PC as a NAS. Drives?

[nads]

a simple one. ( I hope).

I will be running XP and i will have at least one 500GB hard drive. BUT the question would you have a seperate smaller HDD for the operating system and leave all the stored data on seperate disc(s)?

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds sensible. That way if XP goes doolally all your data is safe. Were you not thinking about going RAID?

 

[nads]

what is the point. i see ZERO use in RAIDing it. it is not like i will be adding much data to it and i will have backed up any new data on a portable HDD.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeh, best not RAIDing then.

 

[cram]

It's always a good idea to keep your O/S, programs and data on separate hard drives if possible. Also putting your swap file on a separate hard drive will give a performance boost, whether you'll notice it is another thing.

 

[John Duncan]

nads:
a simple one. ( I hope).

I will be running XP and i will have at least one 500GB hard drive. BUT the question would you have a seperate smaller HDD for the operating system and leave all the stored data on seperate disc(s)?

Yup, if only because you can move your music to another server real easy...

 

[Anonymous]

Best thing is to keep the OS on a seperate physical disk if possible, so if you have any issues with it then if you do need to wipe it and re-install at any point all your data will still be intact.

 

[Anonymous]

Small disk with fast access for OS, large disk for keeping guff and stuff, external HDD for backups. Safety first. Use Ghost if you feel up to it.

 

[Anonymous]

If you can't run to separate drives, use separate partitions instead. As a minimum use one partition for OS and application software, one for your paging file and one for your data.

 

[nads]

well it is all sorted.

from this

As i was having noise issues and the new power supply was too big i swaped it for a new case with better power supply

the new box.

went with keeping the old 120GB IDE drive for the operating system. (fresh XP install)

and a seperate SATA 500GB drive for the music.

Have space for 2 more 3,5" drives and could take 2 2,5" drives and still have space for 3 disc readers!

the cooling fan for the CPU is still a tad loud.

 

[Sc00bied00]

Just a quick note, moving the page file to a separate partition on the same physical disk will not improve the performance, it would have to be moved to a second separate physical disk, with the first partition used for the page file. you also have to tell XP where the page file should be located and generally speaking page file should be 2.5x the amount of RAM in the system..... Separate partitions for the OS and data would be fine. You'd be better off with more physical RAM and use the HDD space for the data. As for the CPU fan you could always look for a one from an aftermarket supplier, be careful of sizes and clearance for motherboard components though. Using a watercooling solution is another alternative, you can buy sealed easy fit systems now and I think the case should be able to accommodate it ok. example here HTH.

 

[nads]

water cooled is not really an option if you want a quite box.

XP is quite happy on a 120GB HDD with 1GB of memory it just sites there and makes a small click ever so often, while the Music is stored on a 500GB drive that is silent.

All the playing/processing is done by the squeezebox. (so no noise from the HDDïs).

 

[Anonymous]

Sc00bied00:
Just a quick note, moving the page file to a separate partition on the same physical disk will not improve the performance, it would have to be moved to a second separate physical disk, with the first partition used for the page file. you also have to tell XP where the page file should be locatedÿand generally speaking page file should be 2.5x the amount of RAM in the system..... Separate partitions for the OS and data would be fine. You'd be better off with more physical RAM and use the HDD space for the data. As for theÿCPU fan you could always look for a one from an aftermarket supplier, be careful of sizes and clearance for motherboard components though. Using a watercooling solution is another alternative, you can buy sealed easy fit systems now and I think theÿcase should be able to accommodate it ok. example hereÿHTH.

Moving the paging file to a separate, dedicated partition (even if it's on the same physical disk) will stop it from becoming fragmented. This helps to prevent your PC from slowing down over time. Ideally you want this at the beginning of the drive (the fastest part). I agree that there's no substitute for more RAM though.