Which would be better?

morguk · 5 Jun 2008 at 17:24

I currently have a 320gb hard drive, and want to add another drive not only for more space but better performance.

Which of these setups would have more performance in general use:

- Raid 0 with another 320gb hard drive. Would mean reinstalling everything again though which is a hasstle.

- Add a 500gb drive to the system. Set all of vista's page file to be on the one drive and use the other for games, music, video. Advantages are being able to use a bigger hard drive, and means i dont have to reinstall everything.

Cheers guys.

morguk · 5 Jun 2008 at 19:29

No advice?..

fobose · 5 Jun 2008 at 22:10

Use acronis true image to copy your current hard drives "image", buy whatever new drive you want then restore the image on to your new drive.

Tomsk · 6 Jun 2008 at 11:31

morguk said:
- Add a 500gb drive to the system. Set all of vista's page file to be on the one drive and use the other for games, music, video. Advantages are being able to use a bigger hard drive, and means i dont have to reinstall everything.

If you don't already have Aconis True image (or similar), your new drive (or any drive in your system) manufacturer will have software you can download from their website that will do the same job.

RAID0 will have a faster data transfer rate but slower access times.

Atom · 7 Jun 2008 at 08:47

Why slower access times?

I never experience slower times with raid0.

Tomsk · 7 Jun 2008 at 11:53

Atom said:
Why slower access times?

I never experience slower times with raid0.

Oops. My mistake. When I last had a RAID 0 array (back in the days when a fast HD ran at 5400rpm) I noticed access times were a bit slower than a single drive.
It appears that there's not much difference now, if anything, RAID 0 seems to be faster on access times as well.