9260 or D900C dual (Vista and XP Pro) operating system?

I am debating on whether to get XP Pro or Vista Ultimate and then I read some of you have dual systems. Can you ask for dual systems if you are getting 3 HD's and Raid 0? I am going to get the 4GB memory Thanks in advance for any help.

 

I run both Windows XP Professional SP2 and Vista Ultimate x64 on my D901C. I have 3 of the Hitachi 7k200's in Raid 5.

 

Thanks for replying. Do you have to have Raid 5 or can you do the same with Raid 0, I am new to this Raid in the first place. I was only going to get XP because I had heard still some glitches in Vista and also wanted to use both 7950's and I assume you have to have XP right now to use both cards, is that correct? Would you get both OS's if you had to do it again, if you don't mind my asking? I appreciate your information greatly.

 

The OEM license you purchase with your Sager laptop only allows either the 64bit or the 32bit version to be installed at one time even though you get the media for both versions. If you want to switch versions you have to uninstall the one your are replacing. A dual boot installation of both the 64bit and 32bit versions is illegal unless the OEM system builder has a special license agreement to do it, and the user has purchased a separate license for both versions. These special license agreements are not at the regular OEM prices and they are very expensive for the OEM. Sager does not have this special license agreement and I doubt that any of the Sager resellers do either, so it cannot be done by Sager and probably cannot be done legally by your reseller. You can try it yourself, but you will have to buy both licenses, and it can be a bit tricky getting the boot manager to work correctly. It is much easier to dual boot XP and Vista, but you will still need to buy both licenses.

You can dual boot, triple boot, quad boot or whatever with or without RAID.

There are no Vista drivers that are certified by nVIDIA and Clevo for dual cards in SLi. They will hopefully be released before the end of August, but until they are perfected they do not know for sure when.

 

i must have written incorrectly, I never wanted to install 64 and 32 Vista at the same time, you misunderstood, sorry I was not more clear, I was asking about Vista and XP Pro dual booted. When I said both OS', I meant Vista and XP pro. I would install 64 Vista and then purchase a XP Pro also and dual boot if it is possible. That is my original question.

And I did not know if it was better to get Raid 0 or no Raid at all if you do get dual boot OS's, I would buy both systems.

I am debating about where to buy, need to call and ask about some other questions, I have been looking at this computer for months and months and it is just a matter of fine tuning it now.
Thanks again for all your help.

 

No, I understood your question wildwinding, and that is why I said:
"It is much easier to dual boot XP and Vista, but you will still need to buy both licenses."

I apologize if my answer was "too" complete or lengthy, but I thought it would be better to cover the entire topic so that there would be no confusion.

 

You can dual boot without having any RAID at all. But why get the D901C with a built in RAID controller if you not going to use it...same can be said of the SLI functionality. You should buy what fits your needs best, as you can afford it of course.

 

Thanks for the info on the 901C Wu Jen, I really appreciate it. I am going to dual boot with Raid 0, unless there are advantages to Raid 5? Someone said it goes slower with Raid 5, what is your opinion, you have it right? Do you like it better?

 

RAID 0: Striped Set (2 disks minimum) without parity. Provides improved performance and additional storage but no fault tolerance from disk errors or disk failure. Any disk failure destroys the array, which becomes more likely with more disks in the array. The reason a single disk failure destroys the entire array is because when data is written to a RAID 0 drive, the data is broken into "fragments". The number of fragments is dictated by the number of disks in the drive. Each of these fragments are written to their respective disks simultaneously on the same sector. This allows smaller sections of the entire chunk of data to be read off the drive in parallel, giving this type of arrangement huge bandwidth. When one sector on one of the disks fails, however, the corresponding sector on every other disk is rendered useless because part of the data is now corrupted. RAID 0 does not implement error checking so any error is unrecoverable. More disks in the drive means higher bandwidth, but greater risk of data loss.

RAID 1: Mirrored Set (2 disks minimum) without parity. Provides fault tolerance from disk errors and single disk failure. Increased read performance occurs when using a multi-threaded operating system that supports split seeks, very small performance reduction when writing. Array continues to operate so long as at least one drive is functioning.

RAID 5: Striped Set (3 disk minimum) with Distributed Parity. Distributed parity requires all but one drive to be present to operate; drive failure requires replacement, but the array is not destroyed by a single drive failure. Upon drive failure, any subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that the drive failure is masked from the end user. The array will have data loss in the event of a second drive failure and is vulnerable until the data that was on the failed drive is rebuilt onto a replacement drive.

I hope that helps. I went with RAID 5 to get the best of both worlds. I wanted speed but I also wanted backup in case of a Hard Drive Failure.

My recommendation is go with RAID 0 if your going 2 drives. RAID 5 if your going with 3. Just IMO.

 

Wow! That was fast answer! Thanks. Now I understand it a lot better, I believe in my opinion, that Raid 5 also would be or will be the best choice for me. That way I am guaranteed no lost data. Isn't your computer just the best, it sounds like they are? Thanks again and hopefully I will have one very soon, trying to decide who to call.

I would also like to say that I think this whole forum is just great, with lots of information in all aspects of computers and I have been member for a short while and reading since February and feel like I have learned more in that short period of time that I could ever have dreamed. Everyone here is so helpful and knowledgeable. I know all of you help a great number of people with their problems and choices.