Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,uk.comp.homebuilt (
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Sal Monella <salmonella@idontwantanyemailanyway.moc> wrote in message news:<4075BFD1.C4AD68B4@idontwantanyemailanyway.moc>...
>I like to keep different OS's on their own drives. That's the main
>reason I have 2 or more HDs in most of my boxes. It keeps things nicely
>separated so I can reinstall windoze without it futzing with Linux and
>what not.
I used to be like that, but I've since decided that I
prefer having just one drive with multiple partitions.
A second, small drive is more reliable when it's in
storage not attached to anything. If I need to reinstall
Windows, I just copy over the Windows OS partition from a
backup copy (either from the LAN or from that second,
small drive).
Mainly, I like having just one drive per computer for
noise/power issues, but there's also the matter of
mean-time-between-failures. Hard drives have an annoying
habit of failing when it's inconvenient and I don't
feel like dealing with it. Okay, so there is NO convenient
time when I feel like dealing with a damaged hard drive.
Right?
If I had two drives in each computer, I'd be dealing with
damaged drives twice as often. A RAID can reduce the
risk of data loss, but it doesn't reduce the annoyance
factor of pulling/replacing a dead drive. No thanks!
I'd rather leave all those little drives I used to put
OS's on in storage where they can't fail and ruin my day.
I can live with the small performance hit and modest
storage loss of putting OS partitions on my big drives.
Of course, with just one drive per computer, I can't RAID.
However, any data which I really care about I frequently
copy over the LAN and semi-frequently backup onto CD/DVD.
Isaac Kuo