Questions and Assistance With Hard Drive Setup

[imacomputer]

Alright, so this will come off as a very noobish question mostly because it is, but as much as I like to tell myself I know about computers I would appreciate any help as Hard drive set ups are still something that I am reading into and researching and still find myself with less knowledge on the subject than I should have.

My current hard drives are 2x velociraptors 150g 1 500g internal 1 2tb internal. (I came up on a really good craigs list deal and now I have more Hard drives than I know what to do with)

My current operating system is windows xp 64

MY question is given the hard drives I have available what would be the most optimal set up for my OS, Gaming, Movies Music, Storage and Backups. (Im not expecting to use all of them, I just listed what I have avilable)

Ay help suggestions or comments would be appreciated, or if you know offhand any links where I can read more information on this subject that would be helpful to as I am currently looking and reading some ive found. However other input is definitely helpful

Thanks!

 

[gkay09]

OS,apps and games - 2x 150GB in RAID 0
Music, Movies - 500GB
Rest - 2TB

 

[sminlal]

gkay's suggestion is good for performance, but you stand a higher chance to loose all the data on disks in a RAID0 set. For higher reliability and slightly less performance use RAID1 for the OS disk. Your choice...

 

[gkay09]

^ Going RAID 1 for OS is not at all suitable...
Generally people wouldn't have any sensitive data on the OS drive as they are more likely to get corrupted and reinstalling OS is a common task that many people do often...So going with data redundancy for OS drive is frankly useless...
RAID 1 is mainly for backup drives, where we store data...

 

[sminlal]

Generally people wouldn't have any sensitive data on the OS drive as they are more likely to get corrupted and reinstalling OS is a common task that many people do often...

That's a perfectly fine decision to make and I have no problem with it - my only concern is that the OP understand the tradeoffs and make an informed decision.

 

[ainarssems]

2x150 in RAID 0 for OS, software, pagefile.
2TB for storage and possibly some software if You do not have enough space on RAID
Get external enclosure to put Your 500 GB in there and Use for backups.

 

[gkay09]

@sminlal - I would also accept that the OP has to understand the tradeoffs in it...
And I would still suggest RAID 0 for OS...

 

[leo2kp]

RAID-0 the Velociraptors for OS, games and apps, 2TB storage/backup, do something else with the 500GB drive (like someone mentioned, maybe put it in an enclosure).

 

[leo2kp]

I'd like to point out that the Velociraptors were built for being in a RAID array. He has less chance of a drive failing due to the quality of the drive and other RAID-specific features. Sure he could lose his array if one died, but he has a 2TB backup. If anything, get another 2TB drive and RAID-1 that. Besides, having only 150GB for the OS, games and apps would pretty much suck.

 

[imacomputer]

First off I want to say thanks for al the replies, you guys are great at helpin people like myself

So, from the input you guys have given me and what I have read I am looking at the two raptors in a raid 0 , the 2tb for storage music movies pictures and the 500gb as an external backup.

With that being said what partitions should I do on the raid 0, I have never personally used a raid, but after what I have read it is definitely a point of interest for me and something I would like to have in my build. What I had on just one of the raptors when it was installed was just OS games what not on the same partition.


Thanks again

 

[imacomputer]

Edited for double post, sorry bout that

 

[gkay09]

In the RAID 0 drives,
C: - OS
D: Apps
E: Games

or
C: OS
D: Apps and Games