Using multiple drives to optomize speed??

**J187** · 07-19-2007, 05:03 PM

I think I had read somewhere that installing the OS (Win XP in my case) on it's own drive could improve performance. I have two 36gb raptors that I would like to make use of, but they are kinda small to be everyday drives. However, I wondered if using these drives in a stipped array just for windows and using my two 200GB drives in a mirrored array as storage for mp3s, vids and images and stuff would be benificial. Basically, I'm really trying to fit these raptors into my install somehow.

**Spartan117** · 07-27-2007, 11:19 AM

I think you want the opposite mate - mirrored raptors as your boot drive should boost performance and boot time, while I can't se any reasons for mirroring your 200gb's other than redundancy if one of them fails..

**VmtSquad** · 07-27-2007, 01:50 PM

36Gb isnt enough for your OS ???

I have a 30Gb 2.5'' for my tinyXP + a 300Gb 3.5' for my data. I keep a backup of my data in my home PC since its the same music and video etc...So no need of RAID.

I don't know if it would speed up the comp it self but it is definitly easier that way, cause your OS is alone on a disk and can be reimage without touchin the DATA. So make an image of the OS disk...in case(ghost or acronis).

I Just reinstall my 30Gb last night from scratch with TinyXP. What a lovely XP version. Nothin useless, everything is ajust for best performance. I installed all the usefull apps, winamp, winrar, adobe reader, flash. Guess what...1,8GB hahah THATS NICE!!! and with the Boot.ini mods to fast the boot time IT takes 10-15 sec to get to WINDOWS....unbeleivable. Only missing RR, GPS apps etc.... + boot on my frontend, et voilà!

**Themutt** · 08-31-2007, 12:38 AM

if you wnat speed you should put your 2 raptors in raid 1. Making them 1 60 gig HD. raid 1 will put half ur data on each drive and should load from both drives at once. This will theoretically increase load speeds by 100%.

Works pretty nicely imo

If not go with a linux build and you will have alot faster boot times and a moe optimised system.

**Machinist** · 08-31-2007, 03:19 AM

No, RAID 1 is Mirrored RAID, two drives are combined into one "physical" volume which consists of identical data on both drives. Usable capacity should be the smallest drive in the mirrored RAID set. If one drive fails you will still retain the data on the other, and have the ability to rebuild the RAID onto another drive.

RAID 0 is Striped RAID, this is the one that stores information on multiple drives allowing you to drastically increase read/write operation for the RAID volume. Usable capacity is the size of the smallest drive in the set multiplied by the number of drives in the set.

Raptors are known to run really hot, its something you might want to think about when you're putting one (or more?) in a car pc..

**DarquePervert** · 08-31-2007, 07:33 AM

What about the power draw of all those hard drives? Do you have that covered?

**tracker64** · 11-30-2007, 01:17 AM

bump.
Notice the silence?

**Kimota** · 12-09-2007, 10:15 PM

I run Raid 0 using two 150GB hitachi notebook drives, it does increase performance particularly boot time, cold boot to front end 30-40 seconds(also using minlogon). I need to experiment a bit with changing stripe size but been a little lazy to do so.

I also ran my setup in non raid config boot time took nearly twice as long. Keep in mind running raid will also introduce its own unique issues

**drutort** · 12-23-2007, 03:57 AM

this is interesting i thought abou this as well, putting 2x 2.5 drives in raid 0, but i was thinking of looking for single disk low power and low heat 7200 drives.... does something like that exist

**DarquePervert** · 12-23-2007, 08:00 AM

If you want a low power drive, you want a laptop drive (2.5 inch), plain ans simple. They make 7200rpm laptop drives.
Overall, hard drives don't put out a lot of heat compared to other PC components, namely CPU & 3D GPU. They are more likely to react to ambient heat than heat up themselves.