new hard drive for large video files

2Gb Windows (this is fairly typical)

5Gb Documents / files

100-180Gb Video files

30-40Gb Music

20Gb Games

That sounds about right div0:

My music is all sync'd with my 20Gb mp3 player anyways so its not a major thing.

Basically windows installations are more important than video files but we need space for backing up photo originals too. If we had around a 150Gb disk it would be ample for a windows disk.

I think we are making progress now!
 
yeah its basically a solution that guards me against loosing everything that i am after.. viruses you can 'hopefully' cope with. drive failure you cant!

thanks for info
 
Option 1: Well IMO you could setup a fairly nice system with one new drive and RAID1 your old drives.

CONSIDERATION: in order to RAID a pair of disk you need to TEMPORARILY have all your data somewhere else.

Your final Setup could look "something" like this:

Disk1 (the NEW one): Windows Partition (5Gb), Games Partition (20Gb), Music Partition (40Gb)

Disk2 (250Gb Maxtor): Video Partition (200Gb?), Any Other Stuff You Dont Want To Lose Partition (eg Docs) (50Gb?)

Disk3 (250Gb Maxtor): Exact copy of Disk2 due to RAID1 array

Pro's: All data on Disk2/3 is unlikely to be lost. If one disk fails, the other has a "copy". Everything on Disk1 is easy to replace. Partitioning means that the Windows O/S is easy to re-install WITHOUT affecting data files on ANY of the drives.

Con's: Setting up the RAID array requires all your current data to be temporarily stored somewhere else - ie emptying both your 250Gb drives.



Option2: Similar to Option1 but instead of setting up a RAID array you MANUALLY copy files/folders every x days. You can also get programs to "schedule" backups (I think). EG you can pick files/folders that you want to "backup" from one drive to another, every now and again.

Pro's - easier to setup INITIALLY than Option1.

Con's - not as simple as Option1 ONCE set-up (ie data has to be manually copied at certain times). Some data could be lost if something gets added since the last "backup" was done.
 
thanks so much for your help.. i like the idea of option 1, it sounds like a good plan. I will be getting a laptop soon hopefully so maybe I should wait until I get it sorted out and then I can plan what will be stored on each machine!

I would be more keen to RAID 1 the windows disks as I hate having to reinstall everything! It is a really painful process to have to reinstall and configure hundreds of apps!

Dont know how I would get around the problem of having to empty my disks first though before setting up RAID 1. Do you need RAID controllers for this or do most PCs have these anyways?

thanks again guys
 
i do not have a clue what m'board it is.. i tried using the aida32 tool to find out but it comes up as being unknown.. I think it might be gigabyte technologies??
 
That helps - there will be 4 SATA ports but I cannot remember how many are controlled by the nF3 controller. The nF3 ports have inbuilt RAID features so you will be able to run a RAID :). The drivers are in the nForce platform drivers from http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce3_winxp_5.11. They will install the chipset drivers and you NEED to install the nV IDE SW drivers as and when required.

At least we know you don't need to buy any controllers.
 
Under storage it lists:

SCSI/RAID Controller Silicon Image SiI 3512 SATALink Controller
SCSI/RAID Controller VAX347S SCSI Controller

Does this mean that i wont be using the onboard nForce3 RAID capabilities?

Also it mentions below:
Extra Features DualBIOS, Ultra-ATA/133, SATA, RAID

This mean anything important??
 
thanks smids, your help is greatly appreciated!

will keep you posted with my progress. Am not going to rush into anything just yet.

Cheers
Jonny
 
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