Hard drive setup question

With two equal hard drives, what is the best (fastest) config for
Solidworks?
OS on C: (a given in this case).
Virtual mem (scratch file) on D: ???
SWX program on C: ???
SWX part files, etc on D: ???

Thanks,
Bill

 

Hello Bill-

I have been using this exact configuration for the past few years. I like
it. I went one step further and added a third drive just for virtual memory.

Best Regards,
Devon T. Sowell
www.3-ddesignsolutions.com

 

G'day Bill,
Have you considered RAID.
I have two 10k rpm drives in a RAID array and it is super fast.
I have the array setup as two logical drives with the operating system
and applications on C and working files on D.
Because a striped RAID does have less reliability I have a third drive
for backup of my working files, just in case.
Works for me.
Regards, PJ.

 

I have an old machine that has been running in RAID0 for 3 years with no
problem, I did have another drive on the machine to backup data. With the
current machine I decided to not have a RAID0 and just went for one 70Gb
Raptor drive for OS and Current Working data and a 250Gb drive for Long term
data and catalogues etc.



After working on some 600Mb+ assemblies for the last month or so I wish I
had bought 2 x 70Gb Raptors and put them in RAID0.



The Raptor drive is very quick, when I compare it to my clients machines the
opening time on the assemblies is about half that of my clients machines.
However you just can't have too much speed when dealing with larger
assemblies. If working on small assemblies or part files I would avoid
RAID0, to reduce the risk of losing data.



For large assembly work RAID 0 and an internal backup drive for data is the
better way to go IMHO. When I get some free time I may get around to
configuring this machine in such a way.



John Layne

www.solidengineering.co.nz

 

For me, the advantage of storing all data on a separate hard drive from the
O.S. is this; if the C drive crashes, the data remains safe. You can then
just remove the data drive it and install it on another computer.

Devon

 

A data drive is just as likely to crash as a hard drive containing the OS.

I backup all data, PDMWorks files and my SolidWorks directory to an external
harddrive every lunchtime. Using a programme called ViceVersa, which I've
set to retain the last 10 versions of any file

John Layne
www.solidengineering.co.nz

 

I think what Devon was referring to is that the Partition with the Main
OS is far more likely to fail from any one of many reasons (not the
least viruses or power failures, which can make a disk unreadable
without special techniques when the OS gets botched), & partially
because the boot partition takes the most disk activity, and thus Data
Drives are statistically going to fail far less often.

Bo

 

I agree Bo. Also, I use external harddrives to back up frequently.

Devon

 

I concede you do have point, I have been lucky and never had a mechanical
hard drive failure. I have seen it happen to others though hence I
constantly make backups.

The worst situation I have had is when the OS didn't boot and I didn't have
time repair Windows. In that particular case the data I needed was on the
same drive as the OS so I just pulled out the drive and put it in another
machine as a slave and recovered the data. When I had more time I
reinstalled Windows over the existing Windows OS and everything was fine all
data and programs functional.


John Layne
www.solidengineering.co.nz