Second Hard drive configuration

stpierre87

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I just installed a second hard drive in my PC. (WD, 10000rpm, 500gb, sata 6.0 connection.) The original hard drive is at WD, 7500rpm, 640gb, sata 3.0 connection. The question I have is how I should use this second hard drive to optimize my PC's performance while using Lightroom 4, Adobe PS elements 11, and Adobe Premiere. I was thinking of moving all the files to the second hard drive and only running the programs on the first or maybe the other way around, I don't know. I was just looking to see what other peoples thoughts were.

Thanks.
 
I can't speak for that software because I don't use it. But I actually have 3 hard drives in my tower.

The first is a 1 TB drive with has all my software. The second, another 1 TB drive, are you strictly for virgin downloads. The third drive, an 80 GB drive, is used solely for the cache for my processing software.
 
I am on a Mac but I run all my programs on a SSD drive and everything else is on other HD's If you move your LR files look up how to do it because LR will not know where they went .... they will not be lost it is just LR will not know where they went. I have had no problems with this system for over a year
 
I have three HD's as well, but a bit different than that above...

I have 2 solid state HDs 240GB each RAID0 together. All processes slit in half and ran at the same time. The 3rd is a 2TB HD for storage.
 
Typically to optimize performance, you will put the operating system and program files on the fast drive. I have a five drive configuration with a fast SSD drive for the operating system (250mb), I then put lightroom program files on the first 2TB drive, lightroom database on the second 2tb drive and photos on the third 2 tb drive. This has OS optimized and splits to program s and data. You'll be calling the OS the most, and LR. If that new drive is the fastest it would be best to swap them. If you get a Startec.com Hard Drieve Duplicator (only about $60 ). You could do a bit for bit copy from your C: drive, then physically swap them. But the drive you copy to, I think, needs to be as large or larger than the copy from. So, that woudl be my concern. If the drive was the same size or bigger it would be a peice of cake. I just swapped one of my laptop drives from a 500gb to 1 tb, it was simple with the Startec. JD
 
My setup has always been put the most used files on the fastest drive (mb/sec transfer speed) and everything else on the slower drive(s). On my XP computer, I put Windows and all programs on the faster (smaller) drive. Everything else was split between a pair of 250 gig drives. On my new computer, Windows, all programs, My Documents, and all in-process photos are on the SSD drive. All else is considered 'occassional access' or 'long term storage' and is on my slower 1TB drive.

I regularly clone each and keep an offsite copy as well, in case of fire, theft, tornado, or whatever. "Offsite" copies of all in-process photos are on 1 or more thumb drives in my pocket until they are finished, moved to the 1TB -and- offsite copy made.
 
I have 2 solid state HDs 240GB each RAID0 together. All processes slit in half and ran at the same time. The 3rd is a 2TB HD for storage.

As a matter of interest are there RAID controllers which natively pass through the TRIM command yet?

I just installed a second hard drive in my PC. (WD, 10000rpm, 500gb, sata 6.0 connection.)

There's no real appreciable difference in speeds for Lightroom between different drives. Even using an SSD will only buy you seconds in a 10minute activity in Lightroom. On that note, my future suggestion is if you want a blazingly fast computer, get an SSD. Install windows and your applications on it, and save the spinny disks for everything else. Oh and IMO the Raptors are a waste of money in a world where they get horrendously spanked in performance by a $100 SSD.
 
This is how I have my PC setup..... drive wise.

First one is an SSD Boot drive, the rest are all WD black 2TB drives...

$drives.JPG

I also run 2 2TB external E-Sata drives for backup... switch them out every other week.
 
Like others said, for best performance you want a Solid State Drive (SSD) for your OS/programs and a separate drive for your files. I have 125GB SSD for my OS and a pair of 2TB drives mirrored for the files (which are also backed up off site).

With the new drive being a 10k it'd be better to have your OS on it.
 
This is how I have my PC setup..... drive wise.

Oh Wow! May I ask why you split drives up like that? I used to do it back in the day of FAT32 which suffered heavily from fragmentation issues on the drive but these days to me it makes more sense to use folders. Actually quite the opposite. I've taken a drive and rather than adding the partition to my system as a logical disk I've mounted the partition into an NTFS folder so C: is my SSD, and D: is all my other drives.

The only downside I could see to partitioning like that is dead space (not an issue unless your run your computer at the storage limit like I do, which reminds me I need to purge some old files again, :( )
 
This is how I have my PC setup..... drive wise.

Oh Wow! May I ask why you split drives up like that? I used to do it back in the day of FAT32 which suffered heavily from fragmentation issues on the drive but these days to me it makes more sense to use folders. Actually quite the opposite. I've taken a drive and rather than adding the partition to my system as a logical disk I've mounted the partition into an NTFS folder so C: is my SSD, and D: is all my other drives.

The only downside I could see to partitioning like that is dead space (not an issue unless your run your computer at the storage limit like I do, which reminds me I need to purge some old files again, :( )

Probably habit from years and years ago... more than anything. I like to be able to just specify a drive letter when backing up also. I don't run any of the drives anywhere near full... and have room to extend if needed on the smaller partitions...

My first drive was a 20 megabyte SCSI that cost me like $600, way back when. Never did fill that thing up...lol! Having Terabytes to play seems almost ridiculous!
 
My first drive was a 20 megabyte SCSI that cost me like $600, way back when. Never did fill that thing up...lol! Having Terabytes to play seems almost ridiculous!

Oh god when I think back I don't know how I actually manage to fill up my drives now :D
 

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