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How would you set up this system?
Ok here's the deal, I've got this older, but still holds its own, Home built PC that right now has no OS installed on it. All data has been saved to a 500 gig HD and I'm preparing to reinstall and get her back up and running. But in what configuration should I do?
Thats where this thread and you come in, I need opinions on how you would set up this PC. I have my ideas, but this is the last time I wish to reconfigure this machine, so I wish to set it up to maximize its performance, utilize the hardware I have to there best ability and make it a great video capture/edit and gaming system that it can be.
Here is what I have:
XP MCE 2005 SP3
Gigabyte MOB- GA-P35-DS4 Rev.2
CPU- Q6600 (2.4 QuadCore)
RAM- 2 gig Kingston HyperX 800 OC to 1066
Graphics- Asus nVidia EN-8800GT 512MB Top
TV-Tuner- Hauppauge HVR-1800
PSU- PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610watt
Case- Gigabyte Aurora
Arctic Freezer 7 Pro CPU cooler
LiteOn DL-DVD w/LS (Sata)
MS Media Center Pro Keyboard
22inch Gateway Monitor 1680x1050 PiP DVI-D/VGA/super & composite video in.
Hard Drives, All Sata II Western Digital:
3-160gig
1-500gig
1-1.5tb designed for video DVR use (but most likely will end up just filling it up with movies.)
1-1.5tb standard
Sata II i-Star BPU-230 3 drive hot swap back-plane
Please keep in mind that I can't afford to spend anymore money on this system as I am saving up for some Truck Upgrades.
The motherboard has 8 sata II ports, 6 work under Intel ICH9 control with raid 0,1,5,&10. The 2 other sata II ports work under gigabytes controller and I believe can at the same time or on there own be set up with a raid config of 0,1,5,&10 as well.
So, thats what I have to work with and would like to hear from you as to how you would configure this system and how and what you would use each HD. Of course partitioning is allowed and is recommended as it might be a good idea with the terabyte drives cause if something should go wrong with accessing a drive, I'd hate to loose all those movies I have tirelessly recorded. And yes XP MCE will have to stay. It has been very good to me on this motherboard I would have to say, so it's no biggie to continue to use it. At the time of build, Vista SP1 was out, but I knew enough I didn't want that on this Desktop.
I Look forward in hearing what you come up with. I have some ideas myself, but suggestions from some of the best PC minds we have here are most welcome. Again, its primary use is recording/editing/watching movies & gaming.
Thanks, -OEM
P.S.
To any Moderators looking in, I wasn't sure where to put this, hardware, installation & setup, so I chose Chillout, although I'm very serious about this thread and hearing from our members. If you think it would be better in one of the other Forum Sections, please go ahead and move. Thnx