My main office computer is a dedicated Windows machine of my own making. I know building your own PC is so 2002, but I like having complete control to include, add and upgrade exactly as I see fit – and if you want a high-end machine, you can save a load of cash doin’ it yourself.
Chances are your PC is a big box purchase (Dell, HP, etc.), so your overall hardware options are more limited than a do-it-yourselfer’s, but you still have complete control over at least one component in your machine: the hard drive. This being the case, I wanted to share a drive setup that works very well for me and hopefully will for you, too.
Western Digital makes a family of high speed 10000RPM drives called VelociRaptor; these drives are very fast, and make quick work of booting Windows and running large, slow-loading software (such as games). But the Raptor is only available in 74GB, 150GB and 300GB capacities, and they’re considerably more expensive than slower 7200RPM drives with comparable storage.
What I wanted for my office PC was the speed the Raptor provides (for booting Windows and running large applications), but with lots of extra storage. The solution was simple: use a Raptor as my boot and program drive (C:), and a larger, slower, cheaper drive for storage (D:, E:, etc.).
I call this the Two Drive Solution. Creative, right?
Moving to the Two Drive Solution is fairly straightforward. If your PC came with a large hard drive, you only need to buy one drive, a VelociRaptor, since you can use the existing drive for storage. If you want a larger drive than the one you already have, you can also purchase a new large-capacity hard drive for storage and sell the old disk (after you’ve wiped it, of course).
Once you have the Raptor in hand, you have two choices: (A) Clone & Keep or (B) Start Fresh.
Clone & Keep: Since your OS and existing files are already installed on the older, slower drive, you can copy its contents to the new Raptor (retaining all of programs, settings, files, etc.), then wipe the old drive for storage. Once you’ve booted back into Windows from the new Raptor, you can copy your files (photos, music, documents, etc.) to the now-blank storage drive.
My favorite disk cloning tool is Acronis True Image, but there are many other solutions. Acronis allows you to connect a new drive to your PC, run the software, and have the entire contents of the old drive copied to the new one, which is then swappable and bootable.
Start Fresh: Alternatively, you can backup your existing files to an external drive or DVDs, install the OS from your System Restore disc(s) onto the clean Raptor and format your old drive for use as a storage drive. You can then restore your backed-up files to the storage drive.
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The Two Drive Solution has a fantastic side benefit; since the OS and programs are installed on one drive and all files are stored on a second, if the OS fails, you re-install Windows, or you want to upgrade the OS drive, all of your data remains intact on the second storage drive. You can even change default locations for folders like My Documents to the storage drive so files are automatically stored there.
There are esoteric concerns and/or tweaks one might have or wish to make, which are far too numerous to list here. What is presented above is a basic concept. If you think the Two Drive Solution might work for you, but still have questions, email me.
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On this 4th of July, as we celebrate the 233rd anniversary of American Independence, let us take the time to remind ourselves of the document that followed 13 years later and still remains the Supreme Law of the United States of America: