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    HDD Mirror

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by kienah, Jun 8, 2010.

  1. kienah

    kienah Notebook Enthusiast

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    Does this mean i have 500gb of storage on my pc??
    As when i go into the My Computer i only see 250gb and one drive.

    Sorry for the noob questions

    Hard Drive : 250GB (2x250GB) Free Fall Sensor Raid 1 "Mirror"(7200RPM) Dual HDD
     
    kienah, Jun 8, 2010
    #1
  2. claxdog

    claxdog Notebook Evangelist

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    No that means your data is mirrored on doth drives to prevent data loss.So you have 250gb storage.your data is saved twice.
     
    claxdog, Jun 8, 2010
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  3. hitokiri1

    hitokiri1 Notebook Evangelist

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    Yeah, So technically you have 500GB of storage but 250GB of that space is used to "mirror" the first 250GB so you only get access to the remaining 250. You can change the way your Raid settings are set up to be either 2 independent drives both 250 but both accesible or Raid 0 which will combine both drives, give you a slight increase in performance and show your capacity at 500GB. Keep in mind that Raid 0 can be unstable because if one drive fails everything fails. Notebooks that move around alot can be especially prone to corruption. That being said alot of people still do it and are fine.
     
    hitokiri1, Jun 8, 2010
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  4. Wattos

    Wattos Notebook Deity

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    mirroring also gives you a performance boost when it comes to reads, but a slowdown for writes.
     
    Wattos, Jun 8, 2010
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  5. BlueMoon89

    BlueMoon89 Notebook Enthusiast

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    After losing two 500 GB HDs in Raid 0 to a crash from software incompatibility with Ad-Aware on a desktop, I am wary of Raid 0 and keep all HDs as separate entities.
     
    BlueMoon89, Jun 8, 2010
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  6. kienah

    kienah Notebook Enthusiast

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    hi
    I still a little unsure about not being able to see the 500gb, i only see 250 so that is all i can utilize?
     
    kienah, Jun 9, 2010
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  7. BlueMoon89

    BlueMoon89 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yes, 250 GB is all you can utilize for your system in Raid 1.

    On a side note, why did you order your hard drives in Raid 1?
     
    BlueMoon89, Jun 9, 2010
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  8. kienah

    kienah Notebook Enthusiast

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    it was a replacement system from a xps 1645, to be honest i wish i just had a normal HDD and no raid or backup whatever, i suppose we live and learn
    Is there a way to get 500gb as normal HD space?
     
    kienah, Jun 9, 2010
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  9. SAUCE

    SAUCE ★ ★ ★

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    You need to reformat OS go into bios and take off raid , reboot & reformat.In order to avoid confusion as to where the OS is installed I would recommend removing one of the drives, then install your OS. After it is up and running install the other drive and use disk manager to partition and format the second drive. ;)
     
    SAUCE, Jun 9, 2010
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  10. BlueMoon89

    BlueMoon89 Notebook Enthusiast

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    The only way to get 500 GB is to reconfigure the hard drives from Raid 1 to Raid 0, where the 2 x 250 GB drives act as a single drive (500 GB).

    Another option is to break the Raid setup, and use the drives separately. So you have one master drive which has the operating system, and the second drive as a storage drive. In this setup, you will have 2 separate drives with 250 GB each. I personally prefer this setup after a fiasco with Raid 0, see above.
     
    BlueMoon89, Jun 10, 2010
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  11. kienah

    kienah Notebook Enthusiast

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    do i need to do any reinstall for that, because that sounds like just what i want
     
    kienah, Jun 10, 2010
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  12. BlueMoon89

    BlueMoon89 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Which setup up do you want? Raid 0 (2x250 GB = 1 500 GB) or two separate hard drives (master and storage drive, 250 GB each)?

    Both setups require reconfiguration of the hard drives and reinstallation of the operating system.
     
    BlueMoon89, Jun 10, 2010
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  13. kienah

    kienah Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ok
    Thanx for the heads up
    I want 2 separate hdd

    Thanx for the help guys
     
    kienah, Jun 10, 2010
    #13