hard drive help: What are the benefits to having a slave or second hard drive on a pc? - Help.com

a slave will do all your house work while you get a tan at the spa

I use mine for extra storage and to back up files I absolutely do not want to lose, like pictures.

There is no reason to put an operating system on it unless you plan on booting with it.

If you have 2 fast drives you can put them in a RAID setup to increase performance, though it’s expensive and requires someone tech savvy to set up.

Hello,
If it was me, I would probably install Linux instead on the slave hdd, as it is free and free from viruses, you might log onto your second hdd and not your first and get a virus on your second and then you have a problem with some piece of hardware, and low and behold, you have a problem and can’t work out what the cause albeit it could be a virus on the second hdd. You should use it if you have any kids especially let them work away on that hdd and it won’t get a virus.

I dont get the connection between a slave and a computer

A slave is a term used to describe where you have a hdd (your main one) and then you add an extra hdd, this extra hdd is referred to as a slave hdd.

No Problem, I forget if I mentioned it and too lazt to re-read reply but linux is free of charge.

I might add saying that Linux is free from Virus’ is the biggest load of crap ever.

Bascically the biggest plus to having a slave harddrive is that it is not running an OS. As most malware and virus’ target the Operating system core files, sometimes this data can be corrupting, and you may be forced to format and re-install windows.

In the case of doing this, you would lose everything on the partion holding your OS data, and nothing would be lost from the Slave drive.

You can do this similar setup by creating partitions on a single harddrive just as easily mind.

First and formost just see it as additional space, but in the long run, it does have other benafits.