New Computer...HD question

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zed32

zed32

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well i finally got a computer that should be pretty strong for musical creation purposes. here's my list of new gadgets:

ABIT KN8 SLI motherboard
GIGABYTE GV-NX76T256D-RH video card
2GB Patriot Signature RAM
Scythe S-Flex 120mm case fan (x2)
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 San Diego processor
SAMSUNG 740BX 17" flat panel monitor (x2)
OCZ 600W power supply

this is in the 4U rackmount case that i already had, loaded with a Plextor PX-716A DVDRW drive and a Firepod running winXP.

now my question is about the hard drives...
i have my Windows installed on a 80GB WD Caviar (7200RPM, 8MB cache, IDE ATA 100) and i have two other HDD at my disposal. one is a 320GB Seagate Barracuda (7200RPM, 16MB cache IDE ATA100) and the other is a 250GB Seagate Barracuda (7200RPM, 8MB cache, SATA). so which of the two larger drives should i use for recording, and which for storage?

the 320 has a larger cache, does that mean its gonna work a little faster for recording? the 250 is SATA but has a smaller cache, does the SATA interface provide any specific advantage for use as a recording drive?

i hope i don't kick myself down the road for not going with a dual-core processor, but the FX-55 looks to be a pretty good processor, and i got a killer deal on it so hopefully it'll last me a while.

thanks in advance for any suggestions.
 
Well, 320gb is sort of too much for raw audio files(atleast for 44.1khz)...but it depends on how many projects you save into that hard drive...
 
what do you mean by 'too much'? is the larger size going to make it less effective? or are you just saying it's more than i really need? it doesn't really matter now since these are drives that i already have in my possession. the 320 was on my old computer and the 250 is brand new.

also, should i worry about doing any partitioning since i already have 3 separate drives? would there be any point to partitioning off a smaller part of one of the drives to gain a performance advantage?
 
I'd say it doesn't really matter. The main thing is to keep the OS on a seperate drive which you've already done. I would install both the other drives and use the quietest one to record on, and backup your projects on the other one
 
i am using all of them, i'm just wondering which one i should dedicate for recording, and which one i should use to store the files after they are recorded and finished.

so right now i guess i'll go with the 250GB SATA for recording and see how it does. if there's no issues, then i'll stick with it. thanks guys.
 
My best guesstimate is that it doesn't matter, but if you had to choose I'd go with the SATA.
 
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