RAID 0 Help....

I set up a RAID 0 using 2 WD Scorpio Black 320gb drives on my P-7805u(1 stock 1 new). All went well but when i check my available space it says 564gb out of 596gb available. Why would that be? 2 320gb drives would give ya 640gb. Was i supposed to remove any partitions? Was i supposed to format my new HDD before install? Is the missing 44gb where my recovery system is located? Or is everything ok and im just worried about nothing at all? TY in advance.

 

2x320GB in decimal = 2x298GiB in binary. (GB = 10^9 vs. GiB = 2^30)

 

oh i see. I didnt realize it broke down that way.In a way you dont get what you pay for. Well 2x298 in binary is exactly what it said during the initial RAID setup.
Thanks for the quick response, you guys are the best.

 

When i setup a RAID 0 it says the default strip value should be 218kb. Mine is set to 156kb and i cant change it. Does this matter? And what is the strip value for?

 

I just left the strip value at default since I have no idea what it is and I am new to RAID as well. I have the same setup as TeKn1qe. I'm enjoying it. I have more than enough space to do everything I want with the notebook.

 

I went back and forth with the Strip setting, I finally left it on the default, no noticeable difference.

 

ok so i have my lappy setup for RAID 0 and all is well. But it seems that installs are taking a little bit longer. has anyone else expirienced this?

 

Not I. A defrag after you install everything might help. And remember if your installing from the dvd drive it reads really slowly.

 

Ya a defrag couldn't hurt. Do you know what the read speed of the drive is? And if there is an upgrade i could put in? Also i was wondering whats a good program to check my drivers as some are probably out of date after the clean install?

 

for best performance you should configure a 1:4 ratio cluster to stripe.

but if doesn't make that much a difference. If you already have raid configured, it's not worth it to redo it.

 

Do you need to wipe all your system files to adjust the raid stripe size? I set mine to 128 and it seems to work fairly well. Better than a single drive, that is.

 

Ya I have no idea what the read and write speeds are the the drive, but I know they are slow. The program Everest doesn't say what it is, very annoying!

 

i wanna say it would. Mine is at 128 as well.

Strife, do you know what i could use to check my drivers?

 

Thats the only program I use to montior my computer temps and info.

 

Hello all, my comp is in my signature.

Well, I wanted to know, what advantage is there with raid?

I have a 200gb and a 320 gb hd.
Not trying to hijack, but this post has info I wanted.

 

Basically from what I have read and it isn't much RAID 0 is for "performance"
while RAID 1 is for "security" it makes up a cloned copy of your hard drive on to the other hard drive that is installed. Makes sense?

 

I know a lot about Raid... here's the rundown: Raid 0 is performance, Raid 1 is security, but Raid 1 is really obsolete since there's no need to waste an internal drive when you can use an external hard drive with more space for cheaper. Anyway, it's not very good "security" to back up onto an internal drive, since all it takes is a coffee spill or power surge for BOTH drives to fail.. something that wouldn't happen if you just use an external drive to back up your data instead of wasting an internal one.

Anyway, as far as Raid 0 performance:

You want to maintain a 1:4 stripe/cluster ratio. So 128kb stripe : 32kb cluster. The stripe size is handled by the Raid controller, and is set when you create the array. It cannot be changed without wiping the array and creating a new one. The cluster size is handled by the operating system, and is set when you format the partition/drive. It can be changed by reformatting the partition/drive with a new cluster setting, which erases all the data. Windows, by default, uses a 4kb cluster size. So unless you changed it, that's your cluster size right now.

In general, you want to use a lower sizes for smaller files. I get better performance with 16kb/4kb ratio for the operating system, which uses a lot of smaller files. I get better performance with 128kb/32kb ratio for my larger files.

Basically, I set up my Raid Controller to create 2 volumes out of the combined space of my drives. The first is 50GB, the second is the rest of my space (about 326gb). The OS/various programs/documents go onto the smaller 16/4kb 50gb volume, since they're made up of lots of smaller size files. The games/movies/music/pictures go onto the larger 128/32kb 326gb volume, since they're comprised of larger sized files.

None of this really makes THAT much of a difference relative to the huge speed increase you'll get form using Raid 0 in general. This is just what you should do if you want optimum speed, in my opinion.

One of the best things you can do though, is just go to "Intel Matrix Storage Manager" under start>programs, and enabled "write-back cache" on your drive(s) if you're using Raid 0. This will give a huge boost to performance, and can be done at any time.

 

WOW you are very knowlegable! lol Thanks for the tips. How do i set up 2 volumes? I like the idea of having the OS in 1 spot and all the junk in another. And when i set my RAID 0 up i had only 1 option to change stripe size(128kb). Where does the ratio come into play? TY for all your help.

 

That ratio has just proven to be best in most tests (use google to find them). When you format the drive, you can set the cluster size, also called "allocation unit size."

For more, view my fresh format thread: CLICK