While you're focused on getting your hardware order completed, here's some additional information for you to consider after you finish the build. This may serve to give you more insight when you're configuring your storage subsystem and loading software.
At the extreme end of the hard drive spectrum, hard core enthusiasts will spare no expense, opting for three or even four SCSI 15k RPM drives in RAID0 on a high end cached PCI controller card. If you've ever witnessed the astonishing performance such a configuration provides to enhance the overall speed and responsiveness of fast, high end computer systems, it's a jaw dropping experience that'll make you a believer in solutions for the hard drive bottleneck issue. However, this is extremely expensive, and for the vast majority of us, cost prohibitive.
I chose the somewhat more affordable solution of twin SATA 10k Raptor 150's and configured them on Intel RAID0, based strictly upon achieving as much raw speed as possible for the investment. Partition Magic 8 was used to create two partitions within the total 300Gb available on the RAID0 striped set. A 60Gb C:\ "system" partition has the OS and is all inclusive, with SW installations, as well as data and archives. Many IT professionals will immediately balk at this configuration until the complete architecture is revealed, so let's examine it further.
Since Windows "Restore" is inherantly unreliable, the 240Gb D:\ "storage" partition provides space for DVD's, and has a "backup" folder created by Norton Ghost 03 containing images of the C:\ partition. However, images can be corrupted by "internet schmegma" (virus), hardware failure (drive crash), and you can't boot up your system to an image. Therefore, the Seagate 60Gb "backup" drive exists for only one purpose; Norton Ghost 03 is used on this drive via a boot disk, to "clone" the RAID0 C:\ partition.
The only three situations when I enable the drive controller in BIOS are; performing a clone, retrieving files mistakenly deleted, or restoring the C:\ partition due to corruption, such as the inevitable SW install from hell. In the event of SW problems, the backup drive can be booted instead of the RAID0 set, which will allow you to continue working. Cloning is the fastest possible method of creating discrete backups, and unlike RAID1 mirroring, the backup drive is not operating concurrently in Windows with the RAID0 set, so it remains diabled, as secure as a tape on the shelf, imune to corruption, and therefore, 100% reliable.
I also have a USB enclosure with still another 60Gb removable "clone" drive. This may appear to be overkill, but I've seen all the worst possible HW and SW scenarios played out, and they're far too time consuming to consider reinventing the wheel on the fly, when there are fast, efficient, and inexpensive solutions available to extricate oneself from the binary turd bucket. There's only one catch; the human factor. You must be diligent about running clones and images at appropriate intervals. Speaking for myself, I consider my data far too precious to jepardize, so it demands a grounded attitude to keep it secure.
My recommendations for your system are as follows:
(1) Get Partition Magic and Ghost. They're invaluable tools.
(2) Configure the 320's on the SATA controller as RAID0.
(3) Configure the new striped set with "system" and "backup" and "storage" partitions of perhaps 60Gb and 60Gb and 520Gb. The partitions can later be resized if necessary.
(4) Whenever it becomes affordable, add a third inexpensive dedicated "backup" drive of an appropriate size, to the motherboard's second SATA controller, thereby allowing that controller to normally remain disabled in BIOS, which will keep your clone secure.
Note: Prior to running each clone, "label" your C:\ partition with the present date, such as 25 Nov 06 so that the date of your clone is displayed in My Computer. Labeling with the date is a simple method to mange your clones, so you're sure to know when they were performed.
I hope this helps you out. Good luck, and enjoy!
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