How many hard drives (and size) do you place in your build these days?
 

I'm curious. My builds usually have two hard drives (out of habit I
suppose) and one external HD for backup. Each HD is 500Gb; the
external HD (USB 2) is smaller. I prefer to keep data on a separate HD
from the O/S.

Personally, I don't intend to use cloud based storage for my files, but
are you all going that route?

For those who run their build as a virtual pc (I'm thinking about
making the switch), any thoughts about how many HDs to use and why?

Thanks,
John

How many hard drives (and size) do you place in your build thesedays?
 

Yes wrote:

I'm curious. My builds usually have two hard drives (out of habit
I suppose) and one external HD for backup. Each HD is 500Gb; the
external HD (USB 2) is smaller. I prefer to keep data on a
separate HD from the O/S.

I usually have a single hard drive in my win-98 machines, size is 500 gb
or larger. One of my systems has a 750 gb and 1.5 tb drive.

I download a lot of music and movies from torrents and file-lockers, and
I will be adding a second drive to some of my systems.

I don't use external drives. Far easier to just temporarily attach a
drive to the internal SATA interface when necessary.

I have boxes of old hard drives 40 to 250 gb in size to use as spare or
temp storage.

Personally, I don't intend to use cloud based storage for my files,
but are you all going that route?

No - not even interested.

How many hard drives (and size) do you place in your build thesedays?
 

On 10/22/2012 07:57 AM, Yes wrote:
I'm curious. My builds usually have two hard drives (out of habit I
suppose) and one external HD for backup. Each HD is 500Gb; the
external HD (USB 2) is smaller. I prefer to keep data on a separate HD
from the O/S.

Personally, I don't intend to use cloud based storage for my files, but
are you all going that route?

For those who run their build as a virtual pc (I'm thinking about
making the switch), any thoughts about how many HDs to use and why?

Thanks,
John




I usually go with a 550g internal, then one external...
however the last machine I built used a 1 gig internal

--
https://www.createspace.com/3707686

How many hard drives (and size) do you place in your build these days?
 

98 Guy wrote:

Yes wrote:

I'm curious. My builds usually have two hard drives (out of habit
I suppose) and one external HD for backup. Each HD is 500Gb; the
external HD (USB 2) is smaller. I prefer to keep data on a
separate HD from the O/S.

I usually have a single hard drive in my win-98 machines, size is 500 gb
or larger. One of my systems has a 750 gb and 1.5 tb drive.

I download a lot of music and movies from torrents and file-lockers, and
I will be adding a second drive to some of my systems.

I don't use external drives. Far easier to just temporarily attach a
drive to the internal SATA interface when necessary.

I have boxes of old hard drives 40 to 250 gb in size to use as spare or
temp storage.

Personally, I don't intend to use cloud based storage for my files,
but are you all going that route?

No - not even interested.

Cloud base storage is just an external hard drive that some one else
maintains!!!

What a difference it makes when you change a name of some thing.

How many hard drives (and size) do you place in your build these days?
 

"Yes" wrote in message
...
I'm curious. My builds usually have two hard drives (out of habit I
suppose) and one external HD for backup. Each HD is 500Gb; the
external HD (USB 2) is smaller. I prefer to keep data on a separate HD
from the O/S.

Like you my preferred is two hard drives. One for the OS, applications and
personal data and another for the paging file (and possibly database files).
Since for any new machine I'd spec it with sufficient RAM not to need a
paging file, then unless I'm doing heavy database work then a single drive
ought to be sufficient.

I prefer three external drives for backup. Three might seem a little
excessing but the rational is:
1 connected to my pc for backup.
2 stored off site.
my worst case scenario is a fire (destroying everything) when I've brought
my off-site backup disk in to swap it, hence the reason for having 2
off-site.

Personally, I don't intend to use cloud based storage for my files, but
are you all going that route?

No. I like to know where my files are and I want speedy access to them. But
I suppose for small backups that cloud based storage would be fine. I say
small, because if I were to backup my pc and try to copy that to a clound
storage provider then it wouldn't be practical considering the volume of
data.

For those who run their build as a virtual pc (I'm thinking about
making the switch), any thoughts about how many HDs to use and why?

I now have two servers in the office on which I run other virtual servers.
Typically I've gone for four drives - mirrored system disk and two data
disks which I use for various virtual pc/server images. None of the servers
I've virtualised are hitting the disk much, but I have gone for as much RAM
in the hosting server as possible. None of my virtual servers are
particularly disk intensive, I've given the virtual servers only the RAM I
think they need (upping this if necessary) and in this environment (YMMV)
for what I'm doing ensuring that the hosting server has ample RAM was more
important than worrying about numbers of drives. In my case 32GB or RAM,
more than that would require changing the motherboard.

