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Storage for a PC - config questions

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by howdydooit

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I've googled this to death and am getting nowhere, so thanks to anyone kind enough to throw in their two cents! I'm finally building something to replace an aging PC. Too many multi media projects building up, and I just dread using it.

My question centers around how to get the best use of the storage. I'd like to get the most effective mix of performance and reliability from the 3 drives I've budgeted for (or even 4 if I employ RAID 1).

Without boring everyone over model numbers, it's basically a quad core 6700 with 2 GB of RAM, probably not overclocked (except for maybe some experimenting out of curiosity), a decent (not extreme) graphics card w/2 DVI monitors, and a SATA DVD burner, all running under XP Pro.

The most grueling thing it will be used for is Adobe Audition, Premiere, Photoshop Elements, etc. I will also use it for a lab - experimenting with multi boot & other OS's (like Linux), VM's, the aforementioned overclocking, etc., but also as my general purpose PC (browsing, finance, mail, etc.) The lab part is more for my own education and curiosity.

I originally was thinking of a fast HDD (Raptor maybe?) for the OS, a 320 GB drive for apps, swap file, etc., and a deep storage drive to use for the finished material and misc. storage of large multi media files. Maybe even a RAID 1 for the deep store, just to keep the data safe, and performance shouldn't be an issue for that function - even if I use it to serve video or audio (right?)

Haven't really given much thought to partitioning, other than the swap file being on a different physical drive from the boot drive, and the scratch files being on a different physical drive than the swap file (maybe I could put it on it's own partition on the deep store drive?) I've always had something like Executive Software's Diskeeper to automatically keep drives defragmented.

I have quite a few high quality components already purchased. At it's base level (CPU, RAM, GPU, etc.) this system should be plenty fast, so getting every possible ounce of performance is not a priority over data safety, but i am not going to go hog wild over data redundancy either.

Basically, I'm looking for strategies to make the system faster based on where different aspects of the system reside (OS, apps, data, scratch, SWAP, etc.), which function the Raptor should serve to get the most benefit from it's speed (boot drive? apps?), and how to mitigate risk of the data (at some point I'm sure I'll have outboard storage for backup - right now it's scattered on optical discs, which are becoming a pain to manage). Thoughts?

4 replies

by hal 9000

Transfer of any HDD. The more L2 Cache that the drive has on it the faster it will appear to be because you can read from RAM faster than you can from a HDD of any type so a HDD with 8 MEG of RAM and a 7,200 RPM Speed will seem to work as fast or faster than a 15 K SCSI Drive with only 512 MEG of L2 Cache on the HDD.

Depending on what you want to do about Data Redundancy that's your call as a RAID 0 will have better ability to recover from a failed HDD but a RAID 1 will have higher performance it really depends on what you need personally on the workstation. Though I can not help but feel if you are planning on doing a lot of Multi Media a Mac may suit your needs better than a Windows Box which by it's very nature will be slower with the same hardware and take longer to perform the same operation.

But again that's your call as you need to be comfortable with what you are using.

Col

by howdydooit

Thanks! I am not over stressing on speed, because I know it's going to be fast, but since I am more or less going with a QX6700 on an Intel mobo (through a professional courtesy, the CPU is too inexpensive to pass up), I am going XP (plus I have a ton of software already ready to go).

I would absolutely love it if I could make an OS X partition, but since Apple doesn't like that, I guess that's out :) - the only thing really inferior on a Mac is the mouse.

My idea is refining somewhat. One of our storage mavens thought the idea of a small, fast boot drive + one decent size/speed apps drive, and a deep store was a good concept. I'm thinking of RAID 1 or 1+0 on the deep store. Trying to keep the price from getting out of hand - a Raptor + 320 GB, + 2x 500 GB (all w/16 MB cache) can be had for roughly $450. I may scale it back a bit to save a few bucks, but that's the plan so far. Just trying to see if there's a better, safer way to apply the resources designated.

by hal 9000

But remember that OSX is nothing more that a glossed over BSD so you could run Free BSD on the machine and have a fairly similar experience to a Mac Desktop and workings it's available here

http://tinyurl.com/if4l

Col

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