VIDEO CAPTURE: Setting Up 2 IDE HDD For Optimal Performance

[Maximum Risk]

I got 2 IDE Hard disks:

1. 80GB 7200rpm with 2MB buffer
2. 120GB 7200rpm with 8MB buffer

I frequently use my PC for video capturing from satellite TV directly from my capture card and also doing video editing. It is recommended to use 7200rpm HDD to prevent drop frames and recently Western Digital released their new HDD specially made for video editing which has 8MB buffer/cache like my 2nd HDD.

For an optimal performance, my XP Pro was installed on one hard disk and when capturing, the data was stored directly to the second hard disk.

My question is......Which is the best hard disk to install the Operating System and for directly data storage.....???

I need your guidance please......

[pharries]

Your larger drive should be the media drive and the OS on the smaller drive
mke sure they are not on the same IDE cable as that will slow things down.

Your larger drive should be the media drive and the OS on the smaller drive
mke sure they are not on the same IDE cable as that will slow things down.

By slowing down, do you mean the capture? I have yet to install my capture card so I have not done this yet. I have my faster HD as the destination drive for the captures but it is on the same IDE cable.
What I mean is, will I drop frames or what?

Thanks

[pharries]

OK for DV capture you need fast IDE drive access
Ensure that your motherboard has 100ATA speed connectors for the IDE drive.
Plug one drive into eachIDE connector. ensure that neither is shared with a CD rom
I purchaced a seperate ATA 100 card and have it vonverted to my media drives while the motherboard is connected to the OS drive CDrw and DVD recorders
My understanding is that IDE data is a little like SCSI it travels at the speed of the slowest component on that chain
I personally would seperate the drives. it is small change compared to the cost of the system
Finally the amont of memory on the drive does not equate with speed. the drives will have an ATA speed, that ids the speed for capture purpose as it measures sustained vs peak transfer.
please correct me if I am wrong on any of the above
Finally remember you need NTSC partitions for the Media drives with win 2000. i don't know about XP

[Maximum Risk]

Your larger drive should be the media drive and the OS on the smaller drive
mke sure they are not on the same IDE cable as that will slow things down.

I agree that larger drive should be for media and the smaller one for OS. But, in terms of buffer/cache size, what would the best way for setting it up...?? It's a waste if such a buffer size was put on a wrong channel. I think it has something to do with the buffer size and the optimal performance. Don't you...???