Raid 0 - GA-EX58-UD5 - Beginner

Hessian

Hessian

Hessian

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I've decided that Raid 0 might be a good option for me to get a little bit of an increase in performance at a cheap price, rather than forking out for an SSD. But the problem is that I've never setup a Raid before so I've got no clue. A lot of information on it seems outdated.

What I'm after is some tips for setting up raid. I'll use it for my OS and programs, so I'm assuming as with all things its best to reinstall rather than clone? Do I need to do anything in preperation for the setup? Just plug the seperate HDDs in, format and then somehow setup in raid?
 
Raid hasn't changed in a long time.

What you probably want to do is hit a combination of keys during boot, and set up the raid there. Your motherboard manual will tell you which keys. Windows will then install onto the array much as if it was a single drive, though it may ask you for a floppy disk / usb stick with drivers on depending on which version of windows you're using. You're in the wrong section for that though, look further down for the "Windows" area.

If you use raid 0, keep comprehensive backups. Or when the array fails, a disk breaks, motherboard fails etc, it's gone. Seriously, you won't be getting data back off it if it fails. It'll also increase seek times, so raid 0 of hard drives has nothing on an ssd.
 
I'm running Windows 7 x64 atm. Sorry about the wrong section, I felt it included HDDs, Motherboards and Windows, so thought it best to post in General.

I'm not saying it would compared to an SSD, just hoping for a bit more performance than my current setup and wait for the price of SSD to drop so I can finally buy that.

Will a floppy drive be necessary, I'll have to find one somewhere if it is.
 
Floppy drive wont be needed for vista/w7, so you'll be fine.

After installing (physically) both drives, you may need to activate raid in the bios, then you will need to enter the raid menu (as JonJ has said it is usually some key strokes outside of the BIOS during the POST.) set the drives to 'raid0' or 'striped', there is endless debate on what stripe size to use, but i tend to leave it on auto (which i think is 128 on my mobo). then just reboot, the install disc should pick up the drives as a single device.
 
It's pretty easy once you've set the RAID in the BIOS you just install like normal.

And just to be pedantic...it's RAID not Raid.
 
I'm all plugged in ready to, I'm currently at the 'Create Volume Menu' and it's asking for a name for the Volume, does it matter what it is? Shall I just leave it default?

Edit: Nvm, I called it 'OS & Software' not sure if it matters, but hopefully that's acceptable, just means I know what it is easily.
 
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