What Kind of RAID Shall I use?

[OldCake]

I am going to assemble my Game machine and I'm considering on using a RAID configuration with my (2) 100 GB Western Digital hard drives. I heard many things about RAID and I'm still confused. What capacity will my Windows XP recoqnize my two hard drives as. I know it will say 100 gig, but how many drives will it recognize? One super fast 100 gig hard drive or two fast 100 gig hard drives. What mode shall I configure this in, I'm a Gamer and I want extensive space for my vast mp3 collection. That said, the motherboard I am purchasing has a built in RAID controller, I am also purchasing a Creative Labs DVD player and CD-RW drive. Will they go in the primary IDE channels?...or secondary? And, what should be the master?, the DVD or CD-RW? On another subject (sorry). I want to have a total of at least three fans in my computer. Is this possible? I want a cpu fan (naturally), 2 fans for case circulation (one blowing air in from the vent, and one near the bottom just blowing air, and one for the vid card(I don't know if one does and if so will it plug into my vid card?) Where can I plug these bad boys in? Thanks bunches, You guys have one of the best sites I seen in awhile. Nice Extensive coverage on just about everything that has to do with computers. (especially the forums. Keep up the awesome site and the great work.

[glc]

I'm probably going to get a blast here, but I don't really think that IDE raid is worth the hassles. If this were me, I would just hook up the 2 big drives as a master/slave setup on the primary ATA100 controller and hook up the DVD and burner the same way on the secondary (doesn't really matter which is master and which is slave). I would also recommend partitioning the drives, you really don't want a 100gb partition, trust me!

I dunno - I guess I'm just a believer in the KISS theory. (Keep It Simple, Stupid!)

Fans - if you don't have enough headers on the motherboard, just get fans with standard 4 wire "Molex" connectors on them and hook them directly to a power supply lead. Some high end video cards come with fans already on them, they are generally powered right off the card itself.

[OldCake]

Thanks glc!

So here the story I have : Master IDE Channel 1 100 Gig WD for games, OS)
Slave IDE Channel 1 100 Gig WD for MP3 Collection and Photos.

I don't really know t olmcuh about partioning much and you told me I should do it, so I will. What kind of Partitioning should be done on these two bad boys.






'She came towards me, like the light, like it was, the light, light of heavenly grace, and the first thing that popped into me gulliver was that I like to have her right there on the floor with Sarah a and Jess, Playing Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 all night long'

[glc]

I merged the 2 threads - please don't post a new thread, use the "post reply" button.

There are as many ways to partition as there are opinions - in other words, a lot.

What operating system are you going to install? This can make a difference and bring up limitations.

[HAL9000]

If you are going to try IDE RAID, the only thing that I would recommend is to buy a third hard drive and run your OS on it ONLY! Use the other two drives and stripe them.

[Toaster]

I'll add to whats already been said and say that the reason WHY you are having space difficulties is because of the single "huge" partition sizes.
Partitions of the size you are using is VERY wasteful. I won't go into any detail as yet but basicly your drives have a minimum cluster size of 32KB. This "cluster size" is the MINIMUM amount of space ONE file will use and only ONE file per cluster. So, assuming 32KB clusters, and assuming a 1KB file, 31KB of space is wasted because Win9x/DOS (samething really) can only "store" one file per cluster.
You can check this by doing the following:
1. Open "my computer".
2. Select any hard-disk and right click for properties.
3. Look in this properties for "cluster size" or "allocation unit size"

Now, get a jest of your "typical" file size.
To make matters look really bad, check your "internet files folder" where Micky$oft stores web page bits. These are usually small files of 1-3KB. Add the number of files you count and multiply by 32. Total the space needed by these file with a calculator. This is the "raw" space needed but not whats used.
An example:
100 files, 2KB in size each= Thats 3.2MB of allocated space using 32KB clusters where the total actual space required for the files is 200KB. *ouch*

I can go into gory detail as to "why" but I dunno if I can apply the KISS principle.

[OldCake]

Well my humble friends, I can only say this:

Chances are I'm not gonna buy a third Hard drive until like months away.

Heres what I'm viddying:

How 'bout I partition my mp3 hard drive into say 4 or 5 parts
one for every type of music I have. FOr instance (Alternative, Britpop, so on)

or some other way? Suggestions?

And for my main Hard drive.....How should that be devised?


*sneeze* God Bless allergies, for they make 1 second feel so good!

[OldCake]

Sorry for the new post!

I'm going to get the XP OS.