Two hrad drives or one for Linux?

Alright, this might be kind of a weird question, but does anyoneknow if it is easier to dual boot linux and windows if they are on seperate hard drives, or the same?

I have a choice of getting a laptop that has dual hard drives and I just wanted to get some people's opinion on any benefits/disadvantages of having Linux on one of te hard drives and windows on the other.

Thanks again

 

It's just as easy on one drive as on two. It relies on you having enough hard drive space, of course.

 

Thanks yamla If I got dual hard drives they would each be 80 GB and if I only got one it would be at least 100 GB so I think I should be good on space

 

If your machine has two drives, you may want to look into setting them up as a RAID 0 sytem... It's tricky, but the performance boost is well worth it.

 

just to let you know, i happen to have a raid configuration and it really sucks, only one of the two drives need to fail in order to lose all your data, so whatever you chose don't chose raid.

 

Why a good backup is important.

 

I keep my important work data on 3 separate HDD In 3 separate locations! Paranoid? Maybe, but I can't afford to lose the last six years of my life...

As for motte's comment, I never was smitten with raid, but even if you only have a single drive, it only takes one drive to fail in order to lose your data. I guess with the raid set up your chances to lose you your data go up by factor of 2. 2*<really small number> is still a pretty small number.

 

Is the performance really noticable? I am thinking about getting either a Sony AR series (with dual hard drives) or an FE690. Kinda torn between the two right now and looking for the pros and cons of each with Linux as well as other things. I don't think there should be any problems with either of them running Linux or doing what I want.

Thank you for the information everyone

 

why don't u mirror raid instead of stripping if ur affraid of losing data? that was it saves everything twice

 

I'm not sure if I will use RAID yet. My main issue is the compatibility with Linux. If I were to do RAID 0 I would back up my important information on another drive.

Quick question though. Is setting up RAID with Linux similar to doing it wit Windows, or is it going to be harder/simpler with a dual boot system?

Thanks again!

 

RAID 0 and Linux is a bit tricky, because the RAID controller lets the CPU do the work (it's not a real hardware RAID controller), so you have to use dmraid.
(And of course I can't promise that it'll work at all with the RAID controller of a particular notebook...)

When not using Windows at all IMHO it is better to use lvm, it is much more flexible.

Regards
Aaron

 

I think I would skip out on the RAID if I got dual hard drives. Does anyone know if there are any compatibility issues with either of these two models and linux? I can post the specs if that helps. I could be getting the Nvidia graphics card with either one. I would also max out the RAM. Just let me know if you need more specs.

Thanks again everyone!

 

I can't think of any major issues with either Sony. The Sony ACPI extensions are supported (with a little work), so your Fn buttons will work. Bluetooth, WiFi, card reader should all work as well. The only thing you may have trouble with is an integrated webcam, is either model has one.

 

Thanks TedJ. That is great to hear. Just a quick question for everyone. If I decided to get one external and one internal hard drive is there a way that I can boot linux off of the external one? Thanks again in advance.