For Truck PC: Use 2 old hard drives or 1 new one?

prerunnerv6 · 11-07-2002, 01:00 PM

Just looking for opinions.

I've been using 2 old 4gig hard drives in my setup. Both in removable trays. So my music is split to two drives. I use batch files to operate the pc, so this hasn't been a problem.

I ordered a 40 gig 7200rpm drive and was planning on putting it in a secondary home computer (233mmx) to rip cd's.

So I'm wondering, should I just leave the 2 old drives alone since they are working fine. Or will there be any advantage to using the new 40gig drive in my truck pc. Any input?

ShinkunoNamida · 11-07-2002, 01:31 PM

Using one instead of two means less power consumption (usually).

prerunnerv6 · 11-07-2002, 01:43 PM

Thanks for replying.

What impact will this have on my system? Just curious. Is this the only main advantage to having one drive?

Maybe I'm just concerned about using a new drive in the vehicle. I've been using old drives because if they break, it didn't cost me anything.

jol · 11-07-2002, 02:40 PM

How much power do you got? if it's enuff to house 2 harddrives, use it.

and, if one crashes, it wont hurt that much as if it was the large one

Typhoon747 · 11-07-2002, 03:08 PM

Do you have more that 8GB worth of content you would like in the truck? If not don't worry about it. If you do, then install it.

Charliey · 11-07-2002, 09:04 PM

if you dont need more room for storage, keep going with your existing hard drives.

if it isnt broked, dont fix it.

prerunnerv6 · 11-08-2002, 12:56 PM

Thanks for all of the input.

Well, it looks like the computers have made the decision for me. I hooked up the 40gig hd to the 233mmx home computer and the bios won't detect it. (So I assume the 166mmx in the truck won't see it either since I'm using DOS). But, Windows98 detects it once it's loaded. So I formatted and partitioned the drive and it shows the full drive at 39.xxx gigs. Since bios won't detect it, I can't use it as a main drive on the home or truckpc. So I'm setting it as a slave drive to store and backup my mp3s in case my truckpc fails. And I'll leave my 2-hd truck setup alone. It only takes a few extra seconds to remove 2 hd's anyway. I know that there may be ways around the bios thing, but until I get more than 8 gigs of music, it's not worth the effort.

Thanks for the help. By the way, if I'm doing any damage by using the drive in Windows even though the bios doesn't see it, PLEASE let me know.

Telek · 11-08-2002, 04:14 PM

geeze you can probably get a much faster computer for about the same that you paid for that drive :P

Don't forget, most drives come with an installation disk that will allow you to "Boot" off of your disk if your bios won't see it. So you can use that disk in just about any computer. But I agree with the others that you shouldnt' use that drive in your car unless you need to.

Aaron Cake · 11-09-2002, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Telek
Don't forget, most drives come with an installation disk that will allow you to "Boot" off of your disk if your bios won't see it.

Never, ever, ever use an overlay to install a drive. Ever.

Believe me, it will only cause problems in the future.

Telek · 11-09-2002, 10:41 AM

If all you're doing is running windows95 on an *in-car* PC that will only be used for playing music and a few other *automated* tasks and you won't be changing it much, using the overlay isn't a problem at all

On your main PC, no, I wouldn't suggest it, but I have seen people use it without issue. Certainly not if you're a big techie that loves to change your OS though

Aaron Cake · 11-10-2002, 11:04 AM

Seems to me that in car is where you would want the system to be most reliable. Dealing with weird problems is very difficult and annoying in the car, especially when you don't have a monitor.

But running an overlay in a car has one major disadvantage: it renders the disc unreadable in your "main" machine. If this is your chosen way of updating your files, you're out of luck.

Telek · 11-10-2002, 11:29 PM

ok guys, this seems like a really dumb question, but if boot times are so quick off a CF card, this must be because of seek times, right? After all, HD throughput is -10x that of a CF card. So why not make a 64MB image on the hard drive, load that into memory and then boot off of that? That should be even faster than booting off of a CF card...?

prerunnerv6 · 11-11-2002, 11:26 PM

Aaron, I'm leaving everything well enough alone.

Telek, I appreciate the input. The 40 gig hd cost me $75. And the 233mmx machine cost $0. So you can see that I've invested minimal money. I have a small home LAN that I put together and I'm simply adding it to that for mp3 storage. I have a faster main computer.

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