Dynamic or Basic Disk?

Dynamic or Basic Disk????

I have a 40G Maxtor and 120G Western Digital hard drive. I'm using the 40G for XP Pro OS, and want to use the 120G strictly for video processing using Ulead VideoStudio 7.
What are the differences between the Dynamic and Basic Disk, and which one should my 120GHD use for video processing only?
Thanks for all responses,
Bruce

 

Hey, Bruce.
Dynamic disk allows you to use advanced options of volumes and partitions, like mirroring, RAID5, spanned volumes and such ... So I think it is not necesary to change the disks to dynamic, unless you want to use any os these options. Giving the configuration of your computer, I wouldn't use any of them.
None of them can give you the real advantages they are used for:
1) you cannot make a RAID5 volume, you need at least tree HDs and better have a RAID controller.
2) you beter not make a spanned volume, unless you are certain your disks are flawless.
3) the only thing is the mirror between the two disks, maybe for backup of the OS, but it has more disadvantages than advantages:
- the disks are not the same, so you cannot replace the bad one and boot as nothing happened.
- you will need to make an OS-based mirror, meaning through WindowsXP, and not a hardware mirror. It has poorer performances, and not always is working as it should be (actually, I didn't encounter any problems in XP so far, but you be the first ?).
- it will take the same amount of place on your second disk as the partition you want to mirror. Though your disk is 120GB, you are working with video files, so you might want all your space for your projects.
If you want more details regarding differences between the two types of disks, see this article from Microsoft's Technet.
One more thing you should consider is HOW to configure your disks: where to put your second HD? Primary slave? On the secondary bus?
I think the best for you is to put it on Secondary Master. I think this way you'll have better performance in the I/O processes, because you are not using the same bus.

I hope this will help you. Good luck.

 

Sorinso,
Thanks very much for the info.
It looks like basic is the best option for me.

Bruce

 

Sorinso gave good detail.

Short version is to use Basic unless something you need to do forces you to switch to Dynamic.