Dual hard drives ... any good?

At the moment I run two PC's.
One for trading and one for general work.

It is upgrading time and I am wondering whether I should replace my two PC's with one machine incorporating dual hard drive, set up as above.

I would be grateful for any suggestions.

 

I currently have 3 hard-drives (one of them backs up the data from the others in case one of them blows up- and don't say it won't, because it happened to me 3 years ago, and I lost over 3,000 songs and 30 movies from my collection ).

For the low cost of hardware these days, I suggest you do the same.

Cheers

 

You don't have "true" backup unless you have a copy outside of your rig. Suggest you do at least minimal cloning or imaging to external HD. Acronis True Image and Casper XP 4.0 are the class of such software.

 

Thanks gnome,

I only run three programmes, charting/iqfeed and front end.

I email my front end accounts to myself each day until I can check them with my brokerage update and apart from that I run no backup.

Are there any other issues that Iam overlooking?

 

Of course you want backups of all data and documents you create + data which is difficult or impossible to replace.

In addition, computers can become fouled from virus or orther malware and it's much easier/faster to restore from a good copy than to reinstall everything from scratch. Even defragging the HD runs the risk of error which can cripple a Windows function.

You can make an image of your system to an external HD in about 2 minutes with Acronis True Image. Then when you have a problem, you can be fully restored again quickly.

 

Thanks you for the tip. I thought I was covered, but I guess not...I will look into your suggestion.

 

Totally agree. In addition to the clone, I would suggest hot-swap drive enclosures. Makes it simple to create backups/clones for off-site, and to actually use them, in the event. Also allows off-line storage for things like music, games, videos, etc. Just swap a D drive or similar whenever you want Adds about $20 per drive slot. Well worth it for total flexibility, imo.

Osorico

 

I run two machines connected via a router. At least one has a second hard drive which works well for my back up requirements.

Backups of really critical data can be kept offsite in case of fire or theft.

Good luck.

 

Do you mind expanding on this for me mikat.
many thanks

 

Regarding one system or two; if your business depends on your computer, then it's always best practice to keep your business system as 'sterile' as possible, and use it only for tasks required to run your operation. Pickup a second, perhaps lower end system for general, non critical tasks. You could even use the second system as a backup to your primary business system in an emergency;

You'll thank yourself someday when you 'accidently' click on that link that ultimately takes your system out for a day or two....

like gnome said - multiple internal hard drives don't count as a good backup; at a minimum, backup to an external drive; and use a real 'backup' utility that will allow you to restore selected files, not a 'mirror' that will restore everything as is, including the files that you are trying to avoid !!!