I'll be buying a new computer soon to replace the one I've had for nearly 5 years (p3-800). This computer has served me well for most of the time except for the hard drive (40gb) which has bad clusters on it. I had to format it once and it nearly didn't format due to the bad clusters (kept displaying error messages). This has led me to believe that the component most likely to fail with any computer I get in the future will be the hard drive (I don't mess about with any of the other components as a general rule). To overcome this problem (and all the expense and inconvenience that a failed hard drive causes) I've been thinking about buying a new computer with 2 hard drives. I don't use much space (considering the size of hard drives these days) and I thought I could use the first hard drive for the first 2 or 3 years then switch over to using the second hard drive for the next 2 or 3 years (after which time I'm sure I'll be thinking of a new computer again). Is this a good idea, or don't things work like that ie. if 1 hard drive fails then it won't even be possible to boot the computer or something, also do hdd's degrade over time anyway regardless of how much they are used. Would appreciate some advice! Thanks.
1 hard drive or 2 hard drives - which is best?
- Thread starter david_uk
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dhlucke
Polypheme
- Feb 2, 2001
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Don't bother. First of all you're going to be pleasantly surprised at PC prices if you go out shopping today. 5 years ago we had just hit the $1000 mark for budget machines. Today you can do even better and still have a good machine. Especially in your case since you obviously aren't very demanding. Hard drive capacities are as high as 500GB and although those aren't necessarely cheap hard drive prices have fallen significantly. The sweet spot as far as price per GB are the 250GB drives for less than $100
Hard Drives fail. I just lost one. Luckily for us though they generally fail within the first couple months or after several years. So what you want to do is just buy a reliable drive, thoroughly test it with the manufacturers software (I just learned this after my recent loss), and then just be consistant in backing up your data. You can get a DVD burner for $40 and from the sounds of it a few DVD's will take care of all your backup needs.
When the drive dies in a few years buy a new one. That simple.
Alternatively you could set up a RAID 1 array. Make sure the motherboard you buy is RAID 1 capable and then buy two identical hard drives. It will store your data on both drives so that if one drive fails you have a redundant array setup and the other drive will keep your data safe. The cons to this are that you are spending twice as much on your hard drive needs and you're only getting the space from one of them. If you buy two 100GB drives you're only going to be able to store 100GB of data.
Hard Drives fail. I just lost one. Luckily for us though they generally fail within the first couple months or after several years. So what you want to do is just buy a reliable drive, thoroughly test it with the manufacturers software (I just learned this after my recent loss), and then just be consistant in backing up your data. You can get a DVD burner for $40 and from the sounds of it a few DVD's will take care of all your backup needs.
When the drive dies in a few years buy a new one. That simple.
Alternatively you could set up a RAID 1 array. Make sure the motherboard you buy is RAID 1 capable and then buy two identical hard drives. It will store your data on both drives so that if one drive fails you have a redundant array setup and the other drive will keep your data safe. The cons to this are that you are spending twice as much on your hard drive needs and you're only getting the space from one of them. If you buy two 100GB drives you're only going to be able to store 100GB of data.
dhlucke
Polypheme
- Feb 2, 2001
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One more thing. You want to defragment your hard drive on a regular basis. If you had that hard drive for 5 years, only formatted it once, and didn't defragment on a regular basis then problems don't surprise me.
WinXP uses Diskeeper Lite edition.
Invest in the full version of Diskeeper or PerfectDisk
WinXP uses Diskeeper Lite edition.
Invest in the full version of Diskeeper or PerfectDisk
Thanks for your quick reply. I guess your right, hard drives do fail at least now I will be more prepared for when it does (hopefully it won't). I do defrag my hdd on a regular basis using a utility although I find I'm having to do it on a more frequent basis than before (once a week now compared to once a month when the computer was newer). For new computer, it seems extra money saved can now be spent on something a bit more useful. I'll be going for a mid-range system (athlon 3800 dual core), but thats another story. I'll probably get it from the same manufacturer as before. Standard hdd with that system is 160gb (or 200gb for just a small bit more), full description of it is '160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB Buffer'.
interesting to see as well that a fdd is now an optional item. how things have changed.
interesting to see as well that a fdd is now an optional item. how things have changed.
I've manually backed up my stuff for years by occasionally copying it across my home network via Windows Explorer to another computer. I'm sure there is a better way. Do you have any backup strategies, software or resource references you could point me to? Thanks much.
mpjesse
Splendid
- Dec 31, 2007
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Doing it across a network is certainly one of the easier ways. However, the easiest way by far is to use RAID 1. You never have to do a thing! 
Of course, you'll have to buy 2 identical hard drives, get a new motherboard (if yours doesn't have RAID), and reinstall windows- but after that it's hassle free.
The other option is to buy a cheap PCI RAID controller (under $50), install it, get 2 hard drives, and save everything to the RAID drives. This way you won't have to reinstall windows.
Of course, there's plenty of tape backup products on the market. Depending on the size of your hard drive, DLT drives are the best. DLT IV supports up to 320GB tapes.
-mpjesse
Of course, you'll have to buy 2 identical hard drives, get a new motherboard (if yours doesn't have RAID), and reinstall windows- but after that it's hassle free.The other option is to buy a cheap PCI RAID controller (under $50), install it, get 2 hard drives, and save everything to the RAID drives. This way you won't have to reinstall windows.
Of course, there's plenty of tape backup products on the market. Depending on the size of your hard drive, DLT drives are the best. DLT IV supports up to 320GB tapes.
-mpjesse
Thanks. I hadn't thought of RAID. My board had raid capability, and I'll soon have a second WD3200JD, but I was intending to use the extra space for a massive project to put all my home movies (mostly my daughter's dance performances) on DVDs. Also, Pinnacle works best with a second hard drive for the files being copied/editted into the DVD project. Could I partition the two drives and use say the first half of each as the RAID combo drive, and the second half of each drive as non-raid disks? Hmmm, I guess I'd have to get a third drive to achieve the same independent drive advantage for Pinnacle. I do have an old 80Gig lying around...
mpjesse
Splendid
- Dec 31, 2007
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You can partition RAID drives- sure. But no matter what you do with the logical partitions, they'll always be on the RAID array.
What you could do is this: 2 drives for RAID 0 (this would have windows and pinnacle on it). It would definitely make video editing MUCH MUCH faster............. Then 2 drives for RAID 1 (mirroring, this would act as both your backup drive AND extra pinnacle drive). Furthermore, you could parition the RAID 1 array into 2 drives. 1 specifically for home movies and the other for the dedicated pinnacle drive. And everything would be automatically backed up!
Not sure how many drives you have, but this setup would require 2 identical hard disks for each array (4 drives total).
-mpjesse
What you could do is this: 2 drives for RAID 0 (this would have windows and pinnacle on it). It would definitely make video editing MUCH MUCH faster............. Then 2 drives for RAID 1 (mirroring, this would act as both your backup drive AND extra pinnacle drive). Furthermore, you could parition the RAID 1 array into 2 drives. 1 specifically for home movies and the other for the dedicated pinnacle drive. And everything would be automatically backed up!
Not sure how many drives you have, but this setup would require 2 identical hard disks for each array (4 drives total).
-mpjesse
Thanks much for the info, this is intriguing. I started a separate thread for this in the General Storage section called "Backup strategies for home network?", and your comments here expand on suggestions made there, so I'm moving our string from here to there. I would greatly appreciate it if you would comment further there. Since my four drives are 320 GB x 2 and 80GB x 2, wouldn't my max storage capacity be 160GB? So it seems I can't take good advantage of RAID 0+1, which is what would probably be ideal for me. Or could I somehow? See you over there, I hope.
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