How do I set up a storage drive on my PC?

Question

Here are my system specs at the moment: Cooler Master nv690 case, EVGA 750i FTW Mobo, 2x2gb ddr2 ram, a q9550 OCed to 3Ghz, 850w PSU, 2 GTX 260 c216 in SLI and 1 300GB Western digital VelociRaptor.

I want to install a 1TB drive for all my media and documents and Keep the OS and Games on my VelociRaptor. How would I do this so that all my media gets stored on the storage drive? I read another question fm Y! Answers (use the System Mangement's Disk Management pane, configure the hard drive to be your "My Documents" folder) Can I do this for music and video as well?
I'm looking for something that will be easier in the long run.

Answer 1

Screw open your computer case and connect your new hard drive. Boot into Microsoft Windows and see if the new hard drive shows up in Windows Explorer. If not, right click on Computer or My Computer and choose Manage. In Disk Management you can format the new hard drive and assign a drive letter to it. Now that you can see your new hard drive in Windows Explorer, right click on your Documents or My Documents folder and choose to redirect to the new hard drive. For example, you currently have a C-drive and My Documents points to C:\Documents and Settings\Users\Your Name\My Documents. If your new hard drive is assign the D drive letter, redirect My Documents to D:\My Documents. When asked to move all files to the new location choose Yes. You can do this for My Music and My Videos as well for example. Now when you place a file into My Documents, instead of it ending up on your C-drive it will end up on your D-drive.

Answer 2

Yes, you can add an additional drive simply for storage. Most systems support adding at least one more internal hard drive (mount space, controller port). The drive does not need to participate in a RAID (stripe, mirror, RAID5, etc...). I currently have a 250GB primary drive with the OS and applications along with a 1 TB secondary drive for backups (I backup my primary drive and the primary drives from several other PCs/laptop). ** Edit ** Not sure who is giving a thumbs down to the answers (at least at the time I added this addition note), the responses are correct. If you disagree, please post with something to backup why you disagree. I'll mark a thumbs up on the ones that I can.

Answer 3

easiest way is to just install the drive and call it storage..

copy and paste all you docs to it creating folders along the way..ie music, programs,video etc..

once done you just need to remember to save everything to it rather than to C:

you could use software to do it but i think that it just complicates things!



although the best way is to get another pc, something very basic to run windows home server. you dont need additional screen or gfx card just install the new hdd into it and away you go.

you can add more storage at anytime and additional hdd's for backups..this system will take care of all your other pc's on the network creating backups everyday of windows and your folders...and you can access it from your current pc with remote desktop.



i have used it for a few months and its perfect for getting you out of those sticky situations like hdd failure or failing windows installations as everything is backed up automatically, all you need to do in such cases is restore your pc from the server and everything will be as it was before the problem..

Answer 4

Well, assuming you have vista, what i did was i just went into the user files and copied all the ones i wanted into a file on the media drive.



for example, go to "C:// -> Users -> (watever your account name is) then just cut whatever folders you want and paste them into a folder on your new drive. Vista should automatically fix all the shortcuts to the new location and all should work well. =]