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jayrcr3

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21 years ago

J

jayrcr3

2 Posts

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2900

February 5th, 2006 17:00

Raid 0 help please.

I am new to the RAID set up. I have an XPS gen 4. What do I need to do to install a second hard drive and run it in a raid 0 config. Is this system capable as is from dell,or do i need 3rd party hardware, or software? I currently have a 160gb sata drive. Do I need another drive of the same size and brand, or just the same size. I cant find anything that gives me good info on this from dell. Thanks for your help.
  • S

    sleeplesman

    272 Posts

    269

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    Posted February 5th, 2006 18:00

    You will need a second drive the same as the first for raid 0 or raid 1 and you will need to find the motherboard manufacurer to look and see if the mother board is raid compatible or has a raid controller chip on it. You will need to add the drivers for that chip if its on the board..aha found somthing.

    Drive Controller
    Identifies and defines the SATA controller settings for RAID. You can set the SATA controller to RAID Autodetect/AHCI, RAID Autodetect/ATA, or RAID On.

    see http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dimxpsg4/sm/miