Are two hard disks faster than one?

[MisterBombastic]

I intend to purchase a new disk drive imminently. However, I am either going to purchase a big disk (e.g.: 100GB) and partition it in two, so that I can ghost one partition to the other. Or, I am going to get two smaller hard disks (e.g.: 50GB) and ghost the first disk to the second.

Which would copy files faster? One partition to another, or one disk to another (same IDE channel).

Please don't mention RAID arrays et al. I have my mind set on this particular system.😕

 

[Pariah]

2 drives would be faster.

 

[sharkeeper]

Buy a pair of WDC 400BB drives if that's all the space you need. You get 1200BB performance with the newer models because they are using 40GB platters along with better firmware. Pretty good deal for $150. 🙂

Cheers!

 

[CAMS]

No need to copy entire partition, just created and image and place that on another partition.

I always found ghost copied an image a lot faster to another partition not on the same Hdrive even in a slave/master set up. I cant remember the exact figures but at least twice as fast.

 

[tboneuls]

I would get 2 hard drives, because a dead drive with 2 copies of your data is useless - I also agree - 2 are faster than one

 

[TwilightZone77]

<< I would get 2 hard drives, because a dead drive with 2 copies of your data is useless - I also agree - 2 are faster than one >>



That's a good point... what's the purpose of backing up your data if it's all on one drive?

 

[MisterBombastic]

Thanks for the hyper speedy responses!

So, including the WD400BB, does anyone have and hard disk recommendations? I'm considering two WD, Maxtor or Seagates. I was considering one drive, because even two partitions would protect against software errors (I didn't even think about hardware problems
😱).