Computer running advice

[Wayno]

Hi,

I first bought my computer from scratch from a local PC dealer. As I’ve become more involved in photography and backing up my files, my computers needs have changed.

The computer set up I have at the moment is C: drive and a second internal hard drive (E: ) in my PC tower, with an external hard drive. There’s 1T capacity on my C: and 1T on my E: with 8gb of RAM.

Currently I run both Lightroom and Photoshop CS5 , and save all my photos to my C:. E: backs up my photos and I save my Lightroom catalogue on E: too. I also back up my photos to my external hard drive.

I’ve just enlisted the CrashPlan+ backup service which gives me an unlimited cloud to backup my photos and music.

The E: drive is a little slow so I am thinking of replacing it with a WD 2T hard drive.

If I do purchase a new 2T hard drive to replace my existing E: what plan of attack would you suggest? Upload and save all my photos to E: to free up my C: drive, and back up to the external hard drive and the cloud. Or continue to upload and save my photos on C:, and use my E:, external hard drive and the cloud to backup? Or even replace my C: with a new 2T hard drive.

Any help, advice or alternative suggestions would be very welcome.

Cheers

[Clubmanmc]

It all depends on how full and fast the C drive is, best to keep the 1Tb if you can as a "backup of the backup" as its slow.. but install the 2Tb and use it as your main back up device... with external helping that

M

[ranvens]

The computer set up I have at the moment is C: drive and a second internal hard drive (E: ) in my PC tower, with an external hard drive. There’s 1T capacity on my C: and 1T on my E: with 8gb of RAM.

Currently I run both Lightroom and Photoshop CS5 , and save all my photos to my C:. E: backs up my photos and I save my Lightroom catalogue on E: too. I also back up my photos to my external hard drive.

I’ve just enlisted the CrashPlan+ backup service which gives me an unlimited cloud to backup my photos and music.

The E: drive is a little slow so I am thinking of replacing it with a WD 2T hard drive.

If I do purchase a new 2T hard drive to replace my existing E: what plan of attack would you suggest? Upload and save all my photos to E: to free up my C: drive, and back up to the external hard drive and the cloud. Or continue to upload and save my photos on C:, and use my E:, external hard drive and the cloud to backup? Or even replace my C: with a new 2T hard drive.

There are a lot of factors that come into speed, efficency and best practice with regards to this. Have you done anything with this yet?

Can you explain what you mean by Slow? The backup speed? What size is the backup you are doing? What program are you using to do the backup?

Upgrading to a 2tb drive will not necessarily increase your copy speeds. It depends on the speed of your HDD, 5400 vs 7200 rpm, solid state, cache sizes etc. It will also depend on what version of Sata your mainboard supports (sata1, 2, 3)

What is your home network like? Multiple PC's / Devices, Wireless, Wired?

Is your external HDD USB, Firewire, eSata?