RAID 0 question

[Bioshock_FTW!]

All right, I've never set up a RAID array before but I do know a thing or two.
Someone gave me another 36GB WD Raptor 10k RPM drive (i already have 1), and I want to put the two of them in RAID 0 for Vista to run on.
Now, I've also got another 320 GB WD Caviar coming that I'm going to stripe with my current one so basically I need to know if it's possible to have 2 seperate RAID arrays going on in one PC?
I've never done it obviously, I have no idea how its going to work out.
So...some of you PC guys...what should I do?:

[Bioshock_FTW!]

forgot to specify...I'll be doing this on an Asus M2N-Sli Deluxe

[SPDeath]

This forum really needs a tech support section, especially when the games release, and people flood the forum with "... keeps crashing" topics.

[Bioshock_FTW!]

This forum really needs a tech support section, especially when the games release, and people flood the forum with "... keeps crashing" topics.

You're right. I'll volunteer

[BioShockWins]

This forum really needs a tech support section, especially when the games release, and people flood the forum with "... keeps crashing" topics.

wait... the imaged side of the disk goes... up?!?!

- My Dad

And about the RAID 0 thing, I'm not sure.

[Veridiac]

Yes you can have multiple RAID arrays in 1 PC, at least if your doing software raid arrays through Disk Management... if your using your motherboard's bios RAID feature it depends on the motherboard.

[Mr.Bubblez]

i would not put an OS on RAID0. this is bad because it greatly increases the risk of a harddrive failure ruining your computer, its literally twice the chance because if one drive fails you lose everything.

My final setup for BioShock will have 3 harddrives; a smaller 120GB for my OS and two 250GB harddrives in RAID0. That will give me faster load times for games while at the same time keeping the risk of losing my OS relatively low.

[Bioshock_FTW!]

i would not put an OS on RAID0. this is bad because it greatly increases the risk of a harddrive failure ruining your computer, its literally twice the chance because if one drive fails you lose everything.

I'm not too worried about putting my OS on striped drives. I reformat once every 3 months anyway; and i'll be automating a backup of the entire OS disk(s) once a week.

It looks like my mobo will allow more than one RAID array, so that's a bonus.

Otherwise, I've been told by many folks to keep my windows swap(paging) file in it's own partition somewhere. Is there a way to have a usable partition without a drive letter? I don't want a 3 GB partition showing up under My Computer just for the virtual memory.

[Mr.Bubblez]

I'm not too worried about putting my OS on striped drives. I reformat once every 3 months anyway; and i'll be automating a backup of the entire OS disk(s) once a week.

It looks like my mobo will allow more than one RAID array, so that's a bonus.

Otherwise, I've been told by many folks to keep my windows swap(paging) file in it's own partition somewhere. Is there a way to have a usable partition without a drive letter? I don't want a 3 GB partition showing up under My Computer just for the virtual memory.

reformatting has nothing to do with preventing your hard drive from physically dying.

putting your page file on another partition makes no difference far as i know...

[Veridiac]

Theres no real benefit to putting the page file in its own partition other than guaranteeing it won't be fragmented, but if you fully defrag the drive before creating a fixed size swap file, its basically the same thing. Also I think there is a way to defrag the page file with 3rd party utilities... I forget.

For that matter... I wonder how much difference a fragmented page file makes in the first place - theres no guarantee access to the page file is going to be sequential in the first place.

[Bioshock_FTW!]

reformatting has nothing to do with preventing your hard drive from physically dying.

putting your page file on another partition makes no difference far as i know...

putting your paging file on another HDD greatly decreases the local C drive from fragmenting files, decreasing the chance of the HDD crashing in the future anyway.

So long as you don't go installing all kinds of random apps locally on C: you can prevent it from fragmenting altogether by also directing all programs that have temp directories(ie. firefox) to their own partition on another physical drive.

[Bioshock_FTW!]

but if you fully defrag the drive before creating a fixed size swap file, its basically the same thing.

How does one do this?
All these things are new to me but they make sense...I've just never done any of it.

[Mr.Bubblez]

putting your paging file on another HDD greatly decreases the local C drive from fragmenting files, decreasing the chance of the HDD crashing in the future anyway.

i dont think thats true my friend...

[Veridiac]

putting your paging file on another HDD greatly decreases the local C drive from fragmenting files, decreasing the chance of the HDD crashing in the future anyway.

Thats not true, the paging files location has no impact on how fragmented other files become. Also I've never seen any study showing that fragmented hard drives are any less reliable than non fragmented, just slower.

Putting temp file dirs on a separate partition however is a good idea, personally I keep my OS (which includes default temp file directories) on one partition and install games and store data on another (makes it easy to reinstall the OS, just format the OS partition)

How does one do this?
All these things are new to me but they make sense...I've just never done any of it.

If you right click on my computer -> Properties -> Advanced tab -> Under Performance click Settings button -> Advanced tab in the new "Performance Options" window -> Under virtual memory click Change

From there you can specify page file sizes for each partition, if you choose to make them a fixed size it will generate the file and leave it there forever. Unless you make it too small and run out, I think it will then override your choice and expand the pagefile.