Can you have hard drives like this?

T

tkcrabby

New Member
Hi,

I know that people run with more than one hard drive but exactly how do you do it? AND can you have one for your Operating System, one for your other software and a third harddrive for all other "files" such as Word docs, Pictures, music and videos?

Lastly, IF I can do this , exactly how do it do so?

Thanks ahead of time for the help folks!
 
You sure can. It is rather simple to set up, though installing software within Windows on a separate drive requires some extra steps during each program's installation.

You can install multiple drives into your computer provided you have room and connectors. In order to help you further, please list the make/model of your computer. Also, you will need to be willing to start from scratch in order to set this up properly. This means re-installing the OS and all your software.
 
Basics......
IDE (wide ribbon cable we all use or used before). your hd now with windows is the primary boot drive. with a 2nd drive there is a jumper on the back that requires it to be set to 'S' (slave). just plug it in. If its ide it will have another connector further down the strip that the primary drive is plugged into. plug in the power to one of the spare cables on the power supply. You need to know what kind of hd you have. Unless it newer it will likely be ide. Do ya have a Sata drive. if so there will be another connector slot on the board.
 
The only issue you may have with putting sotware/programs on another drive besides the boot drive is that some programs will install to the C drive and there is no way to change that. So, my advice is to use a large enough hard drive to partition it into 2 separate drives. The first partition for the operating system and programs and the second partition for data and personal files. Always, always keep your data backed up to a second media. Hard drives don't last forever. You might have one drive a week before it goes bad on you. So always keep your important data backed up. Or you can buy imaging software such as Acronis true image and you do backups every other day or once a week or what have you. If your drive goes out, you can have windows installed on another drive and back where you left off in around 30 minutes after restoring your backup image.
 
I do a very basic setup that's easy to do. But I have my Operating System/Programs on one Hard Drive. And then all my personal files and back-up on another Hard Drive. That way I didn't have to monkey with partitioning the HDs cause I really don't even know how to do that. :P
 
Thanks for the replies so far guys. The drive will be a Sata. I'm getting the parts together to "build" a machine and wanted to know about this subject so I'd know ahead of time if I would be needing the other one or two hard drives when I buy them. It will be a while longer before I have the cash but I wanted to do all the "research" to make sure BEFORE I get started,,,, so exactly how is it done?

About an OS,,,,,,, I'm not 100% sure at this point so would XP home, XP Pro OR Win7 be better for this?
 
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If you are building a new computer then windows 7 would be the way to go. Since you are using SATA drives then there would be no master/slave jumper issue. What you would do, is install one hard drive and put the operating system on it. Like I said before, some programs will only install on the boot drive so it doesn't make sense to have a separate hard drive for programs when they will be in both places and not all on one drive. So use the first drive for OS and programs and the second drive for data.
 
You may as well go with Windows 7. No point in purchasing XP now unless you have old software that has trouble running on the newer OSes.

Johnb35's suggestion is sound. You will have a lot less hassle running your OS and applications from one drive. Add as many other drives as you wish (and your system can handle) for data.
 
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Ok guys, I've been lookin' around and don't see this addressed,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, I understand that Sata is "better" than Ide and everyone is moving to Sata so,,,,,,,,, will someone please explain exactly how the Sata works? What I'm wanting to know is IF a MB has less Sata connections than the total amount of Sata drives (HDD, Optical, etc) that you want to install, what do you do? Will I have to use a mix of Sata AND Ide? OR can I get cables for BOTH the MB AND power supply connections to add "extensions" for the Sata's?
 
tkcrabby said:
Ok guys, I've been lookin' around and don't see this addressed,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, I understand that Sata is "better" than Ide and everyone is moving to Sata so,,,,,,,,, will someone please explain exactly how the Sata works? What I'm wanting to know is IF a MB has less Sata connections than the total amount of Sata drives (HDD, Optical, etc) that you want to install, what do you do? Will I have to use a mix of Sata AND Ide? OR can I get cables for BOTH the MB AND power supply connections to add "extensions" for the Sata's?
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Most motherboard these days only come with 1 IDE port, use that port for your IDE cdrom drives. Save the SATA ports for hard drives if you only have like 2 ports. The better motherboards will have 6 to 8 sata ports which you can use sata cdrom drives if you wish.
 
Thanks John,
You said, "1 IDE port, use that port for your IDE cdrom drives."

So from this I'm guessing that if one IDE "port" can be used for more than one IDE drive then one Sata port can be used for multiple Sata drives as well?

The machine that I'm planning on building will have two (2) Sata DVD burners, two (2) Sata Hdd , I guess 1 floppy drive (I guess if I use Win7 I don't need a floppy, correct?)
 
No, 1 sata device per port. With IDE port you can have up to 2 devices providing you have the right cable.
 
tkcrabby said:
So from this I'm guessing that if one IDE "port" can be used for more than one IDE drive then one Sata port can be used for multiple Sata drives as well?
Click to expand...

IDE ports can connect 2 devices.

SATA ports connect a single device. That's why there's generally 4 or more SATA ports on most boards.
 
Ok, thanks. Sorry to be asking what must be dumb questions BUT I have not seen this info anywhere ,,, ok, so as long as I make sure my MB that I end up buying has as least as many Sata ports as Sata drives I'm going to use I can go ALL Sata,,,,,, how about the Sata as far as the power supply? can multi drives be powered by using "extensions" OR do they have to have their own individual plugs as well?
 
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