Purchasing another 320gb HDD and setting up RAID 0 in my R3

Hi everyone! I am brand new to both these forums and alienware. I recently purchased my M17x R3 and am looking at a hold over until I can buy an SSD (or two). I am thinking about buying an extra 320 GB hard drive (I have access to a seagate 7200 rpm one for cheap) and setting up in Raid 0. Is it possible to do this? If it is how exactly do I go about it? Thanks for your help!

 

Honestly I think that would defeat the point. You could just invest in two 750HDDs for maybe 150$ at most, and that would give you far more space. It is not like smaller HDD's are faster than larger ones, since they are the same rpm.

I believe the r3 is default set to RAID? so plug-n-play? somebody correct me if I'm wrong

 

Thanks for the advice! I just wanted to go cheap until I saved enough for some SSD's. Do I have everything that I need to set up RAID? So I just plug in my second hard drive and it's good to go? I need advice both on the physical installation and the reloading of software as well.

 

Bad news bear time.

You cannot simply match sizes to setup a RAID 0. You need to match vendors, and even models/revisions. You'll also have to initialize the drives with a bios level function, which will format both drives, and reinstall Win7/drivers.

 

Thanks Hybrys. I have heard that the 320 GB HDD in the m17x is a seagate 7200 rpm HDD. If I bought the 320 GB seagate of the same type can I install it? Or would it be easier to a) buy two drives of the same type and do a clean install or b) just buy a 500 GB HDD for extra storage space if needed and run it as two single drives?

 

The HDD included with your r3 is a seagate momentus slim. Install everest (or any other similar program) and check your exact model number.
After doing that, you will be able to pick up an identical drive from a pc store.

Edit: If the drives are the same, you can install it.

 

It would be easier to do the above, and try to match model numbers. If you want to go the mega-easy route, yes, just grab a 500gb for storage, then run SSD+500gb later.

 

Another thing you could consider is to use a seagate momentus xt hybrid if you want some ssd performance without breaking the bank. It has 500gb of 7200rpm storage and 4gb ssd.

 

i just installed a western digital 320 drive with my stock seagate and installed win7 on raid 0, it works just fine

 

Thanks everyone for your quick responses.

Simplified - Does the seagate momentus xt hybrid have enough space with 4gb for an install of windows 7?

Chanks14 - When you installed your western digital did you just have to install it in the second HDD bay and start up the computer in RAID settings in order to start your fresh install?

 

You can't install anything on the 4gb ssd space of the seagate momentus xt.
The seagate momentus xt uses its built in 4gb ssd space to automatically store the files you use most frequently.

 

I really REALLY wouldn't recommend keeping that setup, unless you're constantly backing up. Yes, it'll work, but you may see errors much sooner then anticipated.

Ref: RAID Level 0

"Hard Disk Requirements: Minimum of two hard disks (some may support one drive, the point of which escapes me); maximum set by controller. Any type may be used, but they should be of identical type and size for best performance and to eliminate "waste"."

Bold added.

@OP - The way the XT hybrid works is a little confusing. It stores bits of information that you most commonly access for quick retrieval. The choosing of these bits is AUTOMATIC, and the user does not have access to this portion. It also does NOT necessarily mean that it's speeding up entire files, but only parts of the files you use most often. So if you use HDD intensive files quite often (IE: Loading Photoshop or similar applications.) those will be sped up, but not everything.

 

Hybrys - I see. So it doesn't necessarily speed up boot up and similar processes. Thanks so much for all the info. I would rep you but I am not quite sure how yet! lol

 

Say I am loading a game, does it only use the .exe(or w.e it is, sorry I am a nub cake) file to run the game to make it go quicker??

 

It can speed up the boot time if you restart the computer a few times to "train" the momentus xt

 

The weight scale looking thing on the FAR left BOTTOM of his post under his screen name and info!

I would rep him, but I already have.. lol it wont let me just yet.. LOL

 

@ ZOG Paradox - lol thanks!

@ Hybrys - +1 rep!

Just one more completely newb question. If I was going with a RAID 0 setup, do I need any other physical equipment for installation besides the two hard drives? I don't need anything to join them correct? I have built a couple different desktop systems but I have never set up HDDs in RAID or really worked with a laptop

 

No, you just need 2 HDD:s to raid

 

No, it's a little more intelligent then that. I'll use WoW as an example. It'll probably cache about 50% of your most used dataset (IE: Org), and your cache, but not much else. If you want speedups for games, you want a real SSD. This is more for bootup/professional applications, such as Photoshop, Vectorworks, etc.

@Drylln

The physical part you need is... Already included. =P Plug them in like normal harddrives, and use the bios level software to do the rest. (This still counts as a hardware RAID solution.)