OS and Applications on Same Hard Drive?

[rcaastro]

This may be a PC 101 question, but I'm in the process of adding a second internal hard drive to my new XPS 8300, WIN 7 Pro x-64 pc. I have an external 2 TB HD that I use for backups.

I do a lot of digital photography with Photoshop Elements 8 and I'm starting to get into video processing with Photoshop Premier Elements 8 and Premier does take a lot of space. I'm wondering if I can get faster results by putting Premier Elements 8 on the new HD?

Or, should I keep the OS and all of the applications on the same HD and just put the data and files on the second HD?

Or, is there some better way to get faster results and have a more orderly work flow?

Lastly, any hard drives I should stay away from? I've read so much about so many, and if you do read enough you can find both glowing, and damning reviews on about every available HD.

Thanks for all of your thoughts and help.

[rubberman]

I usually put the OS on one drive, and user data on the other. That gives you the best split of performance, and reliability. IE, you can replace the system drive if it fails without losing your data. I do the same on Linux as well, so I can boot other operating systems, and still have access to all my user data.

[flagstar]

Any HDD would be fine... It doesn't have to be running in the same hard disk for it to run normally. Usually when you install apps on other HDD other than HDD with OS, it would be still the same since it depends on your OS and computer specs.

If you have high capacity of free space in your first HDD, just install on same drive so when the second HDD is unavailable, you can still use Adobe plus more neatly (all install apps are install inside Program Files) but might installing apps on second HDD when first one do have little capacity to compensate for your apps. (create a folder to keep your apps organize)

I'm not sure which HDD you should stay away from aside from WD, Samsung, Maxtor and some HDD which I'm familiar with. If you're paranoid about it, just choose well-known brand and it should be enough...

[rcaastro]

Thanks for all of your thoughts. ...rcaastro