Question: Can the drive you choose to boot off affect performance? ?Would I receive faster boot/shutdown times if I were to choose a smaller drive? ?How would partitions affect performance/boot speed? ?Assuming all drives are the same RPM, lets say 7200.

Answer: Can the drive you choose to boot off affect performance?

  • It can affect it, but most likely in a positive way. Larger hard drives can be faster due to higher data density.

Would I receive faster boot/shutdown times if I were to choose a smaller drive?

  • Doubtful

How would partitions affect performance/boot speed? Assuming all drives are the same RPM, lets say 7200.

  • Depends on how you partition it, I’d recommend reading this great article by Mitch Tulloch on partitioning drives. He discusses partitioning techniques geared towards performance such as

    • having your page file on a different drive
    • using FAT32 for smaller partitions