RAID

[crunchie]

Running a Phenom II 940BE on a DFI LP DK 790FXB M2RSH board and thought I would give RAID0 a try. Purchased two 250Gb Samsungs and after much pulling of hair (found that the CD that came with the board was faulty, so copied the files over to a flash drive), set up Vista 64 on it.
Is there a way that one can tell from Windows that the RAID setup is in effect?

[SuperSparks]

If memory serves, Device Manager does show both physical drives. That's about the only thing though. TBH I'm no longer a fan of RAID as it is implemented on motherboards, and RAID0 is a disaster waiting to happen IMO. If you use it, then a good regular backup regimen is even more essential than usual.

[Train]

RAID0 is a disaster waiting to happen IMO. If you use it, then a good regular backup regimen is even more essential than usual.

From what I have observed over the years, that is it in a nut shell.

[themanwhowas]

I hate to be a thread hijacker but what is so bad about RAID 0? I would have thought that it's no worse than just using one hard drive

[Train]

For speed RAID 0 is the way to go, but you have no redundancy. This is not a critical factor as long as you have a good functioning recovery plan if something goes wrong. When in RAID 0 and one drive goes bad ALL your data (on both drives) goes bad. While you'll only have to replace the defective drive, you'll have to recover all of your data. Yeah, RAID 1 protects against data loss, but its speed is slightly less than RAID 0.

Plus the added expense of the add hdds.

Way to go I think
10,000 RPM WD VelociRaptor

[SuperSparks]

And also, the likelihood of drive failure with two interdependent drives isn't twice that of a single drive, as you might expect, but in fact is many times more likely

[lgbpop]

Crunchie, you'll find yourself holding your breath every time you start the computer. A single drive will either start or not start each time you push the power button. Using a RAID0 array, the probability is that one drive or the other (or both) will not start 75% of the time:

• 1-Y, 2-Y = start
• 1-Y, 2-N = no start
• 1-N, 2-Y = no start
• 1-N, 2-N = no start

Not very reassuring. Even if both drives work flawlessly, you then have to hope the controller does as well. I never found the slight performance edge worth the anxiety, myself.

Computer | Properties will show the combined total of both drives in a RAID0 array as a single drive (unless you partition it, of course).

[crunchie]

Just something I haven't tried before and a lot of ppl swear by it. I understand the risk may be higher, but hey.......it's not running my life support
pop. 2 drives are showing as 460Gb in my computer

[lgbpop]

The 460GB is the combined total of the two drives, minus the hex-to-decimal shrinkage. Two of them, eh? I remember that happening on my setup, never figured out why.

[crunchie]

The 460GB is the combined total of the two drives, minus the hex-to-decimal shrinkage. Two of them, eh? I remember that happening on my setup, never figured out why.

My bad. I explained it wrong. I just meant that the 2 drives combined are showing as 460Gb. Thay are showing as 1 drive though

[lgbpop]

It's Saturday night and I'm in vacation mode.