Help please! New setup

[John Degid]

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

[Marco Wagner]

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.

[Harm Millaard]

Originally Posted by John Degid

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?

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.

[Marco Wagner]

Yep,

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