two or three hard disk drives?

[omaha]

in an ideal setup, how would you be configuring two hard drives, and also three.

ie two hard drives --Windows on one and everything else on the other
or Windows and programs on one and everything else on the other

three hard drives -- Windows on one,
programs on another
data on the other

or is there a better configuration?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

 

[evongugg]

Two hard drives is enough with a good backup plan.
One for windows and programs. One for data.
If you choose to go with three, use one for backup purposes like nightly backups.

 

[LoneEagle]

Put your VirtualMemory on the second drive.

 

[evongugg]

I think he meant the paging file.
The paging file could go on the third drive.
Or you could use an old IDE hard drive for it.

 

[runswindows95]

In my new build, I will go with three:

#1: OS's and Programs
#2: A small one for swap file, paging file, and a scratch drive
#3: Data and nothing else.

Even having one just for software and one just for your data is the safe way to go. That way, if you do have to wipe out the OS, your data is safe on the other drive. Overall, always have a good backup solution as well.

 

[Onus]

I have two drives in my system. The primary drive has everything on it. The secondary contains a backup of the first and as additional storage. It has a complete bootable WinXP system on it as well, in case the primary drive fails (as it did not all that long ago).

 

[omaha]

I thought about it this way.

SOme people are saying we should do a regular reinstall of windows.

If we have windows + programs on one, doesnt that make a new install very difficult?

WOuldnt it be best to have windows on one small old drive, then another for programs and one for data?

Thoughts?

 

[LoneEagle]

Are you saying that you would like to reinstall Windows without having to reinstall programs because they on another drive?

As far as I know, you must reinstall programs because of the registry.

 

[halcyon]

If I had only 3 drives, assuming at least 2 of them were identical I'd RAID0 2 drives and use the 3rd for paging file and regular backups.

...or if was less adventurous I'd put my OS' on 1 drive, data on the 2nd drive, and paging file and backups on the 3rd drive.

 

[LoneEagle]

If I had only 3 drives, assuming at least 2 of them were identical I'd RAID0 2 drives and use the 3rd for paging file and regular backups.

...or if was less adventurous I'd put my OS' on 1 drive, data on the 2nd drive, and paging file and backups on the 3rd drive.

I agree with you.

But in my case, I have 2 in RAID-0 and an external backup plus an on-line backup.

My paging file is only 512 MB (we don't see that unit anymore ) because I have Vista 64 and 4GB.
Vista never complained about it. So having the page file on my RAID has no really impact.
Even when I play a game like BF2142, when I quit, the OS is responding right away (page file not used I guess).

My third HD is Server 2003 for my development environment (BIOS boot).

 

[omahagtp]

Pretty much a rehash, but my build has XP on one, Vista on another, and a community data drive on the third/page file. Love it.

 

[jaguarskx]

In my new build, I will go with three:

#1: OS's and Programs
#2: A small one for swap file, paging file, and a scratch drive
#3: Data and nothing else.

Even having one just for software and one just for your data is the safe way to go. That way, if you do have to wipe out the OS, your data is safe on the other drive. Overall, always have a good backup solution as well.

Agreed. This is basically the setup I have for my primary PC and HTPC.

#2 will be the workhorse and will more or less hold temporary data so this should be the drive that should fail first. This drive is where:
1. Captured video (minimal compression) are stored before being re-encoded to smaller files to be stored in a data drive (drive #3).
2. Bit Torrent files should be downloaded to this drive. When the full file has been downloaded, it is then transfered to the data drive.
3. Ripped DVD or HD DVDs.
4. The page file should be written here.

The data drive could simply be a single hard drive or a RAID 1 array for redundancy.