One hard drive for everything or two ?

H3x0rc!st

H3x0rc!st

H3x0rc!st

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Im tempted to buy a new hard drive and i have been looking @ the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache and from the reviews it sounds great, but whats best for me ?. I have lots of games, applications etc so would it be best having two hard drives where one is for games etc and the other is for the operating system and applications?, i would prefer running one hard drive for everything but i dont wanna lose performance in games, replies would be appreciated :)
 
ok im about to order:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)

+

Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-087-WD)

would this be a good setup?
 
ok thanks for your help messiah khan, just ordered it now, gonna install operating system on the raptor along with applications and games/downloads etc on the 320GB, would this be best ? or should i also install games on the raptor? :D
 
should be fine,

i have a very similar setup. 74gig raptor, this has windows and all program files installed on it. i then have a 400gig 7200.8 barracuda purely for storage. everything is saved onto this hard drive. there is nothing in the 'my documents' folder on the raptor.

EDIT: i say to put all the games onto the raptor, but set the saves to go onto the barracuda.
 
ok i appreciate the replies as i was a bit lost with SATA as im used to IDE setups, i take it when you install windows a fresh you get an option to install SATA drivers from a floppy ?
 
Persoanlly I would;

1. Put windows on the raptor and everything else on the seagate.
or
2. Put windows and programs on the raptor and everything else on the seagate.

Yes having games on the Raptor will make them faster due to the low seek time, but windows will also be accessing this drive at the same time, so in theory possibly removing the benefit. The Seagate is more than fast enough itself to handle game loading, with the Raptor taking care of windows.

My ideal setup, which im near to completing is;

36Ggb raptor for windows(Will be upgrading this to the new 36Gb rator when its released)
250Gb for Programs
250Gb for Games
250Gb for Files
250Gb for Mp3's/Films etc
500Gb for backup

Yes its and excessive amount for programs, but I have a lot installed :)
Edit; yes for the SATA drivers, but your unlikely to need them anyway. Most of the time SATA drives will just work. One word of advice though, is unplug and cardreaders etc, install the raptor and install windows on it, then once thats compete install the other drive. This will ensure that windows ends up on C:\ rather than something stupid like E:\.
 
Last edited:
benji182 said:
i don't mean to hijack this thread but do you guys partition your hard drives or just sling everything on the drive ?
Click to expand...

I just use physical seperate drives for everything. That way if something goes wrong, it doesn't affect the other areas of data.
 
messiah khan said:
I just use physical seperate drives for everything. That way if something goes wrong, it doesn't affect the other areas of data.
Click to expand...


that kinda works out a bit expensive, well for me being a student anyways.


when i got enough money for my next computer to build i was thinking of getting:

>> WD raptor 74GB for windows

>> Samsung Spinpoint 250Gb
>> Samsung Spinpoint 250Gb
[ both of these running in one of those raids where its like faster lol, dunno technical stuff when it comes to HDDs.]
 
Im not sure to be honest, but I would have thought it would work. The way I have my backup set up, which for me is better than RAID IMO is; A batch file is scheduled to look for a 10 minute idle period every 24 hours after 5pm(Its basically looking for when I have my dinner) The batch file then checks through a list of folders to see if anything has changed, and copies the contents of those folders to another drive. Its basically like RAID1 with a 24 hour delay. Im really pleased with how it works, and it basically means that if something non hardware affects the data, ie a virus, I have 24 hours to sort it out. Where as if you have RAID1, its protected against a drive failure, but it would also copy bad data across in the case of a virus.


Edit; Ive just checked the last backup log file, and it takes 1minute 20 seconds to check through 536gb of data.
 
Last edited:
messiah khan said:
Im not sure to be honest, but I would have thought it would work. The way I have my backup set up, which for me is better than RAID IMO is; A batch file is scheduled to look for a 10 minute idle period every 24 hours after 5pm(Its basically looking for when I have my dinner) The batch file then checks through a list of folders to see if anything has changed, and copies the contents of those folders to another drive. Its basically like RAID1 with a 24 hour delay. Im really pleased with how it works, and it basically means that if something non hardware affects the data, ie a virus, I have 24 hours to sort it out. Where as if you have RAID1, its protected against a drive failure, but it would also copy bad data across in the case of a virus.


Edit; Ive just checked the last backup log file, and it takes 1minute 20 seconds to check through 536gb of data.
Click to expand...


that sounds like a rad plan, what program thingy does that checking and backing up? sounds clever
 
I just wrote a batch file, mainly using the Robocopy command.

Code: 
@ECHO off
ROBOCOPY "E:\Graphics" "X:\Graphics" *.* /S /PURGE >X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Uni" "X:\Uni" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\College" "X:\College" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Jobs" "X:\Jobs" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Stuff\My website details" "X:\Stuff\My website details" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Stuff\Win Settings" "X:\Stuff\Win Settings" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Stuff\XP Modding" "X:\Stuff\XP Modding" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Stuff\X1" "X:\Stuff\X1" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Favorites" "X:\Favorites" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "C:\WINDOWS\Fonts" "X:\Fonts" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
MSG Administrator Backup Complete

Thats the code Ive used. I havent had much experience wih writing batch files, so it aint beautifull, but its effective.
 
messiah khan said:
I just wrote a batch file, mainly using the Robocopy command.

Code: 
@ECHO off
ROBOCOPY "E:\Graphics" "X:\Graphics" *.* /S /PURGE >X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Uni" "X:\Uni" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\College" "X:\College" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Jobs" "X:\Jobs" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Stuff\My website details" "X:\Stuff\My website details" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Stuff\Win Settings" "X:\Stuff\Win Settings" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Stuff\XP Modding" "X:\Stuff\XP Modding" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "E:\Stuff\X1" "X:\Stuff\X1" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Favorites" "X:\Favorites" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
ROBOCOPY "C:\WINDOWS\Fonts" "X:\Fonts" *.* /S /PURGE >>X:\Backuplog.txt
MSG Administrator Backup Complete

Thats the code Ive used. I havent had much experience wih writing batch files, so it aint beautifull, but its effective.
Click to expand...



:eek: bit over my head really, i think i'll pay the extra and get a RAID setup lol

thanks for all your help
 
dangerousmouse said:
there is nothing in the 'my documents' folder on the raptor.
Click to expand...

if anybody wants to, you can point your My Documents to a different drive. Just right-click->properties->target
 
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