Decided I'd like the following HDD setup, but not sure what drives to go with.

Craig321

Craig321

Craig321

Soldato
Joined
2 May 2004
Posts
19,953
Hi,

I've decided I rather fancy the following HDD setup:

160GB x2 RAID 0 = OS, installs. Game installs are getting huge (Dirt coming in at 10GB apparently, so 320gb should be sufficient for all my games and application installs). This drive will also have nothing important on it (apart from save games, but those will be backed up every day automatically), so I can do a nice fresh install of XP at any time extremely easily.

500GB = Page file, my documents, my pictures, my videos, game backups, appdata backups.

500GB internal or external = Acronis mirror of the above 500GB HDD, this'll protect me from software and hardware error. An external would be slower, but it'd protection me from physical damage (e.g. fire, water)

Now the problem is that I can't find the WD AAKS 160GB version, if there is one. The best I could find is the 2500AAKS (250GB) which would make a 500GB RAID. I think is a bit big for just OS and installs... although it'd be fine if the lowest AAKS is 250GB.

So my question: what's the lowest capacity AAKS drive, and can anyone see any flaws in my hard drive plan?

Thanks,
Craig.
 
Last edited:
Like it - seems sensible. Couple of possible tweaks:

2x160Gb Raid 0: Windows/Installs. I'd still partition this drive into something like 40Gb (windows) 280Gb (Games/installs) - it makes no physical difference but windows is a slob and by seperating out the os from your installs you prevent your 'games' drive becoming fragmented all the time, and defragging windows will be quicker if it's on it's own (with a fair chunk of free space)

2x500Gb: Stuff+backup. Hmmmm... I see what you've done there and it is a valid solution. Personally I'd rather go with a hardware Raid 1, but I take the point about protection from hardware failure - not sure what would happen if you did Raid 1 and had a mobo failure - always assumed that each drive would function on it's own, but will have to check that. If not then Acronis is an excellent product for the job.

Does seem a shame to 'waste' a good 500Gb drive though - given how good acronis's incremental backup is I'd be tempted to use a single cheap/small drive and just set it to backup overnight on schedule.

Edit: From the WD SITE the 250Gb seems to be the smallest AAKS drive.
They do however do their Mainstream drives in sizes from 40-300Gb
 
Last edited:
cavemanoc said:
Like it - seems sensible. Couple of possible tweaks:

2x160Gb Raid 0: Windows/Installs. I'd still partition this drive into something like 40Gb (windows) 280Gb (Games/installs) - it makes no physical difference but windows is a slob and by seperating out the os from your installs you prevent your 'games' drive becoming fragmented all the time, and defragging windows will be quicker if it's on it's own (with a fair chunk of free space)

2x500Gb: Stuff+backup. Hmmmm... I see what you've done there and it is a valid solution. Personally I'd rather go with a hardware Raid 1, but I take the point about protection from hardware failure - not sure what would happen if you did Raid 1 and had a mobo failure - always assumed that each drive would function on it's own, but will have to check that. If not then Acronis is an excellent product for the job.

Does seem a shame to 'waste' a good 500Gb drive though - given how good acronis's incremental backup is I'd be tempted to use a single cheap/small drive and just set it to backup overnight on schedule.

Edit: From the WD SITE the 250Gb seems to be the smallest AAKS drive.
They do however do their Mainstream drives in sizes from 40-300Gb
Click to expand...

True, 500GB is large for just a backup drive, but if I'm going to backup my media drive then it might be best having something the same size, that way no matter much stuff I have on the first 500GB drive it can still be backed up onto the second drive with ease.

I would probably only go for 250GB/320 for my media/files hard drive, but my new PC has a single 500GB drive for now, so I may as well use that for media/files if I want a decent drive setup.

Your idea is pretty good separating installs from XP, but when it comes to reinstalling Windows how would I update the registry/start menu/shortcuts so that everything works again? Or would I just format both the installs partition and the XP partition?

Thanks,
Craig.
 
Borrowing your ideas – I’m sure you don’t mind.

Tempted with a RAID set up, one Partition for the OS and second for apps

Acronis to back up the Apps partition at the same time as the OS partition.

If I don’t ‘modify’ the apps too much I won’t need to defrag that partition so often and the incremental backups will be fairly small.
Obviously if you defrag following changes they tend to be much bigger.

If I restore an OS image at the same time as its corresponding Apps image both partitions should be in ‘sync’

Out of curiosity are we talking about Acronis Home V10 which seems to work with RAID - sometimes.
 
Last edited:
Marse said:
Borrowing your ideas – I’m sure you don’t mind.

Tempted with a RAID set up, one Partition for the OS and second for apps

Acronis to back up the Apps partition at the same time as the OS partition.

If I don’t ‘modify’ the apps too much I won’t need to defrag that partition so often and the incremental backups will be fairly small.
Obviously if you defrag following changes they tend to be much bigger.

If I restore an OS image at the same time as its corresponding Apps image both partitions should be in ‘sync’

Out of curiosity are we talking about Acronis Home V10 which seems to work with RAID - sometimes.
Click to expand...

Yep, Acronis 10 should do the trick well.

If you restore both your applications and OS partitions at the same time with the same drive letters then it should work perfectly, but when it comes to reinstalling Windows I guess you'd just reinstall both, unless you're clever about it and saved the correct registry entries and AppData entries ;)

[EDIT]

I'm still liking my plan above, I really can't see any flaw in it, especially if I got an external 500GB for my backup drive.

I guess I'll just go for 250GB x2 RAID 0 then for OS/installs as 250 is the smallest AAKS available :(.

500GB for OS/installs is a bit OTT, I doubt I'd even use half in a hurry. What 160GB drive matches up to the AAKS reliability and speed please?

Thanks,
Craig.
 
Last edited:
cavemanoc said:
You could always go with the Seagates The 7200.10 is about to be superceded, but at the moment it's +/- on a par with the AAKS (and I've always like Seagate!) - they do 80Gb and 160Gb :)
Click to expand...

I checked yesterday but could only find the 7200.9 Seagate :confused:

Also, I'm a bit wary of getting a Seagate due to the noise issue some of them have?
 
I thought the AAKS drives where quite a bit faster than the 7200.10's? I have always liked seagates too (only REALLY noisy one I had was a SATA 80gb 7200.8 - I think). I have 2x 500gb 7200.9's and a 300gb 7200.8 now and they are not that loud.
 
Best I've seen is marginally faster. Will have a dig around and see if this has changed. I will admit that I tend to go with Seagate because I've had a good run with them. I don't think you can go far wrong with either of them though.
 
Craig321 said:
I checked yesterday but could only find the 7200.9 Seagate :confused:

Also, I'm a bit wary of getting a Seagate due to the noise issue some of them have?
Click to expand...

Definitely say 7200.10 on the website - Had a check with Seagate as well and they're definitely available in the 7200.10 range, as seen here - should be a worthwhile choice.

Seagate had some problems with one batch of their new 7200.10s when they first came out - as far as I know this has now been solved and shouldn't put you off - they are excellent drives and seem to fit your requirements perfectly. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom