Raid 0 questions

Hey I really want to set my pc in a raid 0 configureation but Im not sure how to do it. I have two diff hds does that matter? one is a 160gb one is a 320 both made by samsung though. I looked into my mobos manual and tryed to folow instructions but it wont log into windows Whats the first step I need to do to get a raid 0 working IF my hds will work. Oh and do I need to whipe my hds clean for raid 0 to work? Thanks!

The HDD's should work but you will only be able to use 160 GB of the 320 GB drive. Oh and they have to be SATA.

You will loose everything on the drives.

You need RAID drivers for your mobo on a floppy and they need to be loaded on a clean install of windows (for XP at least, not sure if its different with vista).

1st thing you need is 2 of the same kind of HDD.

Next, you'll need to enter your RAID utility, specific for your kind of Mobo - Intel types is usually CTRL-I.

Tell it to create a RAID 0, select the HDD's, then select the size of your RAID (usually the combined size of the HDD's.)

It'll create the RAID.

Then restart, and after you Startup from Disc, hit F6 to install 3rd party RAID drivers for your OS.

Have your RAID driver handy on a floppy or USB stick, or you can use the CD that came with your Mobo (just be sure you replace the Windows CD immediately after they're installed.)

WHAMO! DONE!

Or something like that... :{p

I don't really remember, much about Raid 0. I had a really bad experience with Raid 0, about 6 years back, and I don't really recommend anyone to use it. As for your problem, most likely, the Raid software won't let youactivate it, because one of your 2 drives has Windows on it. Really, the 2 drives should be free of Windows; which means you need at least 3 HDD's, not 2.

You should have Windows on one HDD, like any other normal PC. And have Raid 0 active for the other two. So, what you should have is a typical Drive for windows as C:, and the other 2 combine to make a single drive letter of it's own... D:, E:, F: or whatever it becomes....

If they are of different size, I think it uses the lowest size and uses the same amount for the second drive, and the rest of the second drive is wasted. But, I could be wrong. If what I think happens is true then you're going to end up with a total of 320 gigs anyway... Which, to me, seems like a waste of that 320gig HDD. One of the benefits of using Raid 0 is that you're not wasting a whole drive to activate it (like you do for mirroring). With two 160, Raid 0 will combine the two HDD's, giving you a total of 320gigs. So to me... you are just wasting that 320gig HDD.... by placing it in Raid 0 and not using half of that drive. You're just going to end up with 320gig, anyway. Raid 0 will most likely just format only 160gigs of that 320gig drive. A complete waste.....

The reason I don't recommend using Raid 0 is because the drivers will work twice as hard, and will likely fail twice as quickly, with the end result of losing all the info on both drives with no chance of recovering the lost info. Andit doesn't matter which of the 2 drives fail first. Only one need to fail for you to lose all the info on both your drives. It's just not worth it if you ask me.

You will get an increase in your reads and writes speeds, but I don't really know if it's worth it.

I think the more stuff you have saved on that Raid 0Array, the greater the Performance loss. I'm almost willing to bet that once you reach near 3/4 of the space of the combined drives... that the read/write performance is probably not much different than a normal HDD of the same, total size. But that's just my own logic... I'm probably wrong.

The way I see it. The main benefit with 2 drives sharing info like that, is that you have twice the outter disk to store stuff on.... And the outer side of the disk spins much faster than the inner side.... So information gets saved and gets pulled off that much faster, from 2 drives with 2 outter disks. But, eventually all you'll have is the inner part of both drives. So, to me... it will balances out, eventually. But the life of the 2 drives, with more than, double the risk of a drive failing, so to wipe out everything, from both drives... just can't balance itself out, to me.