Question : Problem: Most Strategic Disk Allocation?

I have several hard drives, and was wondering what the best way to arrange them to get optimum performance would be. I have:

2 Maxtor SATA 160 GB drives.
1 Western Digial 40 GB IDE drive.

In the past, I have tried assorted arrangements of putting program files or documents and setting on different drives, but I really haven't noticed (or made an effort to notice) a speed difference, but I would kind of like to know. I've also tried running the two SATA drives in RAID 0 (reliability isn't exactly a concern). My current partition strategy is:

40 GB XP/Documents and Settings on the IDE drive
40 GB Program Files, 50 GB backup, and 70 GB unpartitioned (I might install Linux)
70 GB of installation files, 60 GB of video, and 30 GB of music (Also known as DMCA v. Maxishere, exhibit A.)

The virtual memory is on the IDE drve.

What would the best strategy in terms of partitioning the drives be? Would it be wiser to run the SATA drives in RAID 0? Should I install my OS on the IDE or the SATA? Should I keep my program files on a separate parition? separate drive? Where should I place the virtual memory?

(ASUS P4C800/P4 3.0 HT/1GB Dual Channel Memory)

Answer : Problem: Most Strategic Disk Allocation?

Hi there! :)

We have the same system specs btw :D
Only that i have 2 WD 250Gb disks..

The way i see it, setting program files on another disk than your OS is not a clever deal. When your OS disk maybe one day fails then all programs in "Program Files" has to be reinstalled also bacuse they wont work.

This is what I whould do..

Split the first sata drive in two pieces, one for windows and the other for linux. On these partitions i would install my programs and games as usual.
Then Use the second sata drive for storage. Like movies, music, images and such.

Then use the IDE drive as a backup drive. Only taking backup of your most precious files. And there is no need to have this disk powered up all the time, just disconnect the power cord when it's not in use. (So it wont idle and one day maybe crash or something..)

Should look something like this:

SATA1_1 Windows, programs, games
SATA1_2 Linux, programs, games
SATA2 Storage (Videos, Music, Pictures)
IDE1 - Backup

As you can see, no raid.
This is my suggestion :)