Optimal harddrive config for music production system

[jetoney]

I use this system for music production, and I am wondering about config for HD's.

I have
P4 1.6a OC'd 2.133
Asus P4B266
512 DDR PC100
2X Western Digital 7200 40 gig drivesATA100
Promise TX2 controller card(no raid) ATA133(for current & future drives)
Matrox G550 dual head
Plextor 24/10/40 Ide CDRW
Sony CDR
removable drive bay for swapping the audio file drives( I think this is
only ATA 66/100 rated)

I am wondering what would be the best setup for my hardrives & drive bay?,
either on the controller card? or on the onboard controller?

I use one drive for OS/APPS, and one for audio files

Please give me your thoughts.

I was thinking about this:
onboard primary master(CDRW)
onboard primary secondary master(CDR)
Promise controller master(OS/APPS)
Promise controller secondary master(Audio files)
Promise controller secondary slave(removable drive bay)

or should I keep my OS drive as onboard master.
Will I see a performance hit, as far as the PCI traffic, if all my drives are
on the controller card?

Any and all thoughts welcome

JT

 

[Wonko The Sane]

if you're not going to be doing raid, that sounds pretty good. The best configuratoin though would be to set up the 2 WD drives in raid 0. you'd get a performance increase that way.

 

[Xaotic]

I agree with Wonko as far as configuration. There will be no appreciable hit on the PCI bus since the onboard IDE controllers are connected to that interface as well. RAID 0 will get better transfer speeds, but at the risk of data loss and cost of an additional card.

 

[Ice_Gargoylle]

yes, raid0. But if u keep everything on the array, u will need to back up all of your project files 9onto another drive, just in case.
Another option, which is the best, is going raid0+1. Since hdd's u have arent that much, u cud pik up 2 mmore and set it up this way. Your stripe drives will then be backed up in the event of a drive failure. You might lose some performance, but it beats losing asll of your working project files