What to do with an extra HD?

[Adcadet]

so, long story, but I've ended up with an extra Seagate Cheetah 18XL. I had two and was planning on putting WinXP Pro (hey, a med student has to have some gaming fun) on one, and Linux as the other as my main OS. Now I've got 3 Cheetahs. I must be getting distracted by something (hmmm...school perhaps) 'cause I can't figure out what's "best."

OK, basic system specs:
Athlon 64 3000+
MSI K8T Neo
512 MB PC3200
Radeon 8500 with two 19" CRT's
Adaptec 3950U2B (dual channel U2W-LVD)
3 X 9 GB Cheetah 18 XL's
1 X 9 GB Atlas IV
1 X 120 GB Caviar SE
1 X 200 GB Caviar SE on network (for lecture videos, MP3s)
Burner
DVD drive

As I mentioned above, I want Linux (thinking Mandrake 9.2) as my main desktop OS, but I want to keep WinXP around for Madden '04. Most of the small files I use on a regular basis I keep on my school laptop or on a school server. So keeping on of the Cheetah's as a drive for my documents isn't all that important (they're on a laptop on the network anyway.....what did that dude, say, "The network is the computer"). I'm also considering not doing anything with my Atlas as I suspect it's getting a bit slow (relatively).

I figure I've got a few options:
1. Software RAID 1 for whichever OS I like best. Pros: reliability (though not much of an issue in my experience with SCSI drives, and who doesn't love an OS re-install?). Cons: harder to set up

2. Software RAID 0 for whichever OS I like best. Pros: might be faster. Cons: might be slower; risk of being associated with [H]OCPers; doubles risk of data loss.

2. Software RAID 0 for a data drive, preferably shared between Linux and Windows (NTFS? Is NTFS reliably written to in Linux?)

3. Install 3 OSes for 3 times the fun! Pros: fun. Cons: who has time for classes and 3 OSes.

4. Let Linux use the third Cheetah for swap. Pros: might be faster. Cons: Linux may only rarely hit swap, wasting the drive.

Any other ideas? Anybody know of a killer Linux setup given my system hardware? How would you guys set up this system. As you can tell, I like fast systems but I also like reliable stuff.

All comments welcome.
Thanks!
Adcadet

 

[blakerwry]

hmm.. dunno, but I'd stay away from OS driven soft RAID 1... it's hit on the PCI bus is worse than the CPU hit with RAID 0.

 

[The JoJo]

How about 1xlinux, 1xwindows, 1xlinux swap and windows swap (maybe the old atlas?) and temp internet files, and 1x apps. Or do you have apps on the 120?

Or if you really want RAID, do a RAID-1 on the linux system drive, and then put windows on the third, and swap on the fourth.

Or maybe 1xlinux, 1xlinux home directories, 1xwindows, atlas with swap? Hmmm, I'd probably do this one.

 

[blakerwry]

yeah, that sounds reasonable. ALways better to keep /home on a seperate partition or drive. I wish windows had better support for that out of the box.

 

[Adcadet]

How about 1xlinux, 1xwindows, 1xlinux swap and windows swap (maybe the old atlas?) and temp internet files, and 1x apps. Or do you have apps on the 120?

Nope, I typically put apps on the OS HD. The 120 contains MP3s, lectures, etc that will be quickly moved to my wife's 200 GB drive shared on the network. Not sure what I will do with the 120 after that.

 

[Adcadet]

yeah, that sounds reasonable. ALways better to keep /home on a seperate partition or drive. I wish windows had better support for that out of the box.

I used to keep "My Documents" on a second HD separate from the OS so I could nuke the OS and keep my documents. But given my current school situation and the fact that I keep many such small files on my school laptop and/or on the network, I doubt I'll have much to put in my /home directory.

How can I set up these HDs to maximize Linux speed? Put Linux on one Cheetah and and it's swap on the other?

 

[Adcadet]

last I checked, it seems gaming performance is really independent of HD speed....so I'll probably be just fine relegating my old Atlas drive to be the Windows drive if I have used up all the Cheetahs with the Linux system.