Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB

[ComputerWizKid]

I just bought This hard Drive along with a ATI HD5450 Video Card
I have a couple of questions about the drive though
1. How do I set it up/And make sure it works properly before I store data on it? (I know how to do this but I have not purchased a new HDD in a while so I need to know if there is a better way to do this)
2. The HDD is SATA 6.0GBS and my Motherboard is only SATA 3.0GBS will it work at the slower speed? (I know I should have asked this before I bought it ())
3. How should I partition the drive? I going to use this as an OS drive/Data Drive so I want to partition the drive so I can have my Documents separate from windows (So I can reinstall without having to backup 1 million things:thumbsdown
I was thinking about this scenario 75GB for W7 Ultimate 700GB For TV Shows and 200GB for my Other stuff (That equals about 975GB Which is all I get after Windows take a chunk for the formatting scheme)
4. I also have a older 500GB Drive that I will keep in there for additional storage but the new drive will be my main drive

Thanks

 

[Blain]

No mechanical drive would saturate SATA II anyway, don't worry about that.

 

[corkyg]

Separating your documents is a good idea, but it does not relieve you of having to reinstall their programs if you reinstall Windows. That onerous chore does not go away.

The drive will run just fine but at the SATA 3 speed. The drive is backward compatible.

 

[Soundmanred]

That equals about 975GB after formatting

Thanks

You''ll get about 931GB after formatting.

 

[Blain]

3btech have had returns of the 6Gbs WD's based on some MB compatibility issues.
I own a 1TB WD 6Gbs Black and haven't had any problems. But I contacted them about their disclaimer when I stumbled onto it.

 

[ComputerWizKid]

OK then how much should I partition for the OS/Program files folder?
I am going to use Windows 7 Ultimate x64

 

[tynopik]

1. How do I set it up/And make sure it works properly before I store data on it? (I know how to do this but I have not purchased a new HDD in a while so I need to know if there is a better way to do this)

storagereview has a post about this if you want to be thorough

http://forums.storagereview.com/ind...ead-this-first-before-putting-anything-on-it/

 

[FishAk]

You must reinstall all your programs and settings if you have to reinstall Windows UNLESS...


If you install all your programs to the same partition as Windows, and then take an image of the partition, once you have everything set up the way you want- but before you introduce something you don't want (virus, malware, a program or mistake that messes up your registry, ect.), than you only need to restore your image. When trouble knocks, good image will have you back to full speed in a fraction of the time required to start from scratch. (much less than 30 minutes in most cases) The key is a GOOD image.


Some things to keep in mind:


If you move, or even defragment your image, it will not be reliable. An unreliable image is worse than no image, because, among other things, it takes up room needlessly.


You should keep several sets of images on different drives, each of which are an original image, and never a copy.


Down the road, after adding more programs or changing your settings, you will need to make new images to reflect your changes. When you do, you should save your older, replaced image for a period of time to be certain you don't need to revert to it. It's possible for a problem to be introduced sometime between the creation of an earlier image, and a more current one. A problem you don't notice till sometime later. If that happens, its good to still have that earlier problem free image- even though it doesn't have all your (then current) programs and settings.


To make images, I use Macrium Reflect- since it's free, and I have never been unable to restore an image with it as long as the image is original, and hasn't been moved, or allowed to be defragmented. Having been forced to completely reinstalled Windows 7, and all my programs because I let my defrag program drive over top my images, and none would work, I was very leery about this method. So, I experimented on a couple machines, restoring my setups. Out of 20 or so images- that weren't messed with- I had no failure.


Here is what I recommend:

1. Make an image of OS/programs partition of your “final” setup. You will delete this image, and it's only purpose is to determine what size your images are.
2. Once you know how big your images are, add some amount for new programs you'll install later, bloat from Indexing, if you use it, ect. Multiply this size by between three and X (this number depends on your level of paranoia), to determine the size you need for all the images that you will store on the disk.
3. Create a partition on the very inside edge on your drive (all the way on the right side as seen in the GUI of your partition program). This is the slowest part of a mechanical drive, and is a great place to store images that are seldom used.
4. Give your new partition a name that includes the word IMAGE in it so it's easy to not forget that this is a special partition than mustn't be moved, re-sized, defragmented, or otherwise messed with.
5. Inside your Image Partition, create a folder inside of which you will create your images, than, set your defrag program to exclude this folder.

That's it. You can safely create and restore images to/from this partition. More safe is to create an image partition on each of the disks your computer can access directly. On your removable storage, the partition should be large enough to include images from each computer you intend to keep images for. Remember that if you re-size your Image Partition, you need to test each of the images stored there, or just create new originals- however, new originals don't give the option to fall back to an earlier, problem free image.