Configuring 3 Hard Drives & DVD for DAW

[PSMK]

Hello,

I've been recording for several years and am now attempting to build my first DAW. I've got a question regarding how to configure the hard drives.

The motherboard is the ASUS P4c800 E Deluxe

I'll be installing Gigstudio 3 along with Cubase SX3 and various other samples, so I'll need to be able to do DFD.

Here is my planned purchase list and my method of setting up the 3 hard drives:

1) Western Digital 40 Gig, 8mb cache for the OS and the programs.
2) Western Digital 200 Gig 8mb cache SATA for giga samples and other DFD sample.
3) Western Digital 80 Gig 8mb cache SATA for Audio (I'll probably partition into 20 gig (active Audio files) and 60 gig for (archived Audio files)
4) Plextor DVD RW (? PX712A I believe is the model #)

My question is: which drive(s) to install on separate channels and which are master(s) and slave(s). I realize that the SATA will go to the SATA channels, but........I'm not sure about OS drive and DVD etc. Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Paul

[Bulls Hit]

I'd put the 40GB IDE on the primary master and the DVD on the secondary master.

And instead of partitioning the 80GB SATA for backups, consider creating an 80GB partition on the 200GB SATA, and backing up your audio to that.

[PSMK]

Thanks Bulls Hit for responding to my question.

I'm not sure I understand...why do you suggest I put the temporary back up audio files on the sample drive? (I have over 100 gig of samples) and with Giga 3 out I'm quite certain that I'll be adding more. I'm aware that eventually the archived audio files will be saved to DVD or some external drive, just not sure what your reasoning is...please fill me in.

Thanks again for your suggestion regarding the OS drive and the DVD.

Paul

[xstatic]

The best reason is that if you have a crash on one drive, then your data will be on the other also. Partitions can be suspect sometimes.

[PSMK]

Thanks xstatic for your response.

I plan on keeping the finished files on the audio drive for a short period of time and even those, I would back up to CD or DVD. So, I believe that I'd be as safe as one can be with hard drives, files and backups! Thanks again for your input!

Paul

[xstatic]

As soon as you think you are safe, make another backup. You can't have too many back-ups.