Help please! New setup
 

Hi DVI Great forum!

I am putting a system together for my neighbor he is into video editing (Pinnacle Version 10) soon to be Vegas

Here are the system specs:

ASUS P5B Deluxe LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit X 2 (4 GB total). WIN XP only sees 3GB but that will change as soon as he updates to Vista 64bit later on.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz LGA 775

Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200AAJS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive X 2 (640 GB total)

XFX PVT73GUGD3 GeForce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card

COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power RP-650-PCAR ATX from factor 12V V2.01 650W Power Supply

LG DVD- Burner

CD RW

Win XP / Sp2 32bit



Here's my question. How should I setup the Hard Drive Configuration for optimum speed while video editing and post production? Should I partition any of the drives? Should I leave one drive for OS only? Is it worth setting up a Raid Configuration? Should he add a 3rd Hard drive?

Any opinions would be appreciated. I have never built a system for Video editing before only gaming systems.

Thanks

Jdegid

my $.02

The more hard disks the better.
Go with Windows X64 rather than Vista64 -for now run the switch in boot.ini that allows windows 32 to use the full amount of ram.b (search here or on MS's site)


I have one drive for OS and swap file, One for "currently working project" DV files, one for long term storage, one for capture, and one for scratch... about a terabyte total.

I have tried raid vs. non raid and the performance is about the same if you separate your drives decently.


You're going to get a LOT of different answers on this one.

Partitioning is not helpful for editing. Physical disks are helpful as Marco said. If your friend wants to edit HDV it is good to set up a (r)aid0 configuration but he will be more susceptible to complete data loss due to disk failure. One suggestion I have is to add a WD Raptor for OS and Programs, because it is very fast and use the 7200 disks for media, scratch etc.

Yep,

Drive #1 = OS + Premiere Pro
Drive #2 = Capture
Drive #3 = Scratch (you can combine scratch and capture drives)
Drive #4 = Working Files