Two hardrive question

[animaguy]

I currently have one internal harddrive on my system and the OS is CentOS 6. I am building a small dedicated web server to host one domain. The domain doesn't necessarily have to be online 24/7. I am considering purchasing a second internal HDD. I will definitely install a linux distro. I wanted to know if it is possible to run both harddrives simultaneously. Is it worth the extra money to get an SSD? Is it worth the money to get a 1 TB or just a regular 350 gb? I am leaning towards a different distro for the 2nd HDD. Do different distros complement each other? Does anyone know of any good article links that discusses having two internal harddrives on a desktop? Arr there any specific spec requirements that need to be addressed with installing a second internal?

any help is appreciated.

[ehansen]

"I wanted to know if it is possible to run both harddrives simultaneously."

Depends on what you mean by "run both harddrives simultaneously". You can't run two operating systems at the same time from hard drives on the same physical connector (i.e.: motherboard). But you can still access data from either hard drive while you're booted into one.

"Is it worth the extra money to get an SSD?"

Depends on the purpose of your website, what'll be stored on it, and if your computer supports SSD.

"Is it worth the money to get a 1 TB or just a regular 350 gb?"

Again, depends on what the purpose is of your website and what you will store on it.

"Do different distros complement each other?"

They do as much as any two versions of something can.

"Does anyone know of any good article links that discusses having two internal harddrives on a desktop?"

Depends on what you want to do with them.

[animaguy]

Thanks Ehansen:

To further elaborate on one of my questions:

If you have two internal harddrives connected to the same motherboard, and one harddrive is configured as a webserver, and the other is configured as a basic desktop, and the webserver harddrive has one domain, is it possible to have the domain on the webserver online and live while I am logged into the desktop harddrive?

[ehansen]

As long as your OS hard drive has a web server installed and is pointing to the mount point of where the website data is, then yes.

[animaguy]

wow, thanks, that sounds great to me. i appreciate the info.

[icebirdro]

It depends what you want to do with the second linux distro: everyday stuff or hosting. If you want to do hosting I recommend a SSD but if you want to just use it as a PC then a simple HDD is just fine.

GL

[animaguy]

thanks for the input.

actually i want the second hdd to use for everyday stuff as well as software and web development and testing.

the current hdd is ata which was originally for setting up a web server

so from what you are saying i am now considering getting an ssd and using it for the web server and switching the current ata hdd as the everyday/development os