raid 0

[pwillat]

hi guys.. first of all this is the system i bought


Goods Shipped:
£124.99 x 1 - Belinea 2225S1W 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver
£139.99 x 1 - Asus GeForce EN8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) -
Retail
£27.99 x 1 - Razer DeathAdder Blue 1800dpi High Precision Gaming Mouse - Retail
£47.99 x 1 - Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01528)
£63.99 x 1 - MSI P35 Neo2-FR Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£101.99 x 1 - Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.66GHz (1333FSB) - Retail
£37.99 x 1 - Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
(WD2500AAKS)
£43.99 x 1 - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1 Sound Card - OEM
(30SB073000002)
£31.99 x 1 - Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB)
£17.99 x 1 - Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7191S 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe
ReWriter (Silver) - OEM
£54.99 x 1 - PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V 610W Power Supply


the question i want to ask is, i wish to buy another 2 drives and wish to try raid but im new to building pc,s....1st question is do i need another os, i intend to raid 2xWestern Digital RAID Edition 160GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD1600YS) and have my original as a backup, and i have already installed the os xp(OEM) and games on my existing drive though...can i have some of your expert advice please guys.....regards paul

 

[rpstewart]

No need to buy another copy of XP, the OEM licence allows you to change the drives it's installed on. It will need re-installed and re-activated but that shouldn't be a problem. You can run the original drive alongside the new ones quite happily, just disconnect it when you're doing the new OS install to make sure that the installer doesn't get confused and mess up the drive lettering.

I wouldn't go with those 160Gb WD drives though, they're slow and expensive for what they are. The plain WD 160Gb AAJS is quite a bit quicker and seven quid cheaper, the 250Gb Seagate 7200.10 is the same price as the WD RAID Editions and happens to be the fastest 7200rpm drive you can buy.

 

[pwillat]

ok great advice ..which version of seagate though ST3250410AS or ST3250620A thnx again

 

[rpstewart]

ST3250410AS, that's the quick one.

 

[pwillat]

great stuff, i will be ordering 2 of them then....one more thing though, do you think my psu will run the 2 extra drives with what i got rpstewart

 

[rpstewart]

HDDs need about 15W each so unless you're really stressing the PSU you should be fine.

 

[pwillat]

much obliged, thnx for your help