fresh install and raid questions

Sasso

Sasso

Sasso

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heyy sorry if this is in the wrong forum but its kinda overlaps.

firstly ive just recieved my new GTX275 (woohooo) and ned 320gb WD HDD to match my other one, both delivered nice and quick again :D well done ocuk :)

right well here was my plan:

..was going to remove the old HDD and put in the fresh new one
..install windows 7 on the new HDD and then attatch the old drive and copy some docs across
..then wipe the old drive and raid them both....

but been douing a little browsing and apparently when you raid it wipes both drives to make partitions on each of the same volume.. which makes sense.

so really i need a 3rd hard drive to back up.... but..... i dont have one :(

but i was thinking when i installed windows 7 on my laptop it back up all the docs and old windows install.... so i was wondering would it be the same case when i went to raid. if i then reinstalled widows to raid the drives would it still create this "windows.old" folder with just the info i wanted copied across?

also this is my first raid setup so not really sure how i actually do it, is it just a simple case of selecting an option when installing windows? or do i need to do something else first? which raid is the raid for me as i just want faster loading times really so would it be RAID 0 (think thats the one that just creates a mirror image so both drives can be accessed to get different info and speed up times)???

also been a long time since ive done a fresh install on my pc, what are the drivers that i need to install after windows? as can i assume windows will do most of them but for like the graphics and and mouse programs and such ill do those myself... what about mobo drivers?

lol sorry about the long winded post.... just from finishing uni a lot of this stuff was push out of my head and filled with uni stuffs :p

any positive comments welcome :D if ya dont have anything nice, dont say anything atall hehe

Sasso
 
If you RAID it will wipe all data, it writes it over both disks so the disks wont work as normal stand alone disks when RAID'd. Can you not burn the data onto a couple of DVD's? How many GB's do you have to move?
 
ummm i have about atleast 40gb of music pics vids etc xP (wish i have bought a bluray writer :p ) also well if its a direct copy of the other drive you say it wont work as stand alone disks, i know what ever ya do to one will happen to the other but does that mean i one drive fails i cant use the other drive when i remove the other?
 
RAID0 is faster than 1 disk, but if either disk fails you lose everything - more for performance

RAID1 is slower than a single disk, but if one disk fails the other still works -more for backup
 
Sasso said:
ummm i have about atleast 40gb of music pics vids etc xP (wish i have bought a bluray writer :p ) also well if its a direct copy of the other drive you say it wont work as stand alone disks, i know what ever ya do to one will happen to the other but does that mean i one drive fails i cant use the other drive when i remove the other?
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In RAID 0, you need both drives. So if one breaks, or you take one out, it breaks the entire thing. RAID 1 you can take one drive out or have one break, as RAID 1 creates a mirror copy of the first drive on the second drive... but you have only half the space of RAID 0.
 
ahhh okies so raid 0 is the striping ye? surely raid 1 is not slower if you create a mirror as it can access the info on both or am i thinking about it wrong?
 
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but if its simulatneous? im thinking about loading info... as its on two disks theres twice the bandwidth?
 
Sasso said:
but if its simulatneous? im thinking about loading info... as its on two disks theres twice the bandwidth?
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In theory, but simultaneous read requests are only supported on some RAID contolers. Onboard controlers arn't great usually. The data is only read from one disk, but if simultaneous read requests are supported it will get other data on the other disk at the same time making it faster (only if supported). ;)
 
hummm well not sure if they are suposted got a asus x38 p5e mobo with driver 601/602 (i think) dunno about raid drivers, think ill need to download them and install them... so what are my options realistically then? best course of actionm and also regarding what drivers should i install?
 
It's likely that raid 1 will be exactly as fast as a single drive in everything except seek times, where it will suffer slightly. If you had a dedicated raid card it would also read faster, your onboard will not.

Raid 0 is what you want for performance, but must combine it with back ups. Copy all your data onto the laptop seems the obvious answer, your current windows install is dead and gone if you raid the drives. It's just not worth saving for the time required when you can reinstall.
 
hummm decisionsssss, so striping is what i need for performance but if something goes boobs up then up up the creek without a padel :p hummmm and yea ill prob just do i direct link to my lappy and copy the stuff across. gunna update the bios me thinks too to the latest version, getting all the drivers ready. what do other people do with raid0 set ups? back everything up every few weeks or something?
 
When I used one, which wasn't for long, I just didn't leave any data I cared about on it. Saved documents, music and so forth to a different drive. So were it to die, all I lose is installed programs. Seems sensible.

Raid 0 is quicker, worth doing I think.
 
hummm so really i need a 3rd drive where i would put all documents and such? so i would have 2 drives raided with operating system and programs on the raid set up and then all my documents and music and such... things that dont really need fast loading on the 3rd disk? right ill order a 3d disk when i get cash then :P so fornow ill just do a fresh install then.

with that sorted what drivers will i need, like i said i got the asus p5e mobo, so i need the chipset drivers im guessing and then everything unless there are special programs i can just use windows update?
 
Sasso said:
hummm so really i need a 3rd drive where i would put all documents and such? so i would have 2 drives raided with operating system and programs on the raid set up and then all my documents and music and such... things that dont really need fast loading on the 3rd disk? right ill order a 3d disk when i get cash then :P so fornow ill just do a fresh install then.

with that sorted what drivers will i need, like i said i got the asus p5e mobo, so i need the chipset drivers im guessing and then everything unless there are special programs i can just use windows update?
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Yup, that's what I do. Two raptors in RAID0 for the OS and aplications, then all my music/photos/vids etc are on a shared network drive so I can get them on the desktop, laptop or PC downstairs.
 
right got everything set up again :D woooooo but my make stole my spindle with the windows 7 beta dvd on it xP so gotta redownload it, thank god for my new VM internet... going at a meg a sec :D hehe but im in the bios now then the core temp keeps jumping very frequently between 26-29 oC....... sensor or think i need to reseat the heaksink? i did the ol lil bit of AS5 in the middle and then spread it out with my finger in a tesco bag :P


ok trying to install drivers now but the mobo drivers dont work on windows 7.......do i realy need them or will windows sort them out :P
 
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what do other people do with raid0 set ups? back everything up every few weeks or something?
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One thing to remember is that no RAID set-up should be your backup solution. It's only a means of maximising performance and/or instant recovery of a failed drive. You should always keep off-storage backups where you value your data.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
One thing to remember is that no RAID set-up should be your backup solution. It's only a means of maximising performance and/or instant recovery of a failed drive. You should always keep off-storage backups where you value your data.
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+1 lots of free/cheap web backups out there. :D
 
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