What are the advantages or disadvantages of a computers memory being split into two hard drives?

I think that's what it is... when I go to the computer section I see two hard drives, each with ~53 GB each. If I am right in thinking these are two seperate drives, is there any reason I shouldnt have it this way? All my other computers only have one main drive.

What are the advantages or disadvantages of a computers memory being split into two hard drives?nortan

With a RAID controller (Redundent Array of Inexpensive Drives) you can do what is called stripping. This is a technique where two seperate drives act as on drive. Odd lines are on one drive while even lines are on the other.

By alternating between the two drives the access time is reduced increasing the overall performance. The disadvantage to this is that if either drive is lost/damaged the data on the other drive is lost as well even if that drive is un damaged.

Another Mode available with RAID is mirroring whereby one drive is duplicaing everthing that happens data wise to the other drive. This provides redundancy and immeadiate recovery should one drive fail.

If a RAID controller is not being used a single physical drive may be split into two or more logical drives.

One reason this is done is so the entire storage capacity of the drive may be accessed. Older computers had size limitations for example 60Gb, If you put a 120 GB drive in you would only be able to access 60GB of storage... The resolution to this problem is to partition the large 120GB drive into smaller logical drives of 60GB or less. Since each logical drive has its own Letter the OS can access upto 60 GB on each