Guys, GUYS!!!  :)
 
Many thanks for all the thoughts.
 
I won't be getting an SSD at this point.
 
2 questions connected with my original post:
 
If I have my system and apps on a 1TB drive, putting them there in say a 250GB partition and saving the rest for other unrelated stuff isn't going to hurt Sonar performance, right?
 
When my new pc is built will I need to install my original X1 Essential on it, in order to upgrade to X3 Studio?
 
Thanks again.
 
...I don't driver a Jaguar to work.  :)
 
 

No X3 is standalone

"If I have my system and apps on a 1TB drive, putting them there in say a 250GB partition and saving the rest for other unrelated stuff isn't going to hurt Sonar performance, right?"
 
 
Whether or not data/apps are in 1 partition or 10 partitions, if they are on the same physical drive they are accesses about the same.  The drive has 1 set of physical read/write heads, so splitting by partitions does not have a significant performance effect.
 
Concurrent access of data/apps is really where you want to have things, if possible.  This is achieved by splitting things across multiple physical drives, and is a main reason why people have more than 1 physical drive.
 
You will achieve better performance splitting the OS/apps and your data files across multiple physical drives.
 
Bob Bone
 

Bob Bone:
 
"You will achieve better performance splitting the OS/apps and your data files across multiple physical drives."
 
Understood. I'm just thinking that a 1TB drive seems like a lot of space for just my OS and apps. I'm going to have the Sonar instruments etc on a different physical drive, but if I create a partition on the main drive for separate non-Sonar stuff, I assume that's not going to cause any performance issues? 

There is no performance advantage in having the SONAR instruments on a separate physical drive. All the SONAR instruments load completely into memory and do not stream from disk. If you do not want to back them up with your OS and programs, they would be the perfect candidates for a second partition on the same drive.

Having non-Sonar stuff in a separate partition on your primary hard drive will not cause a performance issue.
 
Bob Bone
 

So maybe, with an SSD, it would be good to have a magnetic 7200 rpm drive available to periodically get an image of the SSD. So if, and when (in the case of some of you) the SSD fails, you can just get the last saved image and put on a new SSD or another magnetic HD.  With the cost of HDs these days, you could probably keep multiple images or do some incremental backups!

 If all you're doing is creating images then a 5200 rpm drive will be just fine for that. Even a usb connected drive will do.
 
No matter what kind of a drive you end up with, imaging all of your drives periodically is always a good idea. 
 
 I image all three of my drives onto one  3tb usb drive. I am thinking of going to a second drive for images because my sample libraries are  so large. My 2nd drive which I store projects on isn't so large ;) If you only record for yourself you likely won't need nearly as large a drive for your personal projects.  I'll probably never fill a 3tb drive for projects. Unplugging the image drive when not in use will make it last longer and when that nasty thunder storm suddenly rolls in and lightening strikes your rig your image drive won't be attached.

robert_e_bone
Having non-Sonar stuff in a separate partition on your primary hard drive will not cause a performance issue.
 
Bob Bone
 

Thanks Bob, that's what I wanted to hear.

robert_e_bone
Having non-Sonar stuff in a separate partition on your primary hard drive will not cause a performance issue.
 
Bob Bone
 

Please note post #18. It's installing the app on the OS that can slow it down (the DLL's, the libraries, the registry etc etc etc as per post #18), not where the app is. You decide whether this is important to you or not (it really depends on the software and how much you have, and the use cases). Bloat can be a real issue.
 
You would be a little eccentric for instance to install Adobe Photoshop, a DAW and Visual studio next to each other.