2 HDDs, 3 OS, IDE Channels & performance advide needed? 1

[mRgEE]

I need some advice on what configuration would be best as I just seem to get conflicting information reading various articles and postings on the net.

Here is my current setup: -

Primary Master - Maxtor 40GB HDD 7200RPM 2MB cache
Primary Slave - None (yet)
Secondary Master - DVD Drive
Secondary Slave - CDRW Drive

Currently, XP is installed on 1 single partition on my Primary master drive.
I have a spare HDD (IBM Deskstar 20.5GB 7200RPM)that I want to install.

What I want to achieve: -

Maximum performance from my system running 3 Operating Systems over 2 HDDs.
I have Redhat 9.0 and Win2003 Server that I need to install on my system as well as run XP.

What Utilities I have -

I have Virtual PC to enable me to switch between OS without rebooting. I also have Partition Magic 8.0 to partition my system as needed.

Advice: -

Should I keep XP on 1 HDD and install the other OS on the hard drive I am about to install?
Should I install both my Hard drives on 1 IDE channel or on seperate channels?
Should my CDRW & DVD be installed as Master or Slave Primary or Secondary?

Should I create 3 partitions over 1 HDD just for each OS and partition the other HDD solely for Data & or Apps?

The list is endless, some thoughts or advice on setting up multiple OS and HDDs would be very interesting. I am interested in hearing about performance issues with multiple partitions, OS, IDE channels etc. Your personal experiences would also make interesting reading. I believe this is a topic that could do with some clarification once and for all.

I am waiting for your responses. As always, thanks in advance.

 

[Zoplax]

One rule of thumb I've always followed regarding hard drives and CD-ROM drives, always install these on separate IDE channels (in this case, 2 hard drives on one IDE channel, the CD / DVD drives on the other).

It might help to know what role you plan for each operating system?

 

[pddxr]

With my experience dual booting XP Pro with redhat 9. I would recommend the following config:

hard drive 1 partition 1(primary master):
Redhat 9 - 5+ gigs for full install(ext3 partition mounting to /)

hard drive 1 partition 2(primary master):
Swap file for Redhat 9 - twice the size of ram (swap partition)

hard drive 2 partition 1 & 2(primary slave):
Either WinXP OS (fat32 partition to be able to mount with Linux) - size depends on what OS you are going to install the most appz on.. I would go 50/50 and use partition magic later if you need to adjust.

As Zoplax said, you should have the cd drives on their on the secondary. Since they have slower access times than your HDDs, they will slow down access to a HDD that is on the same ribbon.

I Unix power user that I know always makes a small (20MB or something) fat partition on the primary master before installing a dual boot system so there is a spot the both OSs can read for the Master Boot Record). I wasn't able to do this because of partition limits on using one drive the way I have it set up and it still boots to both XP and Redhat 9 using the GRUB boot loader that comes with Redhat 9.

I've read that mounting NTFS partitions with Linux is still experimental and not advised but haven't experimented yet. I found this info on mounting a FAT32 partition:

http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3324

Hope this helps somewhat!