One drive or two, which is better?

two drives is nice if for no other reason you can store backup stuff on it . Makes it a lot easier to do the good ol format/reinstall

I would use the second drive as a backup.

Definitely use the second drive as a backup.

If you are using WindowsXP or W2000, or NT 4 two drives are best.
The reason being is that the second drive should be installed a a master off of the secondary IDE Controller. This is so that you can make sure that the OS page file is assigned to the Secondary Drive on the 2nd IDE Channel. This allows the use of the page file to be written accross one controller and back across another. So that you are not doubling back upon yourself, which is how the system should actually be run and setup.
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But then again, with today's ram sizes, there really is no need for virtual memory no more.

Anyhow, two drives are better than one. More space to stash stuff on.

You all seem to echo my thoughts exactly. I've gone with the idea of dual drives ever since my son (he was 18 months old at the time) managed to crash my system by repeatedly turning the power off & on. My best guess is he corrupted the boot sector. He is now two and more dangerous than ever! It's all the flashing, blinking lights!.

#4 by Citizen CygnusXII - 8/19/2004 2:36:51 PM If you are using WindowsXP or W2000, or NT 4 two drives are best.The reason being is that the second drive should be installed a a master off of the secondary IDE Controller. This is so that you can make sure that the OS page file is assigned to the Secondary Drive on the 2nd IDE Channel. This allows the use of the page file to be written accross one controller and back across another. So that you are not doubling back upon yourself, which is how the system should actually be run and setup.

h'uh??? Don't understand nor do I know how to do that if I had 4 hard drives.


Me, I think 2 is cool. One for system files and th other for saved stuff. I guess a 3rd could be a ghost of the first drive.

Go with 3 if you can.. it never hurts. You already have 2, so why not make use of them.

WinXP follow these steps

01. Right Click on My Computer choose properties
02. Choose Advanced Tab
03. Under Performance Section Choose Settings Button
04. Choose Advanced Tab
05. Go to bottom, of this and in Virtual Memory Click Change
06. Once this page opens then Highlight the New Drive
07. Click Custom Size, or one of the other Tabs, and set a new Page file on that Drive.
08. Click the C Drive and Set it's options to No Paging File
09. Apply Changes
10. Close all tabs and Reboot

Even though alot of us have oodles of RAM, some programs still page to page memory, and it doesn't hurt
to squeek out some extra performace points, where ever and when ever we can. The whole point behind this can be explained with an analogy of a single path through the woods. In order to bring and take something through,
the woods one must go completely to one end and then return the same way you came. This is your data coming
through the IDE Channels from the Hard Drive... Now Setting the Page File on the Second IDE Channel, you add another Road through the woods, now you can bring something down the Garden Path, whilst something else in going
up the Garden Path. This can come in quite handy when Photoshop, is demanding memory and page Resources.

Hope this helps.

2 is good....3 is better.....then you get the odd partition or two and you find you have 5 drives [like me]...

C:.....20 gig primary part of 60 gig physical....primary master...removable from boot sequence by Drive Caddy removal.

D:.....21 gig primary part of 80 gig physical...secondary master [Drive Imaged from C: and bootable by Drive caddy removal. 

E:....Zip

F:...CD Burner

G:...DVD

H:...160 gig single partition data [and games]

I:....60 gig secondary part of D:....unused as yet

J:.....MP3 USB drive or Camera USB

K:...40 gig secondary part of C:....redundancy backup of critical data [skins on C], [Office files on H], [Drive Images of C], etc.....backed up via SyncBack.

Drive Images are done weekly....skins, data, etc backed daily.

Total harddrive failure [physical/mechanical] and I'll be up and running again in a few minutes....

Hmm....wonder what happens if you have more than 26 drives.....

Good question... no answer...

Jafo, Drive Caddy allows you to do all that? Very cool. So if your Primary master fails you can use Drive Caddy on start-up and boot from the other drive with the OS on it?

Do you use (or did you use) Partition Magic at any time?

I used to use drive caddies, myself..that was a good way to go back and forth from work.
Partition Magic is Good, they also used to make a handy Utility called Server Magic, that fit on a floppy and You could manipulate NTFS Partitions and resize them from DOS Graphically. Acronis makes a Nice Utility also.

You do not have to boot all drives as Directory Letters C, D, E, etc.. You can also map them as Folders, now that is a neat trick... it can be done via Administrators Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management... You can make them invisible also.

One of the things I like to do is take a program like StrongDisk
http://www.strongdisk.com/

Make an Image File as a Container (that is encrypted) like .bmp, .dat, .exe... whatever
and then later mount them as Virtual Drives. do this and you can tuck away sensitive information in encrypted format and then mount them as Virtual Hard Drives, when you are working with them. Make them 690Mb and them when they are full burn them to cd's or Make them 4GB and then write them to DVD-+R. They are password protected and can be disguised. You can also do this with Virtual PC Hard disks, load a Virtual PC with all the app you use and Data you want self contained, then Burn them to DVD-+R and when you want to access or use the Self contained OS, and Info, then just point the Virtual PC to that Burnt Image File.MS Virtual PC are impervious to passing Viri to the Host Machine, so that is a good way to build an additional layer into the Internet and Intranet strata, an insulatory layer.

I could go on forever talking the theoretical aspects of softwares. I have a lot of free time, on my hands and like to check all the angles.

My preferred method:

C:...40GB...Operating System and some programs that don't like being on other drives.

D: and E:...120GB disk, halved, 60GB each D: for programs. E: for starage/backup and temporary holding area.

A, F, G, H, I...floppy, zip, dvd+rw, dvd+-rw, cd-rw

and..SyncBack is a good free backup program...I use it at work for our Graphics dept's workgroup...2-300GB external USB hard drives for file storage * backup. It keeps their 100GB+ of data off the server

Whoah.....that sounds pretty cool.

Why does one need more than one DVD RW drive? Just curious...

Four drives here...

1) 80Gb Master - all programs and data

2) 80Gb - Drive Image 7.0 image of complete original install, SyncBack back-up of My Documents and other data

3) 160Gb - weekly back-ups using Drive Image 7.0 and same SyncBack back-up as above

4) 30Gb kept out of box - Image of original install

I do very little backup myself. I have a base image on cdrom, it comes in at around 3GB.
I do not archive emails, or alot of crap that most people think they should. What I do want to keep goes to a cdrw. If my machine gets into an unstable position, I wipe it clean and go from scratch. Now don't get me wrong, I have alot of crap on external Drives. ALOT OF CRAP I have a 55GB 1394/usb2 Drive, a 75Gb usb2, and a 60GB usb2, and a DVD-+R/RW usb2. They are all bootable from Ghost, so I keep one with an image as well as backed up to CD-R. I got a nifty little case off ebay for my extra laptop Hard Drives as well, that allows me to use them as external storage. Now they are really handy, cause you can tuck 10Gb into your pocket. Once I got my DVD-+R/RW I pretty much started having an excess of free space, but hey! ya never throw out good hardware. And I will admit it, I am a mp3 Junkie... wink, wink..nudge, nudge..

I don't think you can go wrong in asking a full, blown tech junkie if He/She wants 2 drives, or 3 or 100... More is always better. Now if you can convince my wife, that when I upgrade she get an upgrade (and make her like it.) That would be a feat of legerdamane. To tell ya the truth though, short of being a Gaming Junkie, HotRod, Perfomance Junkie I am becoming of the school of buying a machine ready made and out the door. More prone to recommending a laptop to 90% of my friends and portable, external equipment to share throughout the house and defray costs, of said equipment.
Heck some of my machines have become nothing more than glorious Jukeboxes, and Media Devices... the older ones anyways.

Kona, sometimes you just need to make multiple copies of that movie for all your buddies but you just don't have the patience to burn them one at a time.

/me add useless stats as well

Three drives (40/120/160g), twenty partitions (fourteen drive letters, the rest mounted), one floppy, one burner, one player and I never make back-ups, nor do I reformat every other week, like some do.

I usually put the OS, applications and user data each on their own partition. Unfortunately a lot of apps seem to be hardwired to store prefs and such on the OS partition (grrr...).

I have ONE 40 gig drive...no partitions of any kind...no automatic backups of any kind...only reformated once. I have no floppy drive, but I do have a DVD drive and a CD burner. Oh yeah, and a digital camera that reads as a drive. Drive letters filled: C, D, E, and F.

( by the way, what is drive B? why do computers go right from A to C? )

#17 by Skinner kona0197 - 8/20/2004 12:21:40 AM Why does one need more than one DVD RW drive? Just curious...

One I got at WalMart for only $49 and the other my brother gave me since he HAS to have the very latest and fastest.

And reason # 2 ( and most important ) just because I'm a computer Geek and there was an open bay.

( by the way, what is drive B? why do computers go right from A to C? )

5-1/4" floppies

I'm a computer Geek and there was an open bay

I want one of those sound cards with the front bay ports!


Can I assign something new to drive B, or is that hard coded?
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