Best Hard Drive Configuration

[mini_2003]

I'm looking forward to getting a new hard drive, but I don't know what to get. I currently have a Western Digital IDE 160 GB running Windows XP, and I want to get a new hard drive, so I can format this one and slave it. I don't know what to get, (price range around 100), and I want it to be the fastest configuration possible. I was wondering if I could get a SATA hard drive and use it as my primary and put the OS on it, but I don't know if that will work. I want to run programs off of the primary and have my documents, video editing files, etc. on the slave, but if anyone can suggest anything that will work better or more efficiently, please do so.

PC Specs

Intel Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz
512 Mb 3200Mhz RAM
Windows XP Home
Gateway 710X Home PC

 

[TRDCorolla1]

sounds like you need RAID 0. Faster access time and high storage all in one using SATA making it even faster. I don't know what Gateway put in your case, but check the motherboard specs to see if it supports RAID and SATA.

 

[DarkBlade1]

I fit supports RAID, do RAID 0 with another 160GB IDE HD. If you have SATA, get a small 10K RPM Raptor from WesternDigital, and then use that for your boot drive, and put anything you want to run really fast on that drive, but don't overfill it. Or get an IDE Maxtor 16MB Cache drive like I am getting, much faster transfer sizes, and they come in 250GB!