[SOLVED] Speeding up my HDDs

[Skippy2416]

So I have 2 Barracuda 2TB HDDs that I am currently using for bulk storage. They are not in any raid and only set up as the same volume in the Windows storage manager. But I do have an extra 1tb ssd in my laptop that I am thinking about putting in my desktop. How would I go about this setting up these HDDs and SSD to have the best performance, this is only for bulk storage. Thinking about setting up the SSD as a cache, and put the HDDs into raid but I don't know what raid to use or how to set it up. Any recommendations?

 

[Math Geek]

for simple storage there is nothing to gain by doing this. it is a lot of effort and possible data loss for no real reason.

do yourself a favor and leave good enough alone unless you really need the performance boost for a specific task. it's just not worth it for the data to simply sit there waiting to be needed.

 

[Satan-IR]

For better performance, in terms of shorter read/write times (copying files to/from drive)? I would use SSD for the (copy?) jobs I need done faster and HDD for jobs that might take longer or files I might less frequently access/open/edit etc.

I wouldn't setup a RAID. With 2 drives you can setup RAID 0 and RAID 1. RAID 1 you'd have 2+2TB but usable capacity would be actually 2TB. Read and write performance would be medium, lower than any of the 2TB disks alone. One dirve fails you lose everythin.

RAID 0 you'd have a bit higher read / write speeds and 100% capacity but fault tolerance is 0 so one drive fails you lose everyhing. you're highly likely to lose data. However, on a daily desktop environment data load the speed gain would be trivial, next to nothing. You're not running a time-sensitive server or a data center, are you?

Also what model/part number do the 2TB Barracudas have?

 

[geofelt]

Not worth the effort.
Use the ssd for storage.
Ultimately, bulk data must be transferred to the hdd.
At that point the transfer becomes mechanical.
If you want performance, buy a 2tb ssd. Even then, the benefit will be much more on the read side vs. the write operations.

On a HDD, do not buy cheaper 5400 rpm drive, they are built for energy savings in a laptop, not for performance.
a 7200 rpm drive is faster.

 

[USAFRet]

So I have 2 Barracuda 2TB HDDs that I am currently using for bulk storage. They are not in any raid and only set up as the same volume in the Windows storage manager. But I do have an extra 1tb ssd in my laptop that I am thinking about putting in my desktop. How would I go about this setting up these HDDs and SSD to have the best performance, this is only for bulk storage. Thinking about setting up the SSD as a cache, and put the HDDs into raid but I don't know what raid to use or how to set it up. Any recommendations?

What size/make/model is this SSD?

But basically, don't.

No cache, no RAID. You'd be adding complexity for little or no gain.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Install your OS and commonly used apps (or all of your apps if you can fit it) in the SSD. Use the HDD for media and documents.

That's it.