Hard Drive setup questions

J

jjvwg

New Member
Hey guys, getting ready to build my first PC. I have helped my dad build one before and my friend, but for my personal build I will be trying two new things that I'm not quite sure about.

I have purchased 3 hard drives for my new comp, 1 80gb and 2 750 gb HDD's. I plan on installing my OS's on the 80 and keeping my data stored on the other 2.

questions:

1. on the 80gb, should I install the OS's and programs, or just the OS's and install programs on my data HDD's?

2. Should I install all 3 HDD's right away, or should I just install the 80, then the OS, then install the others one at a time and format them?

3. I wanna do a raid 1 setup. From what I have been reading on the internet it seems as though the HDD you want to mirror to the other has to have an OS installed on it to setup raid, is this true? because if so my method of 3 HDDs wont work.

4. The articles i have read also say you have to have the raid drivers on a floppy to install when installing the OS, was that a thing of the past? (meaning newer motherboards that have built in raid controllers dont need to go through this process?)

I'd appreciate any help guys, thanks.
 
I can answer the first two for you.

It really depends on what you do, because if you are a gamer then steam ( a gaming program) only wants to be on your C: drive which is your OS drive so you would want your OS to be on a 750GB one. If not, then I personally recommend installing your OS and OS related programs to the 80GB drive and other applications on the other drive.

Also you should put all of the HDD's in at once, it saves time and there isn't any difference then putting them in one at a time. You can chose which drive is where and so on so just put them in all at once.

I do not have that much experience with RAID so I will leave that with some of the others.

Hope I helped.
 
80GB seems a bit skimpy... Disk is so cheap anymore, I'd get at least a 160GB as the primary drive because stuff (besides the OS) is going onto that drive regardless of your setup.

1. Sorta covered above, but I'd install the programs on the other drives because you're going to use up the 80GB in now time otherwise. Depending on what you install, you'd use up a 160 quickly too :P

2. It makes no difference. However, should you reload the OS at some point, you may consider removing all but the OS drive. It can be a good precaution to confirm you format the correct drive.

3. Um... I'm not quite sure I understand the question. RAID is handed by hardware on the motherboard. After you set it up, it'll simply show up as a drive on your computer just as if you had installed a stand-alone drive. You're idea/setup will work fine.

4. Not as necessary with later OS's (past XP). But yes, with many they do require some kind of RAID drivers. I'm pretty sure with Windows 7 (and I think Vista) you can use a flash drive to install these drivers.
 
thanks for the info guys, think i got it figured out.

here are two more questions though.

1. if i have to reinstall my OS, whats happens. do I have to re-setup the RAID or does it recognize that it was previously set up that way.

2. I was planning on dual booting having both xp and win7 installed. I have heard that XP doesnt support raid 1, im guessing this wont be possible to do. is it true that win 7 has an xp mode. if thats the case, then it wouldnt even be worth it to dual boot, would it?
 
1. If it's a hardware raid then it will still be setup.
2. XP supports all RAID, it just doesn't natively support all/any controllers. Windows 7 Profssional and Ultimate have XP mode. I think it's just XP in Microsofts VM though.
 
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