Woke up at 5:36am and started copy operations on the last partition. Yay! With this last partition copied, I’ll now be able to finally re-format and repartition this puppy.
I’m tackling drive transfer speed problems at the moment. Although my drives were tach’ed at 80MB/s on two drives and 60MB/s respectively, I find that in most cases, I don’t even get half those speeds during drive-to-drive copying.
It’s most likely a BIOS and Windows configuration problem. I’m hoping I can get it sorted out and incorporate the solution (whatever it may be) into the fresh installation.
Oopsy!
Turns out the “no power up from cold boot” problem I experienced yesterday wasn’t due to the D-link hub. While re-arranging the cabling inside the computer, I accidentally pulled out the front panel circuit block (the one where the power switch, HD activity light etc) from the motherboard header. Yay me! 
The only reason the computer powered on when I unplugged the USB hub was that the P5W can wake up if it detects certain kinds of USB activity.
This block should have a clip locking mechanism like other kinds of motherboard connectors since the block slides off the header pins very easily.
Could have been worse. At least I didn’t fry the computer! 
Drive Partition Lay-Out
I’ve been giving a lot of thought about how to re-partition the drives. My first inclination was to reduce the amount of partitions for fewer logical volumes for easier organization. But after doing some research, it seems to be a good idea to maintain a certain amount of partitioning, not only to compartmentalize drive failures but to yield some performance benefits as well.
How fast a drive can read and write data depends on the location of the read/write operation on the hard drive platter, so keeping frequently accessed files like the Windows installation, page file and applications limited to the first partition on each drive would probably yield better performance.
Files that aren’t accessed or changed too frequently can be kept in subsequent partitions that approach the center of the platter where read/write operations tend to slow down as the drive gets filled.
Boot Drive
So for my boot drive, I’m going to install 3 partitions. Windows goes into the first smaller partition, applications go into the second. Those partitions won’t be used for anything else. The third partition will house back-up files such as a drive image of the Windows partition.
If I munge my Windows set-up again, I can restore it quickly from the last partition. Of course, I’ll keep an off-system back-up as well.
Second Drive
My second drive will have two partitions. The first partition is for additional application space. The second partition will be for currently active work files, stuff that undergoes more changes frequently but once “finalized” will be moved to the terabyte drive.
Third Drive
The terabyte drive will have to remain one big partition for now. It’s an oversight on my part. I should have partitioned it exactly the way I wanted it from the start. Oh well… can’t do anything about it now but I’ll take care of it before I use it regularly and fill it up.
Optimally, the terabyte drive will use the first partition strictly for page file and third party scratch disk use for the fastest drive operation possible. The second partition will be used to house library files like 3d models and textures, images, video and music files— stuff that’s mostly read and not changed too often.
This all sounds good in theory. I just hope I can pull it off smoothly. 
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You won’t get full throughput on drives. Plus if they are on the same channel they are sharing the bandwidth. So half of the slower drive may be the limitation when copying from one drive to the other.
On a clean install, most system files will be close to the hub. I don’t think you’ll find much improvement with the partitioning. Just my feeling.
Backup should be on a separate drive because if the drive fails, what good is the backup if it’s on the same drive.
IMO, partitions are a pain. When you get to the point where you need something to be on a particular partition and there isn’t enough space, you are hooped. Why set yourself up for failure that way. You’ll be re-installing the system again when that happens. Keep it simple. You won’t notice the differences.
I didn’t expect to get full throughput on the drives but what surprised me was how poor the actual throughput really is. There is no master/slave set-up when it comes to SATA. Each drive gets its own channel. That’s what makes the slow drive-to-drive copying even more surprising.
The reason for putting one of the backups on the same drive is to quickly solve the problem I’ve more commonly faced, and that is where the Windows installation gets screwed up but the drive is in perfect working order. Typically it’s not prudent to put backups on the same drive that’s being backed up, but this is for quick and convenient restoration that doesn’t rely on BIOS detecting additional drives. This isn’t going to be solely relied upon in cases of real emergency however. I’m still going to maintain current off-source-drive as well as an off-system back-up.
I’ve revised my partitioning strategy yet again… blog update coming up.