Dilemma: 1 drive or 2 drives???????

[Manta_Prox]

To all,

I have gathered the following parts so far;
CPU:
AMD AM2 x2 4850e
Mobo:
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-DS2H
AMD 780G ATX
RAM:
Corsair TwinX DDR2 PC2-6400
2x2GB
CPU cooler:
Scythe Ninja Mini Cooler
Remote:
Harmony 525 Remote

Still to get:
Hauppauge HVR-2200

LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray/
HD-DVD player Combo
or
Pioneer SATA Blu-Ray
Player/Writer

Corsair HX-620
Silverstone LC16B
Vista Ultimate

My dilemma now is do I get one big fat 1TB harddisk and use separate partitions OR do I get two separate drives. One for OS and one big fat drive for recordings?
My concern with two drives is added heat and noise in the case. Performance may be a fraction better with 2 drives though, so I think it's decision about a compromise between performance vs heat/noise.

Input from anyone who's already gone through this would be greatly appreciated.

[TiggerK]

HI there,

I'd go two drives myself as big as you can afford, you'll probably soon find that you need more storage and won't regret it. The Samsung drives are cheap, quiet and cool, so no issue there.

620HX power supply is overkill, the 520 will be fine, nice P/S either way.

Looking good...

Cheers
TiggerK

[markc3012]

Do a bit of looking around the forums here and you will find it is popular to have 2 or 3 HDDs of various sizes. Or at least 2 x 500-750gb drives seem to be the norm.
I think the case is ... 2 x smaller HDDs are better than one large HDD for heat, noise.
Stick with known brands like Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung.
Your case will fit 2 x drives easily.
They are a great brand of case.
And go the Pioneer DVD Drive.

[dwebkombi]

More drives mean more moving parts means more noise..... simple equation.
Some people (like me) are more fussy about the quietness of their system, others accept a bit of whirring and humming or dont even hear it....
I had 3 x 400g samsung drives (in raid) and swapped them for one samsung 750g drive.
The result is definitely quieter and definitely less heat. I will now use external storage when and where required. Hope this helps

[Zilch]

One drive. A quiet system for HTPC wins out over any slight performance gain you may get any day.

Go NAS for extra space if you need it, but by the time you have filled up a 1TB WD A/V drive, the 2TB
ones will probably be out for you to upgrade anyway.

[RedFoxxx]

ive got half my system in the mail, including the hdd

i have got 1x 1000gb drive

how much do you think to allow for OS/programs? 50gb? then 950gb for media?

[DDH]

If its the only MCE then I'm a fan of 2+ drives since you can image weekly in situ automatically. Set the HDDs to spin down after 15 minutes thus pretty much resolving the heat and noise issue, only the drive in use is spinning. With having 2 physical HDDs I still split HDD0 into two logical drives, 40Gb for easy operating system imaging and management.

Just building a system similar to the one you describe for a mate. It is going to be the only MCE in his house and have installed 2 x 750Gb with HDD0 having a 40Gb Vista partition.

If its a second MCE or using remote storage then go for one HDD.

[krypto]

Given that recorded TV can only live on one partition and I dont like RAID in my VMC I went for a 1tb = 930GB usable for recorded TV. (Nearly ran out of space during the olympics ) I also keep weekly images of my sys partition on this disk.

My system lives on a separate HDD which has 2 partitions, one for sys and one for other media.

The logic is to keep disk intensive recording on a dedicated HDD and low intensity stuff on the same physical HDD as the sys. I use a samsung eco-green 1tb for recorded tv and it will happily cope with multiple simultaneous recording and watching activities.

[Manta_Prox]

Thanks for the input fellas.

This will be my first MCE box. I currently have a fileserver on the network, so storage wise I am good already.

I might start with the 1TB drive version of the MCE and see how it performs.

I have no problem going and getting a 250GB to use as the OS / Imaging disk if I need to.

[Skarsnik]

I figure two drives == less thrashing == less noise.