What would be the optimal setup for multipal HDDs?

[wattdogg]

Hi all!,

I'm replacing all my HDDs and starting again with my production PC. I've bought a Crucial M225 64GB 2.5" Solid state drive and 2x Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 300GB drives.

As I use my PC for the internet and the odd game I have a duel boot setup. One for audio production, one for messing about. The idea is to partition the SSD in half. Approximately 30GB with a install of win7 64bit on each. Microsoft recommends a minimum of 20GB of free space.

My first question, is 10GB enough free space on a boot drive? Also, as it's a SSD would there be any performance difference in which partition i used for my production boot?

Secondly, how would you personnally allocate the other 2 HDDs?

This is my current plan:-

SSD partitioned 30GB/30GB (2x win7 64 boots)
HDD1 partitioned 200GB/100GB (200GB for Ableton,Sonar,VSTs,etc / 100GB for games)
HDD2 no partition 300GB (for my samples and projects plus Ableton's, Essential Instrument's, Kontact's, Maschine's and other respective libraries,

I have a slow 1TB external USB drive I'll use for back-up

I was also thinking I would use my old 500GB HDD for My Documents, My Music, etc but the drive is abit slower than the rest of the drives. Would that make a differnce to my overall system performance?

Thanks alot for reading and any help with the matter would be greatly appreciated.

Mark

[wattdogg]

Sorry to bump this but I could really use some advice

[wattdogg]

sorry to bump again

[Lo-Key Fu]

My first question, is 10GB enough free space on a boot drive? Also, as it's a SSD would there be any performance difference in which partition i used for my production boot?

I'm not sure about Windows 7 - as I still use XP on all of my own systems - but I'd personally view 10GB as a bare minimum of free space on a boot drive (assuming you mean post program and OS installation). With XP, I've found much less than that brings noticeable (and increasingly drastic) performance hits as the space is used up. Don't get me wrong however: you could certainly make it work - and I have in the past for a variety of reasons and circumstance - but if we're talking ideals here I'd usually allow 30-40 GB (including OS and essential programs) as a minimum for XP; and would assume Windows 7 to be a notably larger install.

Can't say I'm sure if there would be noticeable difference in performance related to which partition you choose for production, but the easiest way to find out would be running some speed tests using HD benchmarking software once you've got both partitions up and rolling. I've used the programs below for similar purposes in the past, but I'm sure there are plenty more too:
- HDtune: http://www.hdtune.com/
- HDtach: http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/in ... est=HdTach

Secondly, how would you personnally allocate the other 2 HDDs?

For a variety of (non-technical) reasons, and speaking generally, I like to work with smaller partitions than you've indicated; but I think this really comes down to personal taste and larger partitions do have an advantage in terms of flexibility. I don't really see anything wrong with what you've suggested however. What are your specific concerns?

[Dean Corrie]

Hello,
I have 45.3GB free, of my 87.8GB Windows 7 64 partition (500GB drive). Only music software on it, don't go on internet either. Music, libraries, projects, vsts, documents and any other garbage is scattered across various partitions on that drive and my 2 x 1TB drives. I also have 320GB and 500GB external drives (and DVDs) for backup.
Cheers,
Dean