Quick Hdd Question... Very Simple!, which is my best option?

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

Hey guys,

I want to put a new copy of Windows XP on my machine and start anew.

What would be my best bet storage wise? Buy a 40gb SATA drive to store windows etc on, then get a cheap IDE 160gb or so drive for storage? Is there much of a noticeable difference between SATA and IDE?

Cheers!

[superkully]

There's not anything in the difference. SATA is just a lot more convenient.

Why get a SATA AND IDE drive? Why not just partition one big HDD or buy two SATA drives?

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

Good point.

Is partitioning 1 SATA big drive better than buying 2 small then?

Also, I havent bought a hard drive for a few years, would you be able to recommend me one? I need about 120/160gb really.

[Valken]

2 diff drives is good if your paranoid about disk failure but tbh you may as well just partition a large one.

I always got for Western Digital drives... you can get 250GB SATAs from them for alright money. You can never have too much disk space...

On my current PC... WinXP, some Steam ****, Farcry, Rome Total War, Warcraft 3, Pirates, Doom 3 and World of Warcraft consumes a hefty 25GB!!!

[yashiro]

Get an 80 Gig SATA. Don't use partions on this drive.

Use that as your primary drive and re-evaluate your storage issue later when it's over 70% full.

[charlaph]

Get a Seagate Barracuda 200Gb model. They have 2x100Gb platters which means their data density is higher (80Gb/platter is more common) and transfer rates are higher as a result. For many operations they're faster than the 36Gb Raptors everyone wets themselves about and they cost about the same price.

For the money they can't be beaten. Pretty quiet too which is a nice bonus.

There are certain advantages to buying a dedicated HD just for the OS, and it's tempting given that small drives are so cheap now, but a single large fast HD will negate the advantage and be a lot more convenient.

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

Hmm now there is 2 conflicting views....

So which is my best bet then? Might just go for a large one, but if I do partition it and something goes tits up on that partition, is the stuff on the other partition safe?

[superkully]

Hey dude,

If it's worth anything, I'll say that I have a 160Gb HDD with a 40Gb partition for the OS and programmes, a 30Gb partition for ripping stuff (having a dedicated partition for mucking about with large files is recommended, it'll stop fragment hell). And the rest for games and data.

Do you really need two HDDs? I don't, anything important gets backed up to DVD (~35p a disc) twice and the two copies are stored in two different places (here and parents). It's cheap and simple, do you really want to have buy two HDDs with both creating noise and eating power?

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

Yeah I was mulling those questions over in my mind.

I've just purchased a 160gb Seagate SATA drive, will partition it when I get it all set up, hopefully will suit my needs nicely!

[superkully]

You'll be fine with it Unlighty.

[yashiro]

Yeah, but be aware that 'partition to partition' copies on the same physical HD are almost twice as slow as a normal copy. Unless this is an issue you should be fine mate.

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

Well, new hard drive has been installed, 40gb partition for Windows, general related stuff, and the rest for storage.

Seems to be going fine. I have a strange problem though - Every so often when I boot up, the computer will freeze at the "Scan Discs" stage after posting, and stick on the screen saying "no drive" for all of them in raid format.

Anyone know what this might be?

[Shimmyhill]

Do you really need two HDDs? I don't, anything important gets backed up to DVD (~35p a disc) twice and the two copies are stored in two different places (here and parents). It's cheap and simple, do you really want to have buy two HDDs with both creating noise and eating power?

Depends what you do, if you do video editing or photoshop work then yes you get huge speed improvements from having separte drives. For the average user maybe not.

Ive ran seperate drives for years and would never not do it again.

[superkully]

I did the same Shimmy, I think I got up to five SCSI drives before I gave up on PCs in my home altoghether...

When I got a PC again last year I just slapped in one 160Gb drive. OK, so it may be slower than having multiples, but it beats the crap out of having a bank of spinning drives sending you up the wall!