Hard disks - best practice?

[TUS 373]

Just wondering what the collective opinion from PHs would be on how many hard disks to put in a system, and how best to arrange/configure them.

At the moment:
I have a 250Gb HDD partitioned into 2 parts, C and D. C holds the O/S, and D holds the data (My Documents etc). Every so often, I back up the data from D onto an external HDD. Benefits - I have a copy of all my data off my PC should I get a destructive virus on the PC itself, or the main HDD fails. Downsides: If the main HDD fails, I would have to reinstall the O/S and that would take time.

I am now thinking of installing another HDD in the PC in a RAID configuration so if the original drive goes tits up, I have a complete duplicate of it so I can keep on running. However, I will need to possible buy 2 identical new HDDs to do this - or will I? My 250 Gb HDD is a Seagate SATA II with 8Mb cache, the newer Seagates of this spec have 16Mb cache - does this matter when Raided? Should the HDDs be absolutely the same model for Raiding?

Other option: Get something like a Western Digtal Raptor 10,000 RPM as a new main HDD and put the O/S on it, and demote the old Seagate HDD to being purely a data disk, but use Norton Ghost to keep an image of a clean O/S install image of the Raptor on it too.

My objective is, as ever, to have a speedy, quiet, and backed up system that would not cost a fortune. Perversely, the cost of 2 good sized brand new Seagates is less than 1 small WD Raptor.

What kind of option would you recommend?

Edited by TUS 373 on Monday 26th March 12:11

[CommanderJameson]

From a Mac-head:

Get an external hard disk and connect it via FireWire (or IEEE 1349 as it's otherwise known).

Fit the quickest possible internal disk and use that to keep your OS and apps on, and keep your precious data on the external disk for ease of portability.

[chris watton]

I have always thought that partitioning a single drive makes no sense, as if the hard drive does die; you’ve lost the data on the other partition anyway.
I have my main OS drive in RAID0 (2x 74BG Raptor thingies), and have two other 250GB hard drives for my work data and other stuff I have no desire to lose.
Also, back up onto DVD every two weeks or so, just in case the whole lot goes!

[TUS 373]

chris watton said:

I have always thought that partitioning a single drive makes no sense, as if the hard drive does die; you’ve lost the data on the other partition anyway.

Yep - my thoughts entirely.

[gr4eme]

Why not save the cost of another HDD and take an image of the whole drive os and all.

Products like norton ghost and acronis are perfect for this type of issue.

backup your data drive as per normal though as the data could regulary change

Edited by gr4eme on Monday 26th March 12:43

[beanbag]

gr4eme said:

Why not save the cost of another HDD and take an image of the whole drive os and all.

Products like norton ghost and acronis are perfect for this type of issue.

backup your data drive as per normal though as the data could regulary change

Edited by gr4eme on Monday 26th March 12:43

If you go for this route, I HIGHLY recommend Paragon Hard Disk Manager. It saved my bacon when I tried to use the Vista Upgrade option (don't try this if you are thinking about it - just install it clean).

www.paragon-software.com/hdm/

It's very simple to use and has a great recovery CD which ghost doesn't offer. It's also pretty cheap at just $80, which is just 40 quid. Not a bad price to pay for such an extensive piece of software.

If you don't want all the bells and whistles, try Drive Backup from the same fellas. www.drive-backup.com/home/personal/ for half the price.

[tank slapper]

chris watton said:

I have always thought that partitioning a single drive makes no sense, as if the hard drive does die; you’ve lost the data on the other partition anyway.

The advantage it does have, is that if the operating system gets hosed by a virus or some other problem it is easy to erase the partition and start again. If you have data there as well, you have to either move it or work around it.

[R1 GTR]

Now im free from Norton Ghost (trial on new Dell, which didnt remove partition when uninstalled) i want rid of my partition. How do i go about doing it? (easily)