Setup of HDDs

I have 2 HDDs, XP OS on 20GB HDD and a 320GB for storage of everything else.
I have this setup due to previous upgrade of PC and recent HDD crash, it seems so sensible to use one small HDD for OS, and another larger one for all storage, easy to insert into another PC.
The only issue is that I was using an 80GB HDD for OS until it mysteriously crashed, failure mode unknown. Now using the 20GB HDD for OS, my PC is very slow, likely as it is a very old HDD, approx. 8-10 years.

Can anyone recommend a superior (quicker & safer) method of utilising 2 x HDDs for OS and storage?

Will HDD partioning help? Surely if HDD fails, it is likely it fails as a unit?

 

An eight to ten year old hard drive is going to be slooowww. And not very reliable, it could fail also. Hard drives are pretty inexpensive, I would buy a new one with a 5 year warranty and us it for the OS, and the other for backup if you want. If you are short on cash, I would just put everything on the 320Gb drive.

E

 

He's right. If the 20GB hard drive fails, you could be out a lot of data.

 

Thanks, I don't want to put everything on the one HDD for reasons stated, and the 20 GB HDD only has the OS on it, so whats the risk???
The problem is I can't buy a small new fast HDD just to put an OS on, I have to buy a the more expensive larger one...thats why I am asking for suggestions of alternative methods, using partitioning or something else....

 

Like he said, if the 20Gb drive is that old, its going to be slow. Partition your 320Gb drive into 2 parts, one for the OS and one for data if you still want to do it that way.

You could use the 20Gb for backups. Or a coaster.

 

Depending on what you do with your computer, give some thought to having more than two partitions on that 320GB HD. For example, if you use a digital camera and put photos on your computer, you might have a separate partition for your photos.

IMO, this just makes good sense. One benefit is more efficient defragmenting; you can defragment smaller parts of a drive faster because you have less data to defragment on that partition, and different partitions may not all need defragmenting at the same frequency, depending on what they're used for.