raid and raptor ??

awhir

ok have a sata 300gb seagate and just bought a 30gb raptor.what is the best way for me to set these up ?? i want the raptor for games.

christophicus

Then Couldnt you just install your games onto the raptor??

awhir

christophicus wrote:

Then Couldnt you just install your games onto the raptor??

thats what i am going to do ??

but i thought when you do a raid 0 it mergers the 2 hdds so it look like 1 drive and i dont want that.

christophicus

Well then dont put it in araid configuration??

conzy

I dont think you can put to different fimware revision HDDs in RAID 0, let alone to totally different speed/brand/capacity drives.

Just Install windows on a 5gb partition on the raptor
Install all your programs on a 5gb partition on the raptor
Install all you games on the remaining 20gb on the raptor

The store all your Music / Photos / Documents on the seagate..

Thats the way I do it and it works like a charm.

Most programs still work after a reinstall:eek:

awhir

ok tnx will wipe windows now

also i have a zalman fan1tlty cooler on my gfx and its kinda load is there any way i can turn its speed down in windows and then pump it up in games?

conzy

Im not sure, I think Zalman use their own speed control unit, but if its connected to the card's fan connector, you can use rivatuner or something to assign a 2D (desktop) and a 3D (gaming) fan speed......

awhir

oh and also just noticed i partioned my 300gb and in windows it only shows the partioned 20gb as c and no other hdds.so how will i format it if i wana install widows into my raptor.

and also when i go into comp managment and look at the drive it shows the 20gb and then the 255gb and says unallocated

awhir

aww any help pls.

_CreeD_

Okay, first impulse is to point you to the Search, Google or even Windows help. But while poignant that doesn't exactly help . Not trying to be rude but this has been covered a 1000 times here and you would have found it in a lot less time than you've been waiting, it'll just save you some time in the future to do a quick search before taking time to post.

Soooooo.....In the Disk Management window, right click the unallocated space and create your new partitions, you can create multiple primarys but I prefer the old way of making an extended and then multiple logical partitions inside it (ie. Create an extended for the remaining size, then right click the extended partition and create Logical partitions of whatever size you require). As for how many it depends really on what you want to do. Ones for music, downloads,Multimedia (Movies/Photos) etc. are a good bet (Presuming you are putting your high performance apps/games on the Raptor).

leeroybrown

You should be able to RAID any two drives that can be attached to your RAID controller (some controllers may be more restrictive) BUT the container you setup will be the Lowest Common Denominator of the drives. You'd end up with a RAID container the size of the 36Gb Raptor with the maximum spindle speed and transfer rates of the 300Gb Seagate. That would be silly.

If you plan to run a RAID0 you would typically try to get as close as possible a match right down to firmware revisions for performance reasons.

conzy

It would probably end up performing worse than a single drive, with one being nandicapped by the other......

awhir

ok guys wiped my 2 hdds and was trying to install windows onto my raptor but when i go to install it a message comes up saying

its says it does not contain a compatible windows xp partion ?? even when i mess around making the partion diffrent sizes.it will install fine onto my 300gb seagate but not the raptor why ??

Wertz

Is it possible the raptor is formatted in FAT32, possibly from an older version of windows?
If so then it needs to be formatted into NTFS...

awhir

how will i find that out.

Wertz

You build your own system and don't know how to do that?
Right click on the HDD icon in My Computer and click Properties...then read what it says in the File System field in the dialgoue box...

awhir

lol dont have windows to do that.is there any way to do it in my bois or can i get some boot cd that can do it.

when it look at the bios it cums up as wdc wd360gd-00fna0

awhir

CMON pls help guys.were are you cozzy ??

stevenmu

The windows installer should let you delete whatever partitions are already on it, then create your new one (5 gigs for windows) and format it with NTFS.

christophicus

You have to choose NTFS When you are formatting the drive.So fromat the drive and look for somewhere where it sayts FAT32 and change it to NTFS.

I think thats what you have to do anyway.

awhir

but i cant get to that part when it goes what hdd you wnat to install windows onto and i pick my raptor the message comes up.

conzy

Im back

Ok just go into the Bios, set the Raptor as the primary HDD

Run the windows installation, when you get as far as the screen where it shows all the partitions, delete all the partitions on the raptor (and the seagate if theres nothing that you need on it)

Create a 5gb partition (c) on the raptor
Create a 5gb partition for programs (if you want, i find it make things easier/faster)
Create a 1 or 2gb partition and use it as your swap file (ill tell you how to configure this in windows later)
Create a partition with the remaining space for games.

Now install windows to the 5gb partition and make sure you install it to C.

When you in windows, go to Control Panel> admin tools> Computer managment > Disk management.

This is where you format the other partitions that you made, name them format them.

Then go to Control Panel> System> Advannced> performance settings> advanced> virtual memory.

Click change, Now click the C partition, set it to no paging file.

Now click on the 1/2gb partition that you made. and set the page file to custom size and set initial size and maximium size to 1/2 gb depending on the size of the partition.

You Should now be fully setup and all windows PCs should be set up like this IMO;)

christophicus

So you have a seperate partition for paging?? You erally dont want to have to page in the first place.

greglo23

maybe your raptor is a sata. if it is then you have to load the sata drivers on a floppy before the system can see it and load windows.

conzy

christophicus wrote:

So you have a seperate partition for paging?? You erally dont want to have to page in the first place.