Hope this helps.
--
Brian Cryer
http://www.cryer.co.uk/brian

How many hard drives (and size) do you place in your build these days?
 

Brian Cryer wrote:

"Yes" wrote in message
...
I'm curious.
-- snipped--

Personally, I don't intend to use cloud based storage for my files,
but are you all going that route?

No. I like to know where my files ...

Me too - and who can potentially access them if not on my pc.


For those who run their build as a virtual pc (I'm thinking about
making the switch), any thoughts about how many HDs to use and why?

I now have two servers in the office on which I run other virtual
servers. Typically I've gone for four drives - mirrored system disk
and two data disks which I use for various virtual pc/server images.
None of the servers I've virtualised are hitting the disk much, but I
have gone for as much RAM in the hosting server as possible. None of
my virtual servers are particularly disk intensive, I've given the
virtual servers only the RAM I think they need (upping this if
necessary) and in this environment (YMMV) for what I'm doing ensuring
that the hosting server has ample RAM was more important than
worrying about numbers of drives. In my case 32GB or RAM, more than
that would require changing the motherboard.

Hope this helps.

Thanks. A virtual pc has started piqueing my interest but never had
seen any user feedback about how much RAM or how many HDs were useful
for it. It looks like I might only need to up my RAM in order to have
at least the basics for a virtual machine. Still not sure I'll do that
because of how I'd want to configure the s/w side, but that's a
different issue :-)

How many hard drives (and size) do you place in your build thesedays?
 

Yes wrote:


Thanks. A virtual pc has started piqueing my interest but never had
seen any user feedback about how much RAM or how many HDs were useful
for it. It looks like I might only need to up my RAM in order to have
at least the basics for a virtual machine. Still not sure I'll do that
because of how I'd want to configure the s/w side, but that's a
different issue :-)

I have a machine with 4GB of RAM installed.

Linux virtual machines get 1GB.
Windows machines get 512MB or 256MB. But that
can be adjusted before starting a guest OS, so it's
adjustable.

I run either two or three virtual machines on my 4GB
computer. Two large ones and a small one is about
all that fits. The small one functions as a bridge
between VM addons being available in one environment, and
not another.

VMs are limited in terms of their connectivity. So
somethings it hard to get things "in" and "out" of
the VM.

VMs allow evaluating operating systems, without
shutting down and rebooting. If I'm worried something
will infect the host OS, I can switch to a VM and
test it there.

The number of hard drives, might be a reflection
of the amount of sustained I/O to be expected.
Say one VM is writing 100GB of data, while I'm trying
to read USENET in Thunderbird on my host OS. If all the
I/O of the VM, was supported by my second hard drive,
there would be fewer hesitations while I'm reading
USENET articles on the host (using the first disk).
So rather than it being a "storage space issue",
sometimes it just the amount of hard drive activity,
and spreading it out so there is less head movement
on the hard drive.

Paul

How many hard drives (and size) do you place in your build these days?
 

Paul wrote:

Yes wrote:


Thanks. A virtual pc has started piqueing my interest but never had
seen any user feedback about how much RAM or how many HDs were
useful for it. It looks like I might only need to up my RAM in
order to have at least the basics for a virtual machine. Still not
sure I'll do that because of how I'd want to configure the s/w
side, but that's a different issue :-)

I have a machine with 4GB of RAM installed.

Linux virtual machines get 1GB.
Windows machines get 512MB or 256MB. But that
can be adjusted before starting a guest OS, so it's
adjustable.

I run either two or three virtual machines on my 4GB
computer. Two large ones and a small one is about
all that fits. The small one functions as a bridge
between VM addons being available in one environment, and
not another.

VMs are limited in terms of their connectivity. So
somethings it hard to get things "in" and "out" of
the VM.

VMs allow evaluating operating systems, without
shutting down and rebooting. If I'm worried something
will infect the host OS, I can switch to a VM and
test it there.

The number of hard drives, might be a reflection
of the amount of sustained I/O to be expected.
Say one VM is writing 100GB of data, while I'm trying
to read USENET in Thunderbird on my host OS. If all the
I/O of the VM, was supported by my second hard drive,
there would be fewer hesitations while I'm reading
USENET articles on the host (using the first disk).
So rather than it being a "storage space issue",
sometimes it just the amount of hard drive activity,
and spreading it out so there is less head movement
on the hard drive.

Paul

I've thought about a virtual pc for the reasons you cite - O/S and
malware. The questions I saw for me a
1. to what extent would I need to change my hardware
2. what s/w would I need in order to switch
3. cost to do so

As far as the hardware goes, Brian Cryer's response and yours (thank
you both) suggest that my existing build could handle a vm with little
to no additional h/w, though maybe adding more RAM may make sense for
me. My pc has 4Gb RAM at present - that's OK for my existing O/S (Win
XP Pro, SP3), but eventually I would like to go to a 64 bit O/S.

With regard to the s/w, that's beyond the usual focus of
alt.comp.hardware, though I'd be happy to hear comments. My pocketbook
is the biggest constraint :-)

Ideally, I'd like to move to a 64-bit O/S and run everything in a VM
environment I want to keep the commercial software I have. The
programs were developed to work in Windows XP (and earlier). They
satisfy my needs and replacing them is too costly. So, I'm thinking at
least one VM centered around WinXP. From there, there are other O/S's
I've thought about playing around with, which is why VM is so appealing.

John

How many hard drives (and size) do you place in your build thesedays?
 

Yes wrote:
Paul wrote:

Yes wrote:

Thanks. A virtual pc has started piqueing my interest but never had
seen any user feedback about how much RAM or how many HDs were
useful for it. It looks like I might only need to up my RAM in
order to have at least the basics for a virtual machine. Still not
sure I'll do that because of how I'd want to configure the s/w
side, but that's a different issue :-)
I have a machine with 4GB of RAM installed.

Linux virtual machines get 1GB.
Windows machines get 512MB or 256MB. But that
can be adjusted before starting a guest OS, so it's
adjustable.

I run either two or three virtual machines on my 4GB
computer. Two large ones and a small one is about
all that fits. The small one functions as a bridge
between VM addons being available in one environment, and
not another.

VMs are limited in terms of their connectivity. So
somethings it hard to get things "in" and "out" of
the VM.

VMs allow evaluating operating systems, without
shutting down and rebooting. If I'm worried something
will infect the host OS, I can switch to a VM and
test it there.

The number of hard drives, might be a reflection
of the amount of sustained I/O to be expected.
Say one VM is writing 100GB of data, while I'm trying
to read USENET in Thunderbird on my host OS. If all the
I/O of the VM, was supported by my second hard drive,
there would be fewer hesitations while I'm reading
USENET articles on the host (using the first disk).
So rather than it being a "storage space issue",
sometimes it just the amount of hard drive activity,
and spreading it out so there is less head movement
on the hard drive.

Paul

I've thought about a virtual pc for the reasons you cite - O/S and
malware. The questions I saw for me a
1. to what extent would I need to change my hardware
2. what s/w would I need in order to switch
3. cost to do so

As far as the hardware goes, Brian Cryer's response and yours (thank
you both) suggest that my existing build could handle a vm with little
to no additional h/w, though maybe adding more RAM may make sense for
me. My pc has 4Gb RAM at present - that's OK for my existing O/S (Win
XP Pro, SP3), but eventually I would like to go to a 64 bit O/S.

With regard to the s/w, that's beyond the usual focus of
alt.comp.hardware, though I'd be happy to hear comments. My pocketbook
is the biggest constraint :-)

Ideally, I'd like to move to a 64-bit O/S and run everything in a VM
environment I want to keep the commercial software I have. The
programs were developed to work in Windows XP (and earlier). They
satisfy my needs and replacing them is too costly. So, I'm thinking at
least one VM centered around WinXP. From there, there are other O/S's
I've thought about playing around with, which is why VM is so appealing.

John

VirtualBox is free.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualbox

VMWare is another popular one. And Microsoft has VPC2007 for slightly older
OSes, and Windows Virtual PC for WIndows 7. In Windows 8, Microsoft
won't allow those to run. I presume they want you to move to Hyper-V
or the like instead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...rtual_machines

VirtualBox should be sufficient to evaluate the concept of
virtual machines. I find the GUI a bit annoying (it's a bit
too rigid at enforcing its own set of arbitrary rules). At least
with the VPC2007 I regularly use, you can move stuff around
from one machine to another, and the only rules enforced are
ones that affect data integrity.

Paul

How many hard drives (and size) do you place in your build these days?
 

Darklight wrote:

-- snipped --
Cloud base storage is just an external hard drive that some one else
maintains!!!

What a difference it makes when you change a name of some thing.

A rose by any other name is still a rose :-)

That doesn't change that using cloud based storage involves a matter of
trust about 24/7 accessibility (e.g., internet interruption), viability
of company (will the company providing service remain in business),
what happens to your data if the business shuts down, what procedures
does company have in place to maintain your data in case its equipment
breaks down, what happens if government sticks its nose in wanting to
look over your data - data stored by a third party may not have the
same legal protections, how well protected is one's data on a cloud
based storage compared to maintaining it in a private network and last
to what degree you want to shift responsibility and care of your data
to someone else.