How should I setup my computer?

[phiniac]

I would like to make my system more reliable and with some sort of redundancy. Here's my idea of setting up my system:

Windows 7 professional
Raid 1 with my 2 sata II 500gb drives which I already have or abandon them and go with a couple of small(80gig?) SSD drives
2 external 2TB harddrives
Change the location of my documents folder to one of the External 2TB drives
Create an automatic backup of that 2TB drive to the other 2TB drive.

So if one of my raid drives fails for any reason I can still use windows and swap out the bad drive with a new one. And all of my data is on a different drive if windows decides to crash one day, and also have a backup of that drive to another drive with daily, weekly and monthly backups. I can change the data store of my outlook pst file to my 1st external drive.

Here are the specs of the computer I have to work with:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01324212&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3816196&lang=en

So what do you guys think? Does someone have a better idea of how I should setup my system? I'd kinda like to keep the price down, so try to keep your suggestions price minded.

 

[treefrog07]

I would like to make my system more reliable and with some sort of redundancy. Here's my idea of setting up my system:

Windows 7 professional
Raid 1 with my 2 sata II 500gb drives which I already have
this is a good option

or abandon them and go with a couple of small(80gig?) SSD drives
these are expensive for a G33 chip

2 external 2TB harddrives
Change the location of my documents folder to one of the External 2TB drives
Create an automatic backup of that 2TB drive to the other 2TB drive.
good thinking here

So if one of my raid drives fails for any reason I can still use windows and swap out the bad drive with a new one. And all of my data is on a different drive if windows decides to crash one day, and also have a backup of that drive to another drive with daily, weekly and monthly backups.
good

I can change the data store of my outlook pst file to my 1st external drive.

Here are the specs of the computer I have to work with:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01324212&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3816196&lang=en

So what do you guys think? Does someone have a better idea of how I should setup my system? I'd kinda like to keep the price down, so try to keep your suggestions price minded.

I think your plan is good (see above).

 

[phiniac]

Ok, I haven't looked into SSD drives yet, so what do you mean when you say they are expensive for the G33 chip? I can only get the expensive ones? I would tend to think that any SSD would work with my system? Or are you saying that my G33 chipset is weak and wouldn't handle the benefits that an SSD would offer?

 

[treefrog07]

You said you are trying to keep your costs down - regular HDDs are much more cost-effective than SSDs for general computer applications. You are not building a bleeding-edge computer on a G33 chip, so you can save $ on the HDDs.

 

[phiniac]

So the SSD will not give me much of a performance boost?

 

[treefrog07]

They should, according to the reviews I've read. Here is a site devoted to SSds you might want to check out.

Here's what newegg offers - check the capacities and the prices. I know the prices will have to drop a whole lot before I spend that much for the performance difference over my regular HDDs..

 

[phiniac]

your a gentleman and a scholar

Thnx
Phiniac

 

[vmardegan]

Are you planning to hook your external drives through USB, Firewire or eSATA?

If it's eSATA then I would say that you're good to go. USB speeds are ok for backup and moving files from one physical location to other (mostly), but I'm assuming you will be moving a lot of data with a 2 tb HD.

If you're going USB, then I would recommend putting one 2 Tb HD internally through SATA and leaving the other external just for backups. You'll have the speed that you need for regular use and leave the lower bandwidth just for the backup...

As for the SSDs, they would give you a significant boost in performance. But it's not cheap.

What you can do to cut some cost down is to buy only one SSD JUST for the OS. Get both of your 500 Gb drives and put in RAID1 for programs/games/stuff, one 2 Tb for your files and another 2 Tb backing up your personal files and one image of the SSD. Since the SSD will only be somewhere from 40-80 Gb, it won't use significant space from your backup drive and if you need to restore things, it's only a few Gb that can be done quite easily...

 

[treefrog07]

You're welcome.

 

[phiniac]

Best answer selected by phiniac.