2 hard drives, good or bad?

[shadowagent]

I'm upgrading my computer and I'm want to get a bigger hard drive. I was wondering if I kept my current one(Matrox 8.4 5400RPM) and added another one if that would make everything run slower(having like windows on one and games on the other. I heard from a friend that your computer runs slower with 2, is that true?


Would it be better if a got a SCSI drive? also if i did use 2, would it be better to have windows on the SCSI drive or the apps?

sorry about all the questions,
THANX

 

[Madcowz]

Well it all depends how you have the 2 setup. If they are on the same IDE channel, then DEFINITELY you will see performance hits, but if you keep them on separate channels both as master's, you shouldn't have any problems. I would keep your fastest drive alone as a Primary master unless you have 2 other IDE devices you need that extra channel. In that case I would highly consider getting either a ATA66-100 card or a Raid controller. If you go raid though, get the same drive to match your first one. Hope this helps

 

[slurp]

With SCSI you usually don't show a performance hit until you go above 2 drives. However, you must be aware of cost, cabling, termination, and other difficulties in setting up SCSI.

 

[obenton]

An advantage of two drives is that the second can be used for registry and other important files backup.

 

[Quickfingerz]

on separate channels, it's very good. You can put your swap file on the second channel for added performance or if you are on a computer network sharing files, you can share through one hard drive and your main hard hard drive runs without a glitch. 2 hard drives is always good as long as you have separate channels for each. I'd recommend it to everyone.

 

[Soulcannon]

If you have two hard drives on the same IDE channel, the performance hit is there, but barely noticeable. ESPECIALLY with UDMA. Just make sure that you use the faster drive as the master and put the OS and any swap files on that drive, to minimize the performance hits.

 

[Doctorweir]

If you really experience severe system slowdown, you should stick the old drive together with your CD on the 2nd channel and use it for backup, storage & swap.

An argument against keeping the old drive is the noise level and the power consumption. If that doesn't matter to you, keep the drive and play around with the configurations.

In the end, the more space you have, the more stuff you can install...

 

[jinsonxu]

What about the heat produced? Are harddrive coolers any good?

 

[Radboy]

Have 3 SCSI + 3 ATA33 HDDs. No probs.

 

[Gunbuster]

The nitpicker in me says:

Maxtor makes Hard Drives

Matrox makes video cards