1 big hard drive or 2 smaller ones?

[AbercrombieGuy]

1 big hard drive or 2 smaller ones? What'd you think? They'd have about the same capacity.

 

[bigshooter]

If you are using win2k, or if you ahve a raid controller, you can set them up for raid 0, one big volume with striping so you can read off both HD's at the same time. It will increase your HD performance over going with one big drive, assuming that you are using same type of drive, i.e. 2 45gig IBM 75GXP's vs 1 75gig .

 

[divinemartyr]

One nice thing is to have all your programs on your C drive, or a 7200rpm drive. If you want to store a lot of data (i.e. mp3's or mpeg videos) then having a second drive is pretty beneficial. You'll never be accessing the first drive where your programs are, when playing mp3's and 5400 rpm drive for storage is perfectly fine. Not to mention, you'll probably spend less on a 5400rpm drive.

dm

 

[jzodda]

I like the idea of getting 2 identical smaller drives. Then you can run in Raid as an option of you want to. I myself have one 45.5GB, but I always got it with the intention of adding an identical drive when this one fills up and then I will run them in raid. Keep in mind that these days you dont always have to go and buy a raid controller. Some MBs come with one already.

 

[Dexion]

First of all, smaller drives are alot cheaper. Two 45G(90G) drives are cheaper to one 75G. Your getting more space for the price with the option to run them in an array. Its totally up to your computer, how much space in your case, how much power, and how good your computer cooling is. However, it just makes more sense to have 2 physical drives instead of one, if one fails at least you have 1 more

 

[minus1972]

so lemme get this straight...if you have win2k, you can run 2hd's at raid 0 and get the same effect as purchasing a mobo w/ an onboard raid controller and running it in Win98?

 

[dcdomain]

I'd always go for the one bigger harddrive, cuz I know I'll always get another harddrive when I run out of space. Easier on the IDE channels.

 

[Pariah]

Yes, minus, and with 2 drives, it will perform just as well as the onboard controllers. As you add drives, the win2k software will fall behind some.

 

[Noriaki]

I like 2 drives.

I have a 45Gig 75GXP and a 30Gig 75GXP. I have most of my programs and stuff on the first drive, and then I run virtual memory off the 2nd. Less disk arm contention.

 

[Hawk]

can't afford two drives! =) See, if you are talking about 2 45 gb and an 80 gb, then of course the 80 gb costs more. But if you are thinking of 2 20 GB and a 45 GB, I am pretty sure the 45 is cheaper. If you don't have raid, and if you aren't running out of channels, it probably won't matter too much.

 

[borealiss]

i'd get two of them, although not for the reason of raid 0 because of reliability issues and higher access times. but you can have your swap on one and you os on the other.