Yep, that's the way I have mine set up. Actually, my older DAW PC has 4 internal drives. I have a lot of samples.

As far as fans, how many do you have now? I believe my system has one on the power supply, one on the CPU, one in the front, and one more exhaust fan in the back for a total of 4. Check it out here: http://garrigus.com/?rackXT

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/  - http://www.musictechshop.com/ - http://www.cooltechshop.com/

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Studious


Sorry to keep tagging on questions, but:
Are there any heat issues realted to having three drives in one computer?  Does it require an extra fan or anything?

Like, Scott, I have four drives, but I use the fourth drive primarily for my swap file. Probably overkill but it hasn't introduced any problems with performance. I have five fans in my PC - one in the power supply, one on the CPU, one general "exhaust" fan, one blowing on the video cards (I use three monitors) and one on the drives, which tend to get too hot otherwise. I also leave the side covers off of my PC, though it is in a larger enclosure open at both ends. Not too noisy either, though I keep it in a separate room than in the one I record.

I have 6 HDDs in my machine
 
 
I do have 9 fans too!!
120mm exhaust
120mm on front of a triple HDD cage
80mm on front of other HDD cage
120mm on side over CPU [only 20mm profile :) ]
92mm on side cutout over GPU
2 x 120mm on CPU cooler (push/pull - huge Noctua heatsink)
80mm on GPU heatsink
80mm as general intake




I never get overheating problems.
It can get a bit noisy though!!
I generally use Noctua or Yate Loon fans which are generally very quiet.

tis depends on how much capacity your hdd has.
my mainboard can adopte 5 sata hdd. but I use only one which is 200G and several 100g for interchange of materials.

Hi Scott
I picked up a 2nd  2T internal hdd  is it best to put samples or my projects (or both) on this new drive??
Should I format in Fat32 or NTFS?
thanks for the advice  in advance Jon

With SSD drives all this information has changed. 
Once a sample is loaded into memory it doesn't matter which drive it was on. It's all about speed and I do't think you'll notice a difference between loading a sample from any given drive.
I would say an SSD drive for your C drive and a   2TB  7200 RPM drive is going to replace the old 3 drive system nicely. That's what I have.  
I use a third 1 TB drive strictly as a safety back up. I keep extras of everything in there cakewalk files, software and all things to do with music. It's more of a clone of the 2nd drive. 

Loading samples from an SSD is much, MUCH quicker, especially on the larger libraries we're used to now. In addition, samples aren't generally loaded into memory completely, rather only the first part is loaded and the rest is streamed from disk. This to facilitate multiple GB libraries. This means disk speed has a significant impact on performance. If you have the money I would always recommend keeping sample libraries on an SSD. I have mine on an external eSATA/USB3 hybrid one so I can use it with my main DAW and my laptop.

J3D
 
I picked up a 2nd  2T internal hdd  is it best to put samples or my projects (or both) on this new drive??
Should I format in Fat32 or NTFS?
thanks for the advice  in advance Jon

It's probably best to place your samples and your projects on this new drive.  That way you keep the data separate from your operating system.  Also, if your OS drive fails you still have your projects and samples intact.  Of course, you should still do your daily scheduled backups - preferably to a third external drive connected to a USB port (USB3.0 for the speed).

As regards formatting, definitely choose NTFS.  Fat32 is an old file structure that usually has maximum file size of a limit of 2 gig.

J3D
Hi Scott
I picked up a 2nd  2T internal hdd  is it best to put samples or my projects (or both) on this new drive??
Should I format in Fat32 or NTFS?
thanks for the advice  in advance Jon

Hi Jon,
 
If you only have two drives, then yes, put your projects and samples on that second drive and format it with NTFS. That configuration should work fine.
 
If/when you start working on very large projects, you may need to get a third drive so you can one for OS/SONAR, another just for projects, and a third just for samples. But that also depends on if you'll be streaming samples from the drive. If not, then it doesn't matter much... the two drives will still work fine.
 
I hope that helps!
Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com - SONAR X3 Power! - http://garrigus.com/?SonarX3Power
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://www.digifreq.com/
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://www.newtechreview.com/