Best choice for a new Computer?

[althius]

My initial plan was to get this drive (WD SATA 750GB):

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822136131

To go along with this Motherboard (GA-P35-DS3L):

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813128059

I am leaning towards getting Vista 64.

Is this a good plan? Is there a better plan? Should I go with two smaller drives? (One for Programs one for Data)

If you get two drives and go with dual boot... do you put them both on one? Or one on each? If you do recommend two smaller drives... what would you recommend?

Thanks in advance!

 

[rgeist554]

A smaller raptor drive would be better for apps. and small files since those rely more on RPM. The larger 750GB disk would be better for storage and large files. My $0.02.

I would put them both on a smaller, faster drive. Just make sure if you go dual-boot that you install Vista then XP. If it's linux, go XP -> Linux. (I'm pretty sure that's the order for linux, someone can back me up on that)

 

[althius]

I could have sworn that someone posted elsewhere that it should be XP THEN Vista...

Which is correct? Or does it not matter?

 

[althius]

So I'm a little stumped on the two drives to get. It seems to be the conventional wisdom to get one smaller, faster drive for the OS and programs, and another larger, slower, less expensive drive for files.

So two questions... what should those drives be? I spent a lot of times looking at the charts, but I'm having a little trouble interpreting what those numbers all mean to me.

How fast is fast enough? How big should the smaller one be? What specific numbers should I be looking at? RPM? Latency? Seek Time?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated... I've got the rest of the compy all ready to go and just need to figure this HD situation out.

 

[nhobo]

Raptors are 5x the price for no appreciable increase in performance. Get 2 smaller drives, put the OS on one and data on the other. Also get XP Pro.

 

[Mike_m]

I could have sworn that someone posted elsewhere that it should be XP THEN Vista...

Which is correct? Or does it not matter?

The order I would use is:
1) XP
2) Vista
3) Linux

This is due completly to the boot managers and how they intereact with the other OSs. Vista would wipe out Linux and XP would wipe out either.

-Mike_M

 

[g-paw]

Been reading a lot of posts lately in this site saying they don't think the Raptor is worth the money given how fast new drives are. This Seagate would be good although it's not exactly small but for $70 and can always use extra storage then go with a larger one just for storage. If you partition 250GB off, you can always use the remainder for backup. It's always a good idea you keep your data and OS/programs on different drives/partition. Saves time and anxiety doing a clean install of Windows

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822148262