Question about RAID

Hello! i'm newbie here, i've searched the forum for answer but did't find anything - but yesterday i bought alienware - it came first time in Russia officially. unfortunately we can't make our own configurations - they all coming there in 4 differents variants
my specs here
17.0" WUXGA 1920x1200
6144Mb DDR3 1333MHz
ntel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX9300 2.53GHz 12Mb L2 Cache 1066MHz FSB
SLi NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 280M 1024Mb
2x320Gb SATA 7200rpm (Free Fall Sensor) RAID.0 "Stripe"
Blu-Ray Combo Dual Layer с щелевой загрузкой
Microsoft® Windows® Vista™ Ultimate SP1 64bit

so now i can't understand - because i see this - only 320 gigs


the same thing in EVEREST

maybe it's RAID 1? but therefore "nvidia stripe" must be called "mirrored"?

thats what i see in other progy


hd tune test shows the speed of typical hdd - not RAID 1


in bios i see "nvidia stripe 320 gb RAID" - well, now i must to think that i have two 160 gb hdd? but i know alienware don't insert these hdd - at least now..
if it is only single 320 gb so it isn't RAID and "stripe"

so whats going on? maybe somebody know something about similar problem?

 

This happened to some people where the raid was never setup. If you go into the raid config utility or the Dell diagnostics utility it should give you more info.

 

I can't see the pictures on this computer, but what does Disk Management show? Does it show two drives installed and one unmounted? Check the RAID Settings in your BIOS and see what its set to as well.

 

2 drives, 1 320GB and 1 500GB.

 

If that's the case, I would leave them unraided to gain an additional 180GB storage space, albeit you'll take a hit in access time. The most you'd get out of 1HD at 320 and 1HD at 500GB in RAID 0 is 640GB. But non-Raid you'd have 820GB.

 

thanks for replys!
no, 500 gb - thats my external 2,5 wd hdd
Disk Management shows only one hdd - 320 gb - no any unmounted drive
in bios i see 320 gb nvidia stripe - thats all

 

Turn off the computer, pop the battery out, open it up and make sure that both hard drives are physically there. Also look at the labels, maybe they gave you two 160GB drives instead?
Here's how to do it: http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/...HQ9cmVtb3ZlIGhhcmQgZHJpdmU*&p_li=&p_topview=1

 

The other possibility is you've actually been given the base spec, which is 2x 160GB HDDs. Best to physically see what HDDs you've been given, and then check the BIOS raid setup if both are present and see what that says. If you ARE raided as Win lists you as, then you've either been given 2x160 in RAID0 or 2x320GB in RAID1, which isnt optimal (for speed, it is for data security!).

Let us know and we'll do what we can to advise

 

i can't do it because of warrantly
i can't see them physically..

 

You will in no way void the warranty by removing or even replacing the Hard Drives. You can replace hard drives all day long without voiding the warranty.

 

Yep, unless its different in Russia, unless you cause damage, Alienware actually allows you to do more to your machines than most companies. Its one of the reasons I bought one.

 

ok here what i see - there is hhd 0 and hdd 1 - hdd 1 is 320 gb, hdd 0 i did't unscrew but i think its 320gb too.. so - thats RAID problem?

 

Deleted
10char

 

Oooh, WD BKT, very nice, they're really good HDDs, what I use
When you get those running you'll be very happy.

Providing your HDD0 has a HDD in it, then it looks like a RAID setup issue, load up your BIOS RAID control and see whats there. If its a setup issue it'll be clear, if it's only listing one HDD not two, then there's your problem.

 

where is it in bios?

 

Its usually something you can load instead of bios setup, rather than in the bios itself. I dont know what the button is on the m17x though, try F1-F12 as the machine boots, one should do it

 

well - all enabled

 

Thats not what you're after, as per my last post theres usually a raid utility seperate to the BIOS you load when the pc starts that allows you to setup the options.

 

thats what i only get

 

if i press "new array" i'll see

 

Looks suspiciously like one drive or striped 160s. If you have restore cds is there an option to delete arrays? If you do and reboot you will no longer be raided and should see 2 drives

 

ok - the mode was "mirrored" - i turn on "striped" and select first hdd to be bootable.
so in windows Disk Management now appears second 320 gb hdd - now i format it
so there not be raid already?

 

If thats the case and you now see 2 320GB HDD it means you were set to RAID1 not 0. IF you want RAID you will need to go back to the utility and create a new array, using both HDD and type 0/striped. If you do this you will need to reinstall windows. Or just keep using the machine like now and 2 HDD.

 

yes - i'll be use it like now - raid 0 not so secure as an any single drive
bu - why now it raid 1? raid 1 is a mirror mode when two hdd merges into one - in case of malfunction one of them the data willnot be lost. or i'm wrong?

 

RAID 0 splits data between the drives to speed up access times. In this case since the data is split on two drives, if one of the HDD's fail you've lost all of your data.
RAID 1 copies the data onto both drives so that if drive 1 fails, you can simply remove drive 1, and replace it with drive 2 and you're back up and running (albeit with only a single drive)

RAID 0 is for speed
RAID 1 is for Security of Data

 

Pretty much covers it... 2 HDD, business as normal, RAID0 - faster, but 2x loss of data (one HDD goes and all your data is gone) RAID1 - capacity of 1 drive, not 2, but your second hard drive is an exact copy of the second.

I use RAID0 with those HDDs and it flies (for non SSD), but I understand why you'd prefer not to

 

allright!
now it is clear - thank you all for your replies - i think i could't do it all only by myself!
but - is it mean that Dell engineers "forgot" to make properly raid?

 

Errr...yeah, or the Dell engineer who did your machine accidentally chose mirrored instead of striped when creating the RAID array, and never checked it again afterwards.

As it is you're not running RAID at all now by the sounds of it

 

Hey while this thread is up just a quick question. I currently have my raid 0 turned off (thought that I would like having drives separated). Anyways I want to turn my raid 0 back on. Instead of having to reinstall OS with Windows vista disc would my Alienrespawn 2.0 disc work instead?

 

Yes, the Respawn disc, if you paid extra for it, will put your computer back to factory conditions even if you change your raid setup.

 

Still need to backup important stuff. RAID 1 is hdd redundancy only.