Currently, I am using a WD Black 1.5TB hard drive for all my files. Files include photos, movies, videos, music, documents, etc. Right now used space is 465 GB and free space is 900GB. What would be the best solution to store all of these files? I pretty much access these files all the time.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Cheers.

What is the problem with the current solution? What are you looking to achieve?

The current solution is slow and I'm not sure what it means if the hard drive spools up. I also want my data to be safe. Everytime I open up something like music or a video, the hd spools up and takes a few seconds before it loads up. I was expecting it to be instantaneous, but its not.

The spool-up is perfectly normal and harmless. When the drive goes unaccessed for long enough Windows spins it down to save power and wear on the bearings. This is a setting in the power management options in the control panel. It can't be read until it's been spun back up.

However, never trust *ANY* one drive to hold important stuff. You should have at least two copies.

As it stands now the most important stuff exists on drive C, a backup of all of C is on I as well as some incremental backups. I is actually 4 drives in a RAID 5 configuration (which means that it can survive the loss of any single drive and still deliver every byte that's stored there, albeit running slowly until the missing drive is replaced and the array rebuilt.) It's also copied to drive T which is sitting off on a shelf in a fire-resistant enclosure. It's also pushed to both Skydrive and SpiderOak (cloud storage).

The next tier of stuff--photos and the like--are on D which is a RAID 1 configuration (two drives in parallel, it will continue on if a drive fails. RAID 1 is a lot simpler than RAID 5 and delivers good speed without spending a bunch on a fancy controller. It's just not as efficient.) They're also copied to drive T and to another computer.

So I guess I should just not tinker with the drive or power management settings and leave it alone?

Also, what would be the best way to store my data? Drive C on my system is just programs and Windows while the data I store is on another drive.

It all depends on how complicated you want to get. My suggestion:

- Change the power settings to not spool down the drive
- Get an external drive (I have a 3TB USB3 drive - $90 with incremental backup software) for backup
- Subscribe to Crashplan - $60/yr to backup data offsite.

That should speed up access and provide a few levels of backup.

To go a bit further, as I did:
- 256GB SSD for System Drive, Programs, and frequently accessed files
- Blue-ray writer to periodically backup two copies - one in a fireproof safge downstairs and one in the in-laws gun safe 200 miles away.

I'm actually looking for the easiest way.

If I change the power settings, will that mess up my drive or shrten its lifespan? If not, how do I change the power settngs?

No, it won't mess up nor shorten its life span (unless you run it 24/7/365). Press the Windows button and type in "power". That'll get you to the power settings.


And, how about just adding another internal drive? They're cheap as chips and just transfer the files you want to the 2nd drive as a backup.

Yes, it's not 100% failsafe in case your computer goes up in flames or your house burns down. But, seriously, the probability of that is 0.000001%.

When I type power, That gets me to Powerpoint. lol

Currently, I have 2 drives at the moment. A 500GB HD for Windows, programs and things of that nature while the second is a WD Black 1.5TB HD for my videos, music, doucuments, etc. So I should get a third one?

Try typing "power options". Yes, I am suggesting a 3rd one as the easiest solution. Since you access these files all the time, I'm assuming the number of files you want to "archive" also changes all the time.

Having 3 drives is no big deal. I'm running 5 drives off my machine at the moment.

Start>Control Panel>Power Options

for the selected plan - Change Plan Settings > Advanced Settings > Hard Disk > Turn hard disk off after > Setting: Never (set it to 0)



I see no reason to add an additional drive. It's certainly not easier than the above keystrokes. Additional drives would only be for backup/redundancy. And a USB drive/cloud backup is easier for that. Or for extremely high performance in a RAID array, But I suspect you're not looking for that.

Above is from my Win8 machine - I'm sure Visa/7/XP aren't too different.

Should I change the the power settings from "Balanced" to "High Performance" or just leave it alone? Also, are you sure changing the power settings on the hard drive have minimal effect if any at all on the drive?

I think you need to look at what settings are different and which you prefer. Balanced probably shuts the screen off after some time, shuts the drive down after some time, puts the entire machine into Sleep/Hibernate after some time, etc. Just pick one of them and them check/change all the settings as you want them.

I've read in numerous technical forums that continuously shutting down and starting up drives puts more stress on them than just letting them continuously run. I can't vouch for that, but I know it's true of many other mechanical/electrical components. FWIW, I've never set mine to power down after some time.

I'll probably leave it as "Balanced" then.

So its safe to say that I can change the power settings for the hard drive with no problems at all in the short and long term?

I wouldn't go that route. What if someone steals it?