Multiple Hard Drive's

Chazz1981

Honorable
May 2, 2013
2
0
10,510
Hi all, Just wondering if im right in thinking what i have as my set up? I currently have two HDD's both SATA II one at 1TB which I have my windows 7 OS and software on and the Second 1.5TB HDD which I use like an external drive but in the machine where i store all my Photo's DVD's Music ect. The idea is so that if my OS or main drive was to crash all my documents will be safe on the second drive, am i right in thinking this?

Also im using USB 2.0 and am happy with it but been reading up on USB 3.0 but alot off people are saying its not really worth it as there's not alot n products out there that supports this speed yet? Is there a PCI card for this so if i need to I can just get one instead of a complete MB.

My set up is simple built for college work: 3gb ram ddr2, CD/DVD supermulti, Due core 7750 Athlon 64x2, standard graphics, MB is MSI with two sata ports with a PCI card with three more for extra if needed
 
I use 3 drives in my computer. The OS Drive (SSD), the data drive (1TB WD Black), and the backup drive (2TB WD Black). I store all my data on the 1TB data drive, and use a program called SyncBack Free to backup the data to the 2TB backup drive. I also backup my wife's computer to that drive (she has two drives - SSD for OS, and 1TB WD Black for data).

You should always have a backup copy...hard drives fail. It is very uncommon for two drives to fail at once, but even that is possible.

The SyncBack Free is free software, and runs over night (wakes up my computer and runs, it also wakes up my wife's computer and runs) when we aren't using the computers. It has saved me 3 times in the last 6 years....haven't lost a single byte of data with 3 hard drives crashing....
 
The idea is so that if my OS or main drive was to crash all my documents will be safe on the second drive, am i right in thinking this?

This is correct. However, *important* items that cannot be replaced (photos, schoolwork) should also be replicated somewhere else, just in case that drive dies instead. IOW, a backup.

Maybe another drive that's turned on once a week just to copy the stuff over.

For just HDD's, SATS II is fine. There are many PCi -> SATA3 cards out there. ex. http://www.amazon.com/Crest-Port-SATA-PCI-Express-SY-PEX40039/dp/B005B0A6ZS
$15 at Amazon.
 
For an EXTERNAL drive, USB3 will be noticeably faster than USB2. Virtually all SATA 3.0 and 6.0 Gb/s drives can move data faster than a USB2 connection can, so the USB2 system limits performance. USB3 is much faster and allows the HDD to deliver its max speed, very much as if it were mounted as an internal HDD

Just do NOT expect 6.0 Gb/s performance! The fastest HDD's commonly available can deliver an average data transfer rate a little over 150 MB/s, which is a lot faster than USB2. But it is not 600 MB/s!