DUMB Hard Drive Questions - Please humor me...

[u2bonoman]

Ok I am very new to this (duh I am in the Newbie section), and I am getting a second hard drive. My friend is selling me a 180 Gb external drive to go along with my 60 GB internal drive that came with the computer.

How does this work exactly? I keep all my programs including my OS, sequencer, plugins, etc on the original 60 GB drive, and just use the new one for STORING audio files?

If that is correct, how does this actually improve performance? I mean, if I am still using the old one for my programs? I guess I just don't know much about the technology side of it all... If someone could just give me the rundown of some simple steps to take I would appreciate it.

Also, I have heard that since I have a fairly new computer with XP, I should NOT partition my drive, especially since I am getting a new one that is as large as it is. Is that correct? I am sure there are some differing opinions on this matter...

Any help you could offer, I would greatly appreciate it. Most of this stuff is like another language to me really... Thanks!

[Stealthtech]

The larger drive wil not improve performance really, but using it for audio storage is good. Stereo audio tracks take up a good bit of space.(15 Mb per 3 minute track X 8 Tracks =120Mb) This will leave your primary drive freed up.
When you record...write the files to external drive.

[Stealthtech]

although....I've never used a firewire or USB external drive for recording so I cant comment on read/write performance...it may be better to write to your internal drive and copy them over to the external.

[TexRoadkill]

Having the audio on it's own drive will improve performance. It allows the IDE bandwidth to be used for just audio if you put the drives on seperate IDE ports. If you are going to go external your best bet is firewire so you don't restrict the bandwidth with USB.