Raid 0 and Partitions

xommul

xommul

xommul

Associate
Joined
13 Feb 2010
Posts
7
Hi Folks,

My very first post.

I am building a pc, all the bits arrive inthe next few days. I have a couple of 1TB samsung drives and i want to Raid 0 them. I think i can muddle through the process but a quick question. Should i partition off the drives at all or leave them at max capacity.

Main use for the pc is games and multimedia, music, vidoes, bit of photoshop etc.

Thanks

Xom
 
Personally I wouldn't RAID0 2 x 1TB HDDs and then put all your music etc on it, because if you get a problem with 1 HDD the whole array goes and you loose everything...

I would be inclinded to use them as 2 single HDDs, use one as a boot drive with say a partition of 50-100GB for OS and programs, and the rest of the HDD form your music games etc, and use the other 1TB HDD for backup...

You will only notice a performance gain in using RAID0 as opposed to using a single HDD if you work with large (video) files (copying/moving) and/or unzipping large files regularly.
 
I understand the risk of raid which is why i have an external HD that copies everything.

I am looking for a performance increase in loading time of games and boot up time. I do use photoshop and my images are generally 30 meg plus so i think the gain will justify the risk.

Knowing this does your advice on my orignal question change?

Also i hear i need certain drivers on a usb drive when i install windows onto the raid. Are these mobo raid controller drivers?

Kind regards

Xom
 
I would partition them into a 100-150GB partition for OS and programs and leave the rest as one partition or possibly two if you want to separate out content for backup purposes.

However if using RAID 0 I would always have another drive purely for backup or use an external drive/backup device, preferably with total backups of important partitions. Without that I would not recommend RAID 0. Personally I get good performance gains from RAID 0 but it does depend on what you use your PC for.

EDIT: Missed your newer post about having the backup aspect covered!
 
Last edited:
imo theres no need to partition drives in this day. drives are ultra fast anyway and even more so in raid 0. Having everything backed up on an external drive leads me to one question.. why do you think you might need to partition the drive(s)? seems totally redundant considering your setup.

as for your second question, quite possibly. does your mobo not have RAID built in at all? what mobo is it?
 
I am looking for a performance increase in loading time of games and boot up time
Click to expand...

With RAID0 you will notice none to little performance increase for games loading, and the boot time will be longer, due to ICHxR controller having to load...

Also i hear i need certain drivers on a usb drive when i install windows onto the raid. Are these mobo raid controller drivers?
Click to expand...

You only need to load the ICHxR drivers from a floppy if you are using XP, both Vista and Win 7 contain the drivers required and if RAID0 is setup they will load automatically during install and can be updated after install is completed when installing Intel Rapid Srorage software, you will also need to install Intel Chipset Software Installation utility as well..

Knowing this does your advice on my orignal question change?
Click to expand...

You can always try it as an experiement and see for yourself what it is like and as you have an external HDD for backup you have that bit covered...Say a partition of 50-100GB for OS and programs and just leave the rest as one large partition for everything else.

If you want a real performance boost buy an SSD...
 
Last edited:
The mobo is Asus P7P55D Pro and it has a raid controller. The reason for the wuestion about drivers was that i have seen a couple of you tube vidoes where people have found it necessary to have the Raid drivers for their mobo on a usb stick so that win 7 recognises the raid configuration.

The question re partitions came from thinking it speeds up read time by minimising the amount of info the hd needs to look through to find what it is looking for.

Do i need to set up partition in bios or does windows handle this?

The summary of info is that SSD is best for performance boost - too pricy for me atm - i will have a go with raid and see what happens.

Thanks for all the advice.
 
Do i need to set up partition in bios or does windows handle this?
Click to expand...

Best to do this during the Win 7 installation process, it can be a bit harder when doing it after install from within Windows as Disk Management is not that great, so you would then need to use something like gParted (live CD)...
 
Best to do this during the Win 7 installation process, it can be a bit harder when doing it after install from within Windows as Disk Management is not that great, so you would then need to use something like gParted (live CD)...
Click to expand...

I'm interested in this as well, are you given an option during install of Windows?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom