and transfer the My Documents folder, and all the data it
> contained (including my newly bloated iTunes folder, which was the main
> offender in slowing down my system) onto drive D:
>
> I did so, and AS SOON as I did, the computer returned to its original,
> fresh-out-of-the-box level of performance.
>
> So my question is, if moving my data onto a separate partition on the same
> physical hard drive didn't cause the speed-up of my OS, what did?
>
> This story is about my old XP machine. As for my new laptop with Vista, I
> can't say for sure if the same rule will prove true (though I've obviously
> been assuming that it will). I haven't put a whole lot of data on it yet,
> and now that I've moved the Documents folder onto my D: partition, that's
> where I'm going to put all my data when I do put lots of data on it.
>
> Thanks for your input! I really appreciate it!
>
> Joel
>
> "Steve Easton" wrote:
>
>> I hate to tell you this, but moving / saving / working with files in another partition on the "Same" drive
>> does not speed up anything.
>> The only thing it accomplishes is that they're saved if you ever need to reformat the OS partition and
>> reinstall.
>>
>> Using a second physical drive for data file storage and also moving the paging file there "Is" a definite
>> performance advantage.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Steve Easton
>>
>>
>>
>> "Joel Dahl" <JoelDahl@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:C4625BB7-8C88-430B-8167-7A4655C544BA@microsoft.com...
>> >I just bought a new laptop with Windows Vista installed. I have a 120 GB
>> > hard drive, which I ordered Dell to partition into a 40 GB C drive and an 80
>> > GB D drive (with my DVD drive being drive E).
>> >
>> > So I got the laptop and the partitioning is all done as I requested. Now
>> > what I want to do with it is to set it up similarly to the way I had my old
>> > Windows XP machine set up, which was as follows:
>> >
>> > I separated my old XP machine into a 17GB C drive, and a 23GB D drive. I
>> > managed to set up my XP operating system so that the "My Documents" folder
>> > (and all associated subfolders) was on drive D, while the OS and all
>> > applications were installed on drive C, but whatever data files I created
>> > were on drive D. The reason I did this was that I had a lot of data on my
>> > machine, and having it on the same drive as the OS was slowing the OS down
>> > substantially, but the OS performed well when all that data was on a separate
>> > drive.
>> >
>> > What I want is to do substantially the same thing with my new Windows Vista
>> > laptop. I want to have the OS and all installed applications remain on drive
>> > C, but put my entire user account folder (C:\Users\Joel_T_Dahl) on drive D
>> > (my 80GB data partition). Or, if I can't do that, I'd like to move just the
>> > major subfolders of my user account (i.e., "Documents," "Music," "Pictures"
>> > etc.) onto drive D. I have a lot of music and pictures I want to put into
>> > those folders, and before I put them into those folders, I want to move those
>> > folders onto drive D, so that the data doesn't bog down my OS.
>> >
>> > I know I could just deliberately save all my data onto drive D, but most
>> > applications save data into these Vista equivalents of the XP My Documents
>> > subfolders, and it would be nice not to have those defaults point to a folder
>> > that's already on drive D (and not to have to change the default save
>> > directory with each new application I install).
>> >
>> > So in sum, I would like for C:\Users\Joel_T_Dahl to become D:\Joel_T_Dahl,
>> > with all the associated settings within Windows Vista changed so that they
>> > know what drive path to point to when accessing Joel_T_Dahl and/or any
>> > associated subfolder.
>> >
>> > Or, if I can't move my user account folder off the drive that has the OS,
>> > I'd like for
>> >
>> > C:\Users\Joel_T_Dahl\Documents\
>> > C:\Users\Joel_T_Dahl\Music\
>> > C:\Users\Joel_T_Dahl\Pictures
>> > (etc., etc.)
>> >
>> > to become
>> >
>> > D:\Documents
>> > D:\Music\
>> > D:\Pictures\
>> > D:\(etc., etc.)
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> >
>> > Joel
>>
>>
>>