Need some storage advice

Hello All,

I just had a 1yo seagate 80gb drive die on me and find that Im going to need more space soon but Im not sure what would be best.

At the moment I have 2 HDs, my boot drive is an 80GB SATA, and the 2nd is an 120GB ATA100 drive.
I tend to throw all my saved .exe's and whatnot on the 120GB drive cuz my boot drive gets formatted every 2-3 months.....

Here is what I have thought up so far...

Option #1
Buy a 36GB raptor and use it as my boot drive, allowing me to use my 80GB for more storage.

Option #2
Save money and buy an 7200rpm 80-120GB drive but between the 3 drives will end up having 60GB+ in spare/wasted space.

Option #3
Buy a DVD burner and burn about 60GB to cd and then spend another $30+ for cds that can get damaged easily.

At the moment, I'm going towards option #1 since I hardly use more then 40GB on my boot drive for fear XP is going to get messed up and need to do another format.

Any suggestions as to what might be the best bet? Perhaps something I havnt thought of?

well no matter what you do ..getting a dvd burner is relly helpful

i burn anything that took more then 20 secs to download lol. i got 40 cds and 15 dvds full of programs...also all software disks backed up

I really have thought about a DVD burner since I have at least 15GB of stuff that I dont use often but at the same time I like having it only a click away and then loading right away, unlike a DVD that Id have to load, wait to spin up, read, ....blah blah....

If I do go with a DVD burner, should I get a dual layer one or not? would 8X be fast enough or should I look into a 12x? What brand?

well dual layer is not relly that big but i got one just because i wanted it.. had money so

most the stuff i burn is so that if i ever lose or have to format my files parttion then i can reload evrything

Don't get a 12x unless you have access to the media for it. Dual layer media is hard to find now too. $60 to $70 will get you a good 8x DVD/CD RW. Speed is not that important unless you do a lot of burning to the whole disk. ie. video.

As for HDD's do not worry about getting too much. The raptors are nice, I have one. But they are really a luxury on home computers. I would suggest a 80 or 120 GB 7200 rpm drive WD caviar are my favorites.

fabulouscoops said:

Don't get a 12x unless you have access to the media for it. Dual layer media is hard to find now too. $60 to $70 will get you a good 8x DVD/CD RW. Speed is not that important unless you do a lot of burning to the whole disk. ie. video.

Click to expand...

I have 30GB in video that would have to be burned if I go the burner route.

fabulouscoops said:

As for HDD's do not worry about getting too much. The raptors are nice, I have one. But they are really a luxury on home computers. I would suggest a 80 or 120 GB 7200 rpm drive WD caviar are my favorites.

Click to expand...

I only thought about a raptor because I hardly use more then 20GB on my bootdrive.

Even tho I had a 60GB WD die on me, I have thought about a regular WD drive or perhaps Maxtor since I still have a 15GB that is running as the day I bought it.

Anyone else out there have any ideas for I go out and buy?