Advice With Changing Data & Hardware Organization

[Ed Cordes]

This may turn out to be a long post, so I appreciate your indulgence.

I currently have about 500 Gig of data saved on an external drive. My computer has two 500 Gig HDs, one of which I have been using as a primary back up of OS, software and programs and current year's data. Previous year's data is on the external 1 TB drive along with a back up of the current year. So the picture is as follows:

C Drive - OS, Programs and current year's images
D Drive - copy of above
External - copy of all images from previous years as well as those on C and D drives.

For the record images from previous years are also backed up on yet another external drive so I have 2 copies of everything.

I want to change the organization to separate the OS and Programs on one drive and the images and data on another. If I do this I can make an Acronis back up of just the drive containing the OS and programs which can be used as a bootable emergency back up in case of disaster.

My plan would then be to have 2 drives with the data, one internal and one external.

So, first question is does this make sense as a good strategy?

Second question is can I replace one of my 500 Gig internal drives with a 1 TB internal (probably a WD Caviar) for internal data storage and fast access by programs like Bridge and PhotoShop? Is inserting the new drive pretty much plug and play, format to NTFS and add data?

Third question is can I just copy the files from "My Documents" from the C drive to the new 1 TB D drive and when it comes up direct the software (PhotoShop, Bridge, Word, Excel,etc.) to seek data on the D drive?

I will, of course, have another 1 TB drive as data back up for the D drive stored off site in case of emergency.

So, does this sound like a good idea? Am I off base in approach?

BTW, I have looked into Drobo, Burley, and other stack able disk solutions and pretty much decided I don't quite need that much space yet. I already own a 1 TB external for data and a 300 GB external for OS and Program back up, so all I would have to spend is the $ for a new 1 TB internal drive (about $140). When this process is completed I will also have an additional 500 Gig SATA drive I can put in an enclosure for an additional external when I need it.

Thanks or your help

[Bob Ettinger]

Ed,

Question 2: That is the way it will work. Add the drive, format and copy the data. If you are using Vista you have to go into the Control panel, Computer Mgmt, Disk Utilities to find the drive.

Question 3: Yes you can copy all the files from "My Documents" to the drive. You will have to go into the specific program "settings/options" to find the appropriate drive letter so that it will access the drive by default.

Hope this helps.

[CliveTonge]

Hi Ed,
This is an excellent idea. Especially as you have described it, with the programs and OS on one physical drive and the data on another.
You may want to consider setting up your d: drive as a raid copy (Mirror) of your C: drive and then adding the Terabyte drive. This would be somewhat more difficult to set up, and would have to be supported by your motherboard, but it adds a huge redundancy and protection against hard drive failure.

Good Luck,
Clive