How to arrange hard drives..?

[Beaker]

I am reformatting my just-retired PC as a HTPC and I need some advice on how best to set up my hard drives. I have two Maxtor drives:

1) Older 80 GB (6L080L4) 2MB cache, Seek time: 8.5ms

2) Newer 120 GB (6Y120P0) 8MB Cache, 9.0MS Access Time

[Beaker]

I want to create a system partition of 10 GB or so and use the remainder of both drives for GB-PVR storage.

Which one should I use as the system drive?

Let's say I use the 120 GB drive as the system drive. I would then have C (10 GB), F (110 GB) and G (80 GB - on the second drive). Is there any way to make GB-PVR see F and G as one big drive?

If not, should I put the recordings folder on G (on the non-system drive)?

And am I simply going to have to keep manually archiving recordings from G to F?

I hope all that is not too confusing and I would really appreciate any advice...

[elite]

Let's say I use the 120 GB drive as the system drive. I would then have C (10 GB), F (110 GB) and G (80 GB - on the second drive). Is there any way to make GB-PVR see F and G as one big drive?

I believe you want to create a spanned volume - only used this on linux so don't know how well Windows handles it... (I assume you are using XP)...

I've found it helps with system performance to keep the OS on one physical drive and recordings on another

My current config is:
1 x 20gb (OS)
1 x 250gb (recordings/live tv buffer)

I'll probably look at adding another 250gb or 300gb using a spanned volume in the near future...

HTH

[capone]

I had kind of the same sizes at first. I put the system, cache, and live directory on the 80, and recorded to the larger one. You can move the live and cache to the 120 if there turns out to be a performance issue. I still use the same setup, except I added a 60 which became my sys/cache/live (cache is barely/never used w/ 700-oddMb ram), the 80 where I store my son's reencoded shows (xvids of thomas, blue's clues, etc), and the 200 is still for recording.

[Beaker]

Thanks.

So do you think that the bigger 120 GB drive with the 8MB cache would serve better for recording, with system, cache and archived stuff on the 80 MB with the 2 MB cache?

Would a recording drive or a windows XP system drive benefit more from the the bigger HD cache?

[reboot]

I would set it up thus:
120 partitioned in two. 10 gig for OS, and the rest for storage.
80 as one whole drive. Used for recording, editing, and all other video work.
Once you've finished messing with the recording, movie it to the storage drive.
It's not prudent to use the OS drive (even a separate partition) for recordings, because if Windows becomes busy, or any other software takes over heavy use of the drive, your recordings can suffer. The OS drive is usually OK for playback though. If you find the playback becomes jerky, then switch around, and put the OS on the 80, and use the 120 for all video work and storage.
Ideally, you should have a larger video drive, as recordings tend to add up quickly, and you'll run out of room.
I run 4 drives. 90 gig for OS and programs, with a 160 for recordings, and a 250 for video work/storage. I then add another 250 also for video work/storage.
This can speed things up when editing, authoring, and/or re-encoding, going from one drive, and saving on the other.
Variously partitioned from 2 to 12 partitions, depending on what I need to do at the moment.

XP will definitely benefit more from the larger cache, hence my first recommendation.

[capone]

Someone else may be able to better answer that. I don't know what the caches are on my drives, so I can't tell if having only 2Mb would have an impact, or more/less an impact on XP, GB, media storage/playback, etc.

[reboot]

The larger cache allows windows to boot (slightly) faster, and programs to load faster.
It will have almost no effect (if any) on recordings, because even a 2 meg cache is plenty for a drive spinning at 7200rpm to capture and write the data, even at 15000kbps bitrate.

[Beaker]

The larger cache allows windows to boot (slightly) faster, and programs to load faster.

So do you think this benefit is worth having a smaller recording drive (80 as opposed to 120)? (I'll have to do more archiving of stuff - more housekeeping)

[Justicex]

Regarding the comment about using a separate hard drive for recording, editing, and all other video work, how is that done? I have a 40GB HD for the OS and a 300 GB HD for storage. Should I partition the 300 GB drive and use a portion for recording, etc? If so, does this mean loading the GBPVR app on a drive separate from the drive that holds the OS? :confused: