hard drive configuration - suggestions?

[GerryDavid]

I just received my new windows 7 64bit laptop in the mail today and I picked up a couple external Seagate 3tb usb3.0 hard drives at Bestbuy last night, so I am trying to figure out what the best configuration would be for photography since that will be the mail use of this new computer.

The laptop has a 750gb internal hd, I was thinking of partitioning it to 250gb for programs and 500gb for pictures. Then install some software to automatically mirror what ever is on the 500gb partition to one of the two 3tb hd's. I was thinking of partitioning each of the 3tb drives to 500gb and 2.5tb. the 2.5tb would be long term storage and the 500gb would be what im currently working on. I would alternate the two 3tb hd's each week keeping one of them in a safe location. This would give me 3 copies of the current pictures *probably 6 months worth*.

Is this a waste of effort or a good idea?

I also have a spare usb2 1tb external drive.

Suggestions and advice will be appreciated.

 

[GerryDavid]

Oh and I waited 2 hours for best buy to open, then another 1.5 hours to get through the crazily long line to get to the cash register, to save $60 on each of the 3tb usb3 drives. I went back at 5pm with the wife and there was a few drives on the shelf waiting to be bought. Makes you wonder why you do the things you do.

 

[photo guy]

I think it would be an awful lot of work to partition the drive and keep alternating the drives. Just copy to each drive periodically should do the trick and save you a lot of time and hassle.

 

[Zrock]

Seagate drives come with some software on them. I installed the dashboard and purchased the seagate sync program. Set it up and it will automatically sync whenever you plug in the drive. Only reason i bought teh add on software is im running a few diffrent drives and figured i would give it a try. U can use always sync as well and its free but limited i ended up buying that as well. I find the seagate version way faster

 

[tirediron]

RAID 1!

 

[joealcantar]

Well if you have two externals I would save your initial files to both of them , you have more than two TB in each to work with. Then flag your favorite images and bring the files into your laptop and work those only so it does not hog up the memory in the laptop. The seagate will automatically backup what you do on the laptop to both of your drives as you plug into them. I like the seagates and have them for backup on all computers. But one day will get a drobo...
-
Shoot well, Joe

 

[KmH]

Hopefully, the laptop has an IPS type display, or you have an external IPS display to use for editing images, and you can expand the internal RAM memory sufficiently to take full advantage of 64-bithood.

Most laptops have the el cheapo TN type display that has much narrower color accurate viewing angles than an IPS display has.

Laptops are notoriously poor machines for image editing, even when they have an IPS display, because the display is so small.

I partition my TB drives in 500 GB segments configured as a RAID 1 array.

 

[GerryDavid]

I have a larger monitor for my photoshop work. im hoping the new laptop will have a good color accurate monitor but it doesnt matter either way.

isnt partitioning a single large drive into smaller drives and using it as a raid a bit pointless? If the drive crashes all the partitions are lost?

photoguy, not that much work to me, and its a good idea to keep a backup of your work off site.

Now I have another question, Ill create a new thread for it, but I have three 2tb hard drives, the first one is the one I work on and has the psd's, and the other two have the original jpgs and raws from the camera, and some of the psd's are copied over. Im not great at copying over the psd's since it something I have to remember to do, which is why I want to start a new method for the 3tb drives so it copies everything over automatically.

now my main 2tb hd doesnt seem to be recognized by the computer, luckily I have most of the files I need but it would be great to get tot he rest of the files. My plan today was to erase the 3rd 2tb and copy over the first 2tb to it, one day to late!

 

[KmH]

Not if your RAID is set up to put the mirror copies into a partition that is physically on a different drive.

So are you saying you didn't check what type of display the laptop had before you bought it?

 

[GFP]

nope, it was a great price and had great specs. I dont care about the display on it since I have the external monitor. the laptop was $450 refurbed and it has a quad core at either 1.1 or 1.4ghz each, 6gb ram, 500gb video ram, 750gb hd, four usb ports, two of those are usb3, and a 17" screen. also the keyboard has a numberic keypad on the side and the keys are all the right size. I hate it when they shrink keys and put them in weird spots.

 

[GFP]

oh and kmh, I misunderstood what you said. I thought you meant you took one external drive, partitioned it and mirrored the partitions on the same physical drive.

 

[Garbz]

RAID 1!

Repeat after me, RAID IS NOT BACKUP.

Hopefully, the laptop has an IPS type display

Good luck with that

 

[tirediron]

RAID 1!

Repeat after me, RAID IS NOT BACKUP.

I agree. To a certain extent. "RAID 1 (mirroring without parity or striping), data is written identically to multiple drives, thereby producing a "mirrored set"." Sounds to me like an excellent application of two identical HDDs. The chances of both failing at the same time I would assess as very slim. Of course I would always recommend a CD/DVD back-up as well, but the OPs question I believe related to suggestions for the use of multiple drives.

 

[Dao]

If someone accidentally delete a file, or a virus wipe out the data or data corruption occur in the primary drive. Data loss may occur for RAID 1

As for drive backup, you can sync the files to the external drive. And sync another copy to another drive. Take that drive to other place such as work place and store it as off site backup. Once in awhile, bring that drive back to resync it. ( there are utilities sync only updated or new files)

 

[GerryDavid]

the computer is back on Costco.com's website, but I dont see the details on the monitor as to if its IPS or not. Its LED though, which im thinking is not IPS from what I remember.

Costco - Refurbished HP dv7 Brushed Metal Laptop AMD A6-3400M at 1.4GHz Beats