Windows Home Server primary drive

Reader J asked about Windows Home Server:

I am building my first WHS, and of course… your splendid Windows Home Server For Dummies book is my “bible” on the subject. The one thing that I don’t see covered in the book is the ideal way to setup the primary hard drive.

I have read differing opinions on which drive should be used as the primary drive. Some say it should be one of the large 1.5TB drives, and others say it would be best to use a smaller/faster drive. Do you have any opinion on this? Why is one better than the other?

Unless you put huge files on your WHS, your best bet is to use one of the smaller, faster drives as your primary drive.

If you copy files larger than the size of the drive (give or take) to the Server, you’ll get bogged down with WHS shuffling off portions of the file.
But with HDs the size you’re talking about, you shouldn’t have any problems.