Help with hard drive setup.

Hi, i would like some advise on setting up my hard drives (4 of), i'm thinking my 1tb external usb for storing samples and other backup files etc, my 1tb barracuda for audio and projects, my maxtor 500gb for win 7 64, and my 320gb maxtor for XP pro 32, am i better partitioning these some how so audio that's been played by a project is on a different drive to audio been written(recorded), also can i boot XP and win7 64 on separate drives without any issues? Is there a better configuration ?
Thanks
Steve.

The usual configuration is..

Drive 1: OS and software
Drive 2: Project and audio data
Drive 3: Sample Libraries for disk streaming

That's how I have my old DAW PC setup with a dual-boot config on Drive 1. Never tried the two drive boot approach.

Right now, my current DAW PC has two drives but I'll be adding at least one more and converting it to total 64-bit later this year... 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/

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free SoundTech Vocal Trainer Package, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

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Also in Bios SATA configuration should it be set up as IDE or AHCI ?

Cheers
Steve.

steve@psbnoe.wanadoo


Thanks for your help, is it ok to have XP and Win 7 64 on separate hard drives and dual boot them?

Cheers
Steve.

I did that and it worked, however, I think I only booted from the XP drive one time after I got Windows 7 x64 and then last weekend (after almost 4 months with Windows 7) I removed the rest of the data from the XP boot drive and reformatted it. I don't need XP for anything anymore. (Note I have another older computer that I use as a file and print server that runs XP Home that I could use in a pinch if needed.)

garrigus


The usual configuration is..

Drive 1: OS and software
Drive 2: Project and audio data
Drive 3: Sample Libraries for disk streaming

That's how I have my old DAW PC setup with a dual-boot config on Drive 1. Never tried the two drive boot approach.

Right now, my current DAW PC has two drives but I'll be adding at least one more and converting it to total 64-bit later this year... 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/

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free SoundTech Vocal Trainer Package, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

Publisher of NewTechReview - free consumer technology newsletter. Win a free i2i Stream Wireless Music Pack, go to: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/

Saw this post here and I think my current question is related:

My system was Drive 1: OS and Programs (SATA)
                          Drive 2: Audio (all audio)  (SATA)
                          Drive 3: Backup (Acronis images) (PATA from old system).

I just added another SATA drive though, I was going to put it in an external enclosure but had difficulties so I decided to put it in my desktop DAW and get an external from ADK for my new laptop.
So now I have an audo drive and a samples drive...does it matter what order they are in?
Currently Windows shows them as drive0= OS?Programs and Data partitions (connected at SATA 1 on mobo)
                                                         drive 1= the one that was audio, but I was figuring now it would be my samples drive cos it's easier to move my Cakewalk Projects folder and leave my NI libraries in the original install path (SATA 3 on mobo, the other "master" location)
                                                         drive2=backup (PATA)
                                                         drive 3= new SATA drive which I moved my CW Projects file to.
The two audio drives are not so different in size cos I partitioned the new drive (1TB) into about 650GB audio and 300 GB for Acronis images figuring imaging and restore would be faster SATA-to-SATA than SATA-to-PATA, and the original audio drive is 500GB (or 465GB as Windows sees it).

Opinions, anyone?

Does anyone mind if I open a can'o'worms?

I'm currently building my new machine which is ...
i7-950
12G RAM
2 x 2Tb sata for data  (audio + samples)
120Gb SSD for Win7 + programs
Gigabyte X58-UD5


The UD5 mb has 2 sata controllers.  So, do I put both HDDs on one controller and the SSD on the other, or would it not make much difference?

Do I keep the 2 HDDs seperate or should I stripe them together to increase streaming speed? Would the extra seek time outway the gain in streaming speed if striped?

If I keep the HDDs seperate, should I put them on seperate controllers?

Karyn

Yeah, plenty of connections.  10 x Sata 300 in total spread between 2 controllers.

But for best audio streaming performance for project drive and samples drive do I connect both HDDs to the same controller or split them on different controllers?

ok,  let me re-phrase the question as I don't think I'm being understood.


In the olden days of IDE with big thick ribbon cables to the HDDs, you could connect 2 HDDs to each controller. One as Master, one as Slave. BUT, as they were both physicaly on the same cable only one would work at a time.  To copy a file from one drive to another the computer would read a little into RAM from drive 1 then write it to drive 2 then read more from drive 1.... etc,
This also means you can't read from both drives at once, so spliting CWP folders and sample folders on different drives would be a waste of time.

Having 2 IDE controllers meant that HDDs on EACH controller could be accessed concurrently.


Back to the present day and my SATA controllers have 4 and 6 ports.  Will one SATA controller with 2 or 3 HDDs on it be able to concurrently access all the drives connected to it?
OR
Should I split the HDDs between the two controllers?

Karyn