3 hard drives/2 IDE channels: Best way to do it?

Draeger · 31 Jan 2006 at 10:48

I have a Gigabyte GA-7N400-L motherboard.

My C: drive is a 40Gb Maxtor Diamondmax and has my OS, XP Pro on it.

I have another Maxtor 40Gb as my D drive.

I've just bought a Maxtor 120Gb drive and want to add that to my system.

My two optical drives are an LG DVD-R drive and a Memorex DVD drive. I dont need the Memorex DVD drive, so I wanted to remove it to free up another IDE channel for the new Maxtor.

At the moment, the two hard drives are on the same channel, IDE1.

The two optical drives are on IDE2.

Whats the best way with regards performance, to add in the new 120Gb drive, assuming I'm going to remove the unused Memorex optical drive?

I suppose I could remove the 40Gb D drive and replace it with the 120Gb, but I've got a load of stuff on there that I would need to back up and reinstall, including my Steam folder, so I'd rather just add the 120Gb and have 3 hard drives.

Cheers for any advice.

semi-pro waster · 31 Jan 2006 at 11:20

It depends how you use your PC but I'd put the two most accessed drives on opposite channels e.g. boot drive and infrequently used drive together and then the other two on the second channel.

Draeger · 31 Jan 2006 at 11:28

Cheers.

I kinda thought about doing it like this:-

40Gb C: drive with XP installed as master on IDE1

40Gb D: drive to use for backup data and nothing else as slave on IDE1

DVDR optical drive as master on IDE 2

120Gb drive as slave on IDE2 for games, apps etc.

semi-pro waster · 31 Jan 2006 at 11:40

Sounds alright to me although I'd usually put the hard drive before the optical, I don't think it matters much especially if you are going to be using the DVDR more often. Does your XP drive only have XP on it really? If your 120gb drive is to have all the games on it and they run off CD as well then it may be better to put them on two separate channels and therefore have the XP and DVDR drive on one channel and the other two on the other channel. It does come down to how you use your drives

Draeger · 31 Jan 2006 at 11:51

Yeah, that makes sense.

All I have on the C: drive is XP, and a handful of apps, anti virus, firewall etc.

Going to shut down and fit the drive and see how things go.

Cheers.

darreny · 31 Jan 2006 at 12:12

or get a cheap usb enclosure and put your backup drive in that.