How best to use these 3 hard drives

[Al D]

I am building a PC and I have three hard drives I can use:
1x 40gb, 1x 80gb and 1x 120gb

Can anyone suggest how best to employ these?
I was thinking of using the 40gb drive for the operating system (Win
XP) and my programs, the 80gb one for files and the 120gb one as a
backup of everything that's on the other two discs. Would that make
sense? Or can you suggest other ideas?

Many thanks

Al D

 

[Roby]

I am building a PC and I have three hard drives I can use:
1x 40gb, 1x 80gb and 1x 120gb

Can anyone suggest how best to employ these?
I was thinking of using the 40gb drive for the operating system (Win
XP) and my programs, the 80gb one for files and the 120gb one as a
backup of everything that's on the other two discs. Would that make
sense? Or can you suggest other ideas?

Many thanks

Al D

Drive performance should enter into your deployment plan: put the fastest
one where it helps the most. That's likely to be where the o/s lives, but
might be data if you do a lot of graphics or database stuff.

Internal backup is convenient but insecure and no help after a
fire/flood/theft. Perhaps you should put your backup drive in an external
enclosure and talk to it via usb or firewire.

 

[Thomas Jespersen]

Can anyone suggest how best to employ these?
I was thinking of using the 40gb drive for the operating system (Win
XP) and my programs, the 80gb one for files and the 120gb one as a
backup of everything that's on the other two discs. Would that make
sense? Or can you suggest other ideas?

Remember that your 40gb drive is likely the slowest drive, and that is not
a good place to put to OS.

 

[John Weiss]

I am building a PC and I have three hard drives I can use:
1x 40gb, 1x 80gb and 1x 120gb

Can anyone suggest how best to employ these?
I was thinking of using the 40gb drive for the operating system (Win
XP) and my programs, the 80gb one for files and the 120gb one as a
backup of everything that's on the other two discs. Would that make
sense? Or can you suggest other ideas?

While using the 120 for Ghost images of the other HDs is a reasonable proposal,
there are a couple other considerations:

Which is the fastest/newest drive? Use that for the OS.

If you're not going to use Ghost (or similar), use the 120 for data and the
80 for backup. Once you get that 120 2/3 full, it will be time to get a bigger
HD...

 

[AL D]

Many thanks for the helpful replies. I have now posted a revised
question: "Deciding on a backup procedure using 3 drives". Your input
would be much appreciated.

Al D