Need Recommendations on Hard Drive Configuration

Sam · Nov 25, 2007

Hi there,

I have just purchased a 500 GB SATA Hitiachi Hard Drive. I currently
have two exisiting IDE drives (250 GB x 2) and one burner. The main C
drive is on IDE1 and the Secondary drive is sharing IDE 2 with the
burner. Both drives currently are partitioned with FAT 32 and NTFS.

I wish to have the SATA drive as my primary drive. I have 2 SATA
connectors on my motherboard. I was thinking of purchasing some rails
so I can mount one of my secondary drives in the 5 1/4 bay.

I am running XP SP2 (original XP Pro - no Service pack) but I have an
Acronis Image of a bare instalation of XP Pro SP2. I have a 450 watt
power supply connected to an Asus MB running a 2.8 GHZ Cpu Intel Core
Duo.

Any recommendations for an optimal configuration? Should I purchase a
longer IDE cable for the the hard drive that will be mounted in the 5
1/4 bay? I am thinking of backing tup he new drive with all my new
apps/data on another partition on the SATA drive. Perhaps make it a
hidden partition, kinda like on my Dell laptop. I am not sure how to do
this and if it's worth the hassle.

Thanks
Sam

Rod Speed · Nov 26, 2007

Sam said:
Hi there,

I have just purchased a 500 GB SATA Hitiachi Hard Drive. I currently
have two exisiting IDE drives (250 GB x 2) and one burner. The main C
drive is on IDE1 and the Secondary drive is sharing IDE 2 with the
burner. Both drives currently are partitioned with FAT 32 and NTFS.

I wish to have the SATA drive as my primary drive. I have 2 SATA
connectors on my motherboard. I was thinking of purchasing some
rails so I can mount one of my secondary drives in the 5 1/4 bay.

I am running XP SP2 (original XP Pro - no Service pack) but I have an
Acronis Image of a bare instalation of XP Pro SP2. I have a 450 watt
power supply connected to an Asus MB running a 2.8 GHZ Cpu Intel Core
Duo.

Any recommendations for an optimal configuration?

There isnt much in it with the alternative possibilitys.

Should I purchase a longer IDE cable for the the
hard drive that will be mounted in the 5 1/4 bay?

It isnt clear why you are thinking about doing that, whether you have
a shortage of 3.5" drive bays or you are considering avoiding having
all the drives adjacent in the 3.5" drive bay stack, so you get better
airflow past the drives with a free slot between between drives or what.

I am thinking of backing tup he new drive with all my
new apps/data on another partition on the SATA drive.

That doesnt protect you against that drive dying.

Perhaps make it a hidden partition, kinda like on my Dell laptop.

There's no need to do that, you can just write the image file to that drive.

I am not sure how to do this

Depends on exactly what you want to do. Its never a good
idea to have the backup on the drive you are backing up.

and if it's worth the hassle.

Its generally a good idea to backup, but not on the same drive thats being backed up.

Sam · Nov 26, 2007

Rod Speed wrote:
:
:: Should I purchase a longer IDE cable for the the
:: hard drive that will be mounted in the 5 1/4 bay?
:
: It isnt clear why you are thinking about doing that, whether you have
: a shortage of 3.5" drive bays or you are considering avoiding having
: all the drives adjacent in the 3.5" drive bay stack, so you get better
: airflow past the drives with a free slot between between drives or
: what

That's correct, there is a shortage of 3.5" drive bay Me thinks having
it in a 5 1/4" bay and leaving the cover open will allow me to have
ventilation, perhaps later on adding a drive cooler in that slot. There
is an empty 3.5" bay that I am leaving clear so that I can get airflow.
What do you think?
:
: Depends on exactly what you want to do. Its never a good
: idea to have the backup on the drive you are backing up.

Good point. How would you partition the new 500 GB drive and what would
you use to parition it? In the past, I have used partition magic. My
bare image of XP2 and many programs are already on another backup drive.
I use Acronis 8. I want to optimize the reading and writing (make it as
fast as possible) and use the other drives as backups for Acronis
images, programs, movies, and data. Both are 250 GB in size with
combination of Fat32 and NTFS partitions. There are at least 3 or 4
partitions on each drive. Me thinks I should perhaps "join" some
partitions together?

Rod Speed · Nov 26, 2007

Sam said:
Rod Speed wrote

That's correct, there is a shortage of 3.5" drive bay Me thinks having it in
a 5 1/4" bay and leaving the cover open will allow me to have ventilation,

You dont realy get a lot of that in that config in many cases.

perhaps later on adding a drive cooler in that slot.

That will certainly help considerably.

There is an empty 3.5" bay that I am leaving clear
so that I can get airflow. What do you think?

Thats the way I have done it myself in one system.

Works fine and the drive temps are acceptible and I monitor them.

Good point. How would you partition the new 500 GB drive

I always have just one partition per physical drive unless I'm running
more than one OS on the drive and need multiple partitions to run them.

Its too hard to decide what size partitions should be otherwise
and too risky to change partitions sizes when you decide that
the size isnt right, without a full image of the entire physical
drive, and that isnt necessarily that easy with a drive that big.

and what would you use to parition it?

XP. If I need to change partition sizes, Acronis Disk Director Suite.

In the past, I have used partition magic.

Its past its useby date now and has a real tendency to bite you
on the bum when you least expect it when adjusting partition sizes.

My bare image of XP2 and many programs are
already on another backup drive. I use Acronis 8.

True Image is what I prefer myself.

I want to optimize the reading and writing (make it as fast as possible)

Thats the bit I meant there isnt much in it with the various possible alternate configs
with the exception of using the new drive as the boot drive as you already said you
have decided to do. Thats worth doing because the newest drive is usually the best
performer just because the sectors per track are normally higher and thats what
makes the biggest difference to the speed of normal ops.

and use the other drives as backups for Acronis images, programs, movies, and data.

You might choose to partition the new 500G drive so that the images
will fit on those smaller older drives with a single image per partition etc.

Both are 250 GB in size with combination of Fat32 and NTFS partitions.
There are at least 3 or 4 partitions on each drive. Me thinks I should
perhaps "join" some partitions together?

Yep, there is no good reason for that many partitions on those.