Multiple Hard Disk Drives

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » July 11th, 2005, 9:43

I currently have 1 20gig drive, and what with having HL2, CS:S, and GTA:SA installed, amongst other things, I'm down to 7% free space. I'm looking to buy a 80gig drive which seem to be floating around for about 30-35 quid now, so this is where I'm wanting advice.

Firstly, is there much difference between drives at this price, and if so what drive would you recommend? I'm on a tight budget, so £35 is my limit.

Secondly, how should it all by configured physically inside the box? I've got a CD-RW and a DVD-ROM to get connected up as well as the existing drive. Should both hard drives go on the same cable and the disk drives on the other, or HD and disk drive on each? I'm assuming that if its the latter then the HDs should be on the first connection from the mobo as masters and the disk drives on the second as slaves.

Thirdly, which drive should I install windows on? If I'm planning to use the new bigger one as the main one, should I have Windows and programs like games, office, nero etc installed on the same drive, and just use the old one for data storage? Or does it not really matter? For the sake of tidyness I'd probably install windows on the new drive and reinstall the games and stuff and just wipe the old one, but I thought I'd ask since I'm here anyway.

Ta muchly for any help.

Woo Elephant Yeah · Post by **Woo Elephant Yeah** » July 11th, 2005, 9:50

80GB Primary Master
20GB Primary Slave
CD-RW Secondary Master
DVD-ROM Secondary Slave

If you are worried about not having enough Data storage on the 20GB HD, then partition the 80GB one so that you have something like 50GB as your C: drive, and then 30GB as another drive.
You can use utilities like partition magic to do this, but to be honest, it's dead simple to do using the Disk Management console within Windows XP.

Have a play around on your current disk, as you're gonna wipe it anyway, so it's pretty hard to fuck things up royally atm

Hope that helps/makes sense

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » July 11th, 2005, 10:15

Thats great, apart from which is primary and which is secondary cable, and how would I know? Not worried about data storage at all, especially since I've just had 20gig for everything so far, so the 20gig drive will be plentiful, but the partioning info is great nevertheless!

Woo Elephant Yeah · Post by **Woo Elephant Yeah** » July 11th, 2005, 10:25

Don't quote me (waits for a nobhead to hit the quote button) but I believe most motherboard primary IDE ports/connector are coloured blue

Lee · Post by **Lee** » July 11th, 2005, 10:37

Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:Don't quote me (waits for a nobhead to hit the quote button) but I believe most motherboard primary IDE ports/connector are coloured blue

*hits quote* Youre right though, blue is master, grey is slave.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » July 11th, 2005, 10:39

Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:Don't quote me (waits for a nobhead to hit the quote button) but I believe most motherboard primary IDE ports/connector are coloured blue

I R nobhead

edit: I R also wrong, get SATA

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » July 11th, 2005, 10:50

spoodie wrote: I doubt it matters too much which way around they are, so long as your CD/DVD drives are on one channel and the HDs on the other.

Thats pretty much what I thought, so thanks for clearing it up.

With regards to Windows, do programs have to be (or just should be) installed on the same drive as the OS? Don't want to confuse my computer too much - don't think it could handle it.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » July 11th, 2005, 10:56

Probably best to ignore what I say about hardware, I'm a bit out of touch and my ninja editing skills are non-existant.

as for the software, the best thing would be to install the OS on a small partition for easy defragging and stuff and all you're programs on another large partition. maybe even have seperate partitions for apps and games. Windows can handle this fine

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » July 11th, 2005, 10:58

Whats the differences between IDE, SCSI and SATA? Does it depend on the mobo as to which I need to get? Could be a useful topic for a guide here....

Jinxx · Post by **Jinxx** » July 11th, 2005, 11:18

Lateralus wrote:Whats the differences between IDE, SCSI and SATA? Does it depend on the mobo as to which I need to get? Could be a useful topic for a guide here....

IDE or ATA is the most common type of HD around, it uses a ribbon cable that allows for two devices and the motherboard will typically allow for two connectors (making a total of four devices). DVD drives will typically use IDE/ATA.

SCSI is a technology that is blisteringly fast but way overpriced (and really only seen in servers and old macintoshes), you may ignore this technology.

SATA is the successor to IDE/ATA and is really designed for high speed and high capacity HDDs. If you have the ability to use SATA on your motherboard, I would advise you to do so for a new drive. Currently there are no DVD drives that use the technology that I'm aware of.

Post by **deject** » July 11th, 2005, 15:34

Just sonme background on how non-SATA drives, the configuration only matters when you're trying to access both drives on the same channel (i.e.: if you set up like WEY has recommended, if you're copying something for one hard drive to another, then your access times and transfer rates would be slower, but usually in my experience it really doesn't matter.).

Serial ATA is easier to dael with because there's one cable per drive. As for a drive recommencation, I have a Maxtor DimaondMax 9 80GB, and I love it. Othrwise, a Western Digital or Hitachi drive should work great.

To be honest, hard drives are just so slow, even the fastest ones are really holding PCs back. Here's wishing for holographic memory drives!

Woo Elephant Yeah · Post by **Woo Elephant Yeah** » July 11th, 2005, 18:46

Blimey, it's Star Trek

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » July 12th, 2005, 9:28

Thanks guys, all has been duly noted and the DiamondMax Plus9 80GB UDMA133 has been ordered.

Woo for more space, and being able to have all my games installed at once!

Post by **deject** » July 12th, 2005, 15:51

Lateralus wrote:Thanks guys, all has been duly noted and the DiamondMax Plus9 80GB UDMA133 has been ordered.

Woo for more space, and being able to have all my games installed at once!

cool. I have the exact same drive so I know you'll find it to be adequete.

Jinxx · Post by **Jinxx** » July 12th, 2005, 17:02

I have one too, which used to be Berk's - it's a great drive!

amblin · Post by **amblin** » July 12th, 2005, 21:46

TheJockGit · Post by **TheJockGit** » July 12th, 2005, 21:53

Me's gotta 250GB Caviar SE (7200rpm) SATA Drive

Can never have enough disk space for pr0n... err I mean research material

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » July 12th, 2005, 21:57

Maxtor Maxline 3 300gb - 16mb cache and ncq support :D

Woo Elephant Yeah · Post by **Woo Elephant Yeah** » July 12th, 2005, 22:01

You can either change the jumper settings, or just leave it as cable select on all the cd/dvd/hdd drives

I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that the first connector from the motherboard is the master when using cable select, and the second connector from the motherboard is the slave etc...

TheJockGit · Post by **TheJockGit** » July 12th, 2005, 22:02

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Maxtor Maxline 3 300gb - 16mb cache and ncq support :D

At last I meet the pr0n Master??