I'm planning on building a new computer for my wife. A friend of hers
told her that buying 2 - 250gig hard-drives would be much faster than
just getting one 500gig drive. No RAID configurations are anticipated.
I'm doubtful, though. I'd think that unless you just happen to access
data that exists on both drives at the same time, that there really
wouldn't be much difference. It also seems to me that 2 - 250gig drives
would use more power and generate more heat than a single 500gig drive.
So, is there a correct answer? Or, does it really make no difference at
all.
Thanks.
Sam
--
"We have met the enemy, and he is us" -- Pogo (1970)
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 13:37:10 -0800, Sam <retired@home.net> wrote:
>I'm planning on building a new computer for my wife. A friend of hers
>told her that buying 2 - 250gig hard-drives would be much faster than
>just getting one 500gig drive. No RAID configurations are anticipated.
>
>I'm doubtful, though. I'd think that unless you just happen to access
>data that exists on both drives at the same time, that there really
>wouldn't be much difference. It also seems to me that 2 - 250gig drives
>would use more power and generate more heat than a single 500gig drive.
>
>So, is there a correct answer? Or, does it really make no difference at
>all.
>
It's always better for recovery and backup purposes to have multiple
drives, unless you are willing to lose all data when a single drive
fails.
"Sam" <retired@home.net> wrote in message
news:6jkt035vv3oseea2j29r7shllc67sphe78@4ax.com...
> I'm planning on building a new computer for my wife. A friend of hers
> told her that buying 2 - 250gig hard-drives would be much faster than
> just getting one 500gig drive. No RAID configurations are anticipated.
>
> I'm doubtful, though. I'd think that unless you just happen to access
> data that exists on both drives at the same time, that there really
> wouldn't be much difference. It also seems to me that 2 - 250gig drives
> would use more power and generate more heat than a single 500gig drive.
>
> So, is there a correct answer? Or, does it really make no difference at
> all.
>
The number of non-RAID drives will not make any difference in speed..
but I'd probably use two drives anyway...
A 2nd drive could be used to backup data ...though of course you'd still
need to back up to CD or DVD
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:52:39 -0500, "philo" <philo@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>"Sam" <retired@home.net> wrote in message
>news:6jkt035vv3oseea2j29r7shllc67sphe78@4ax.com.. .
>> I'm planning on building a new computer for my wife. A friend of hers
>> told her that buying 2 - 250gig hard-drives would be much faster than
>> just getting one 500gig drive. No RAID configurations are anticipated.
>>
>> I'm doubtful, though. I'd think that unless you just happen to access
>> data that exists on both drives at the same time, that there really
>> wouldn't be much difference. It also seems to me that 2 - 250gig drives
>> would use more power and generate more heat than a single 500gig drive.
>>
>> So, is there a correct answer? Or, does it really make no difference at
>> all.
>>
>
>
>The number of non-RAID drives will not make any difference in speed..
>but I'd probably use two drives anyway...
>A 2nd drive could be used to backup data ...though of course you'd still
>need to back up to CD or DVD
Currently she backs up nightly to an external hard-drive. So, the second
drive would only be used for data, etc. She does web-pages and wanted to
have her projects separate. I know we could partition a large hard-drive
to create the same effect. However, her friend insists that having two
separate drives is the fastest way to go.
So, does this scenario change the equation at all?
Sam
--
"We have met the enemy, and he is us" -- Pogo (1970)
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:40:01 -0600, Vic Smith
<thismailautodeleted@comcast.net> wrote:
>On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 13:37:10 -0800, Sam <retired@home.net> wrote:
>
>>I'm planning on building a new computer for my wife. A friend of hers
>>told her that buying 2 - 250gig hard-drives would be much faster than
>>just getting one 500gig drive. No RAID configurations are anticipated.
>>
>>I'm doubtful, though. I'd think that unless you just happen to access
>>data that exists on both drives at the same time, that there really
>>wouldn't be much difference. It also seems to me that 2 - 250gig drives
>>would use more power and generate more heat than a single 500gig drive.
>>
>>So, is there a correct answer? Or, does it really make no difference at
>>all.
>>
>It's always better for recovery and backup purposes to have multiple
>drives, unless you are willing to lose all data when a single drive
>fails.
>
>--Vic
Good point. However, she does backup to an external drive automatically
every night, so we could recover from most disasters relatively quickly.
So, I'm not too worried about drive failure.
Sam
--
"We have met the enemy, and he is us" -- Pogo (1970)
> >
> >The number of non-RAID drives will not make any difference in speed..
> >but I'd probably use two drives anyway...
> >A 2nd drive could be used to backup data ...though of course you'd still
> >need to back up to CD or DVD
>
> Currently she backs up nightly to an external hard-drive. So, the second
> drive would only be used for data, etc. She does web-pages and wanted to
> have her projects separate. I know we could partition a large hard-drive
> to create the same effect. However, her friend insists that having two
> separate drives is the fastest way to go.
>
> So, does this scenario change the equation at all?
>
>
Well two drives will not make the system faster...
so as long as the user is backing up every day...might as well just get one
drive...
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 13:37:10 -0800, Sam <retired@home.net>
wrote:
>I'm planning on building a new computer for my wife. A friend of hers
>told her that buying 2 - 250gig hard-drives would be much faster than
>just getting one 500gig drive. No RAID configurations are anticipated.
>
>I'm doubtful, though. I'd think that unless you just happen to access
>data that exists on both drives at the same time, that there really
>wouldn't be much difference.
True, but it's not hard to do that. Pagefile on 2nd drive,
apps on 2nd drive, data on a drive opposite the apps, etc.
>It also seems to me that 2 - 250gig drives
>would use more power and generate more heat than a single 500gig drive.
Negligably so.
>
>So, is there a correct answer? Or, does it really make no difference at
>all.
2 x 250 is better than one 500
People working with larger files and heavy multitasking may
even benefit from 3 or more drives.
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:52:39 -0500, "philo"
<philo@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>"Sam" <retired@home.net> wrote in message
>news:6jkt035vv3oseea2j29r7shllc67sphe78@4ax.com.. .
>> I'm planning on building a new computer for my wife. A friend of hers
>> told her that buying 2 - 250gig hard-drives would be much faster than
>> just getting one 500gig drive. No RAID configurations are anticipated.
>>
>> I'm doubtful, though. I'd think that unless you just happen to access
>> data that exists on both drives at the same time, that there really
>> wouldn't be much difference. It also seems to me that 2 - 250gig drives
>> would use more power and generate more heat than a single 500gig drive.
>>
>> So, is there a correct answer? Or, does it really make no difference at
>> all.
>>
>
>
>The number of non-RAID drives will not make any difference in speed..
For many uses, two non-raided drives are faster than two
raided.
Unless you are using RAID, the speed of one 500 GB vs. two 250 GB hard
drives is the same. And there is never "the same data on both drives "
without RAID.
There is one exception to what I said above. If you buy a smaller
harddrive, say 60 GB, and mount JUST the OS on that, and then install all
the other software on a large harddrive, say 320 GB, then that WOULD speed
up the computer
--
DaveW
___________
"Sam" <retired@home.net> wrote in message
news:6jkt035vv3oseea2j29r7shllc67sphe78@4ax.com...
> I'm planning on building a new computer for my wife. A friend of hers
> told her that buying 2 - 250gig hard-drives would be much faster than
> just getting one 500gig drive. No RAID configurations are anticipated.
>
> I'm doubtful, though. I'd think that unless you just happen to access
> data that exists on both drives at the same time, that there really
> wouldn't be much difference. It also seems to me that 2 - 250gig drives
> would use more power and generate more heat than a single 500gig drive.
>
> So, is there a correct answer? Or, does it really make no difference at
> all.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Sam
> --
> "We have met the enemy, and he is us" -- Pogo (1970)
<snip>
> >
> >Well two drives will not make the system faster...
>
> Yes it will, because it is never a case that only one file
> is being read. Load any application, you get windows files
> and the app files loading. You also get pagefile access
> even if only to allocate memory that goes unused. Two
> drives are unquestionably faster than one.
Most of my machines are set up with mutiple removable drives
and I can easily have up to three drives in the machines.
whether I have one drive in the machine or three drives...I've never noticed
any change in overall performance.
Even if there was a minor performance boost while accessing two files on two
seperate drives...
I'm not sure why you made the assumption that the files being accessed would
be on two seperate drives...
the OP already made that reference in his first post
Multiple hard-drives instead of one 
Linear Mode
