RAID HELP

[user101]

hey people, if anyone can offer insight into my problem your a genius. I have 3 hard drives in my computer. One 40 gig IDE hard drive which contains windows XP, I obviously boot from this disk. I then have two serial ATA Hard drives (each 120 gig) running Raid 0 (Striping). I set up everything fine so now my config looks like
c: - 40 gig
r: - 240 gig

What I would like to know is whats the best way to make use of my Raid, Do I just install all my programs to the r drive? I started doing this, but on some programs you get an error because it unpacks its temp files to the c:, and then when you say you want the program installed on the r: drive, it cant find some files on the c drive and then the installation cancels. Can anyone help ??


thanks alot

 

[comtec17]

My first question is why are you using RAID0/Striping instead of just an r: and something else? The RAID0 is not fault taulerant and is very easy to fail.

 

[bcastner]

user101,

The best use of those 120 gig drives would not be to configure them as RAIDs for a workstation setting.

1. Use the drive manufacturer utility, or Norton Ghost, or Acronis Migration Manager, or whatever, and setup 1 of the 120s as the primary boot drive with a perfect image of your existing 40.

2. Setup the second 120 as drive D.

3. Clean repartition and reformat the old 40 as Drive E

Use C and D as necessary for installing sofware. Some software will not like a drive letter as high as R.

Using your image software, regularly create and store images of both your new C and new D drive to the older 40 that is now drive E.

 

[user101]

ok, so why is there such thing as raid if its better to just run the two 120 gig drives by themselves?

wont raid 0 increase the read/write speed?

 

[Grenage]

I'm a big fan of IDE Raid and say it's well worth it, my last 2 machines have been RD0 and I'll never go back now.

Personally I would make the Raided Drives C:\ and your 40GB D:\. You can then have your operating system and programs off C and store files on D:\.

Thats how I would do it anyhow, HTH.

 

[Peterff]

To make some general comments although RAID 0 (Striping) gives a speed increase, as most HDD's manfs. are reducing the warranty to 1 yr you would be wise to use RAID 1 (Mirroring).
I've had two 40 Gb's faulty in the last 6 months, fortunately under 3 yr warranty so I await their replacements.

Using Promise RAID (with an MSI MB) the 2nd HDD cannot be larger than the primary so you would have to change the configuration.

 

[Grenage]

True, Mirroring is very handy on a machine where you cannot afford to have the machine down/hanve important data that isn't backed up.

For Casual use where this isn't important though, striping is fantastic.

 

[kshugart]

What I would like to know is whats the best way to make use of my Raid, Do I just install all my programs to the r drive?

A: Normally Drive letters for local machine is A-E, F-Z are usually for network mapped drives.

I started doing this, but on some programs you get an error because it unpacks its temp files to the c:, and then when you say you want the program installed on the r: drive, it cant find some files on the c drive and then the installation cancels. Can anyone help ??

A: most all 99.9% install on local boot drive (C and the D: drive. File systems sometimes won't look to a network mapping unless there on a real network, instead of a workstation.
Hope that helps?

Klon Shugart
Data Recovery Specialist
CCNA/MCP2K/CDRT
Microsoft Certified Partners

http://www.adv-data.com

 

[user101]

thanks kshugart, ur the only one who answered my question

ok, so if i change the drive letter to d: from r:, everything should work fine???

can i do this without formatting or loosing data