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    Reformatting, need advice about RAID 0 vs game drive and short stroking

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by deathcoffee, Feb 5, 2011.

  1. deathcoffee

    deathcoffee Notebook Enthusiast

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    I know similar questions have been asked but after a lot of searching I still need some clear answers. Right now I have 2 WD5000BEKT's in RAID 0 and they seem to be pretty fast:

    [​IMG]

    But it's time to reformat and I'm considering a couple options. The first would be to keep the RAID 0 array and short stroke it at 100GB, expanding it as I need more space. The second would be to use one drive for OS/programs and the second for games and possibly the Users/ProgramData folders. In that case I would probably still short stroke the drives, or at least the OS drive.

    I like the second option because of the manageability of separating the OS from the data, but I'm worried it will make loading times for games slower. Has anyone tried both of these and noticed a difference in games? I'm mainly concerned about oblivion and FO3, both of which are heavily modded with hi res texture packs.

    Btw, I have a 2TB external drive and will be doing regular backups either way.
     
    deathcoffee, Feb 5, 2011
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  2. katalin_2003

    katalin_2003 NBR Spectre Super Moderator

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    RAID 0 pro: faster :D
    RAID 0 con: one fails -> you loose everything

    Why not get a SSD for OS and games you play and keep one of the HDDs in the second bay for data,if you're worried about loading times.
     
    katalin_2003, Feb 5, 2011
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