hard drive question

[LouieLou]

I recently Built my first computer. Using the Asus P4c800-e deluxe, P4 2.40c CPU, one 80 gig Seagate sata hdd, Ati all in wonder 9700 pro, Pioneer dvr-ao6u dvd burner, 2 sticks of 256 mb corsair xms pc3200 ram, windows xp pro. I want to add a second hard drive because I have alot of old vhs tapes I want to convert to dvd, and heard that using 2 hard drives would be better. But I dont know how I should set it up. The current hard drive is connected to the #1 sata connector on the mobo. Can any one tell me the best way to configure the hard drives and bios for optimal performance. I built this system with no experience and a year of reading anything I could find on buildig a computer. At the moment it is very stable. I would appreciate any help from all you experts in the forum. Thanks in advance.

 

[DannyBoy]

The only advantage of having 2 hard drives in a non-raid setup is more space.

If you want to set things up in a raid format then you would need a raid controller card, another hard drive, and some knowledge of how to do it.

You have no security if 1 drive fails in a striped setup of raid, and as i would imagine you would like performance and reliability then i would not recommend it.

The single hard drive you have now should be sufficient, but if you want more space sure add another hard drive...

btw welcome to the forums

 

[LouieLou]

Thanks for the expert advice Danny boy. Just so you know the Asus p4c800-e deluxe is already equipped with the promise sata controller which offers raid 0, 1 and 10 functios with Max. 2 UltraATA 133 ports and 2 satta HD ports, enabling users to build a raid array with any 2, 3 or 4 of the ports. With unique multi- raid function, Raid 0 and Raid 1 array can co- exist. But if you say that building the raid wouldnt be beneficial Than I guess I'll stick with my current setup. Thanks again.

 

biggest thing, keep the swap file for windows and for you video editing program on different partitions, preferably, keep them an different drives.

 

[440BX]

I have the same board and just assembled my first computer.The way I done it was to use my old ata 10 gig harddrive for the os,(xp).I then attached 2 sata drives to the raid connector on the board.There is a good improvment with the raid drive for video and gaming.You have the board so why not use its potential...Do it my way or get another identical sata harddrive and connect them just below to the raid sata input.You can see it written on the board next to the input headers.Set it up in BIOS,go through each and every setting,there will be about 3 to change.On boot up you will be directed to fasttrak and set up stripe raid with 128 cluster.Next go to boot options and boot from cdrom and put xp in drive,there will be an f6 option for third party raid controller,I avioded this so I dont know if you need the asus disc for promise controller,you can try and put it on,then xp should load.If you decide to put the operating system on a seprate single drive there is no f6 to do but the array will be inactive and hidden.You have to go to controll panel,administrator and find disc controllers.There will be an inactive array,right click it and format it and away you go.Print up info from search engines to help on the way.If you built a system you can build an array its well worth it.

 

[LouieLou]

Thanks guys, you've been a great help.

 

[nick1985]

another advantage of 2 non raided hard drives...

i have this setup and i save all my important "stuff" (not Pron) onto both hard drives, so if 1 takes a dump on me, i still have all my "stuff"