What should I do having 3 hard drives. Best way to optimize their use would be?

I strongly suggest NOT to merge them as one in any case.

Since your smaller one is 10.000 RPM, I would use it for main operating system since its faster and will operate most of the time.

The 500GB would be my storage for music, videos, pictures etc. There will be no delays in anything, (playing videos etc)

The external would be extra space or backups.

That's my suggestion

Cheers

Hi Bucsox,

I'd go 150GB for OS , 250 and 500 for data and as you say external for backups.
Using the fastest drive for the OS makes sense as this drive will normally be accessed a lot more than the data drives.

How you split the data between the two drives is a personal matter, and with the libraries in Windows 7 it's less of a concern than it was.

Also by keeping the data and OS separate a re-install is not such a pain, if you ever need one

Yes, you can either add library locations inside your existing ones, or move the user folders (Documents,Music, Videos, Pictures etc) to point to another folder and/or drive. Just open c:\users\_your_user_name and right-click each folder - properties to set it's location.

yeah too many HD's will just slow your system down.. one good HD is all I need, and maybe an external for monthly backups.

patio said:

Source? ?

Personal experience over the years from building computers since the pentium 200mhz days to today and benchmarks.

I think you misunderstand my post however. For example, I personally think your system is as fast as your slowest HD, but this really depends where your data is. Once I took off my older 60gig HD from my new rig it blazed away, nothing was wrong with the older drive, it was just slower.

overall, less items to access, less power, cooler etc.