A page file is necceseary for gaming and working with large files such as a photoshop image

Most games wont even run without a page file, and having a fixed page file on the center of a raptor will considerably improve performance and loading times over a windows managed page file on the seagate.

And you dont need Sata drivers for most HDDs they are usually only used for third party HDD/Raaid controllers, my Raptor worked without drivers and me and Awhir have the same chipset so it should work

awhir

ok done what you said and this comes up after i make all the partions and click inatall to c.

to install windows xp on the partion you selected,setup must write some startup files to the following disck.

28616 mb dis 0 at id 0 on bus 0 at atapi(mbr)

however this disck does not bot contain a windows xp compatible partition.

to contuine installing xpreturn to the partion selection sceen and create a windows xp -compatible partion on the disck above.

how do i do this in wondows install????

conzy

You should see a screen like this:



You create your partitions, and you choose to install windows on C, then you see this:



select format the partition using the NTFS file system.

If that doesnt work i dunt know whats wrong,

Have a look here

Maybe you are overlooking something

awhir

instead of the second pic i get this 1

conzy

Did you delete all the old partitions and create the partitions I told you too?

Windows (c) has to be the first partition on the drive

awhir

when i get to her i creat all you partions you tell me to do then i click install onto see that message comes up

SickBoy

Disconnect the 300Gig Seagate drive before installing. Reconnect it once the install is complete.

BadCharlie

I dont have a page file set up. Dont have a raptor either but i do raid my 200gigs HD together. If i set up a page file on my raid HD will it improve my load speed ?

christophicus

conzymaher wrote:

A page file is necceseary for gaming and working with large files such as a photoshop image

Most games wont even run without a page file, and having a fixed page file on the center of a raptor will considerably improve performance and loading times over a windows managed page file on the seagate.

I want to make usre im taking about the right thing here. Ny page file do you mean the way windows uses you HDD like ram if it runs out of ram??

christophicus

conzymaher wrote:

A page file is necceseary for gaming and working with large files such as a photoshop image

Most games wont even run without a page file, and having a fixed page file on the center of a raptor will considerably improve performance and loading times over a windows managed page file on the seagate.

I want to make sure im taking about the right thing here. Ny page file do you mean the way windows uses you HDD like ram if it runs out of ram??

sarahn11

i dont have a raptor, but i do have 3 250gb maxtor HDD that i want to set up in Raid 0, does anyone have any good tutorials for me to follow??


sorry for hijacking this thread, but i thought it might be more appropriate in here!

christophicus

Does raiding the HDD actually give much of a preformance boost??

conzy

I dont have a page file set up. Dont have a raptor either but i do raid my 200gigs HD together. If i set up a page file on my raid HD will it improve my load speed ?

Yes, set up a fixed page file of 1/2gb, if its on a seperate partition on the start of the drive it will help.

I want to make usre im taking about the right thing here. Ny page file do you mean the way windows uses you HDD like ram if it runs out of ram??

Yes Page file = virtual memory = swap file.........

i dont have a raptor, but i do have 3 250gb maxtor HDD that i want to set up in Raid 0, does anyone have any good tutorials for me to follow??


sorry for hijacking this thread, but i thought it might be more appropriate in here!

What mainboard do you have? are they SATA or IDE HDDs

Does raiding the HDD actually give much of a preformance boost??

Yes almost double the speed, but raiding more than 2 drives isnt really worth it.......

christophicus

OK .thanks. Shouldnt your goal be that you have enough ram so that you do mot need to page at all?

awhir

can i get some advice pls ???

greglo23

as already said above disconnect the seagate and reboot. the raptor will be the only drive left so go from there. windows 2000 and xp will auto recognise an unformatted drive so maybe you might need to write zeros to the drive with the tools here, http://tinyurl.com/b6o78. after doing this it should recognise it and offer to format the drive for you and then install windows for you.

awhir

ok tnx it worked am now installing done the partitons on the raprtor.tnx for the help how will i set up the page thing???

conzy

I posted detailed instructions in an earlier post........

awhir

srry forgote tnx man for the help and everone else.

awhir

set 1.5gb paging partion to 1480 and 1480 in the virtural memory is that all right.

sarahn11

they are ide hdds.....well i have them connected to the ide slot on my mobo anyways ha ha ha!!

the mobo is an asrock 775v88+

awhir

ok my pc is finnaly up and running and last question how do i swap my doucments into the seagate.

conzy

Sounds good Awhir, post a screenshot if you want to be sure;)

right click on My documents, click properties and click move.

Now just set the path to that of the seagate drive.

@ sarahn1, Im not exactly sure if your board supports IDE Raid....

Even if you managed to get the 2 drives set up in RAID, the 2 of them would be sharing a IDE channel which would be a bottle neck...

awhir

ok any adive anything to try to make my pc a bit quiter i think its my zlaman vga cooler that load i dwload that prgram you told me to and could not find how to work it lol!!

sarahn11

ah i see....that would make sence


well i have a separate raid controller card that i bought on here a few weeks ago....could i set up two ide hdds in raid with the controller in my pci slot and the controller on my mobo?!?


i also have sata connections on my mobo, but how much would a good sata drive cost me??

awhir

but cozzy said it would bottle neck your pc so y do it.

sarahn11

awhir wrote:

but cozzy said it would bottle neck your pc so y do it.

he said if they were on the same ide controller......im saying i have a pci one aswell, however i think im just going to look into getting a sata drive now....


so i want to know now is what is the performance difference between sata and ide?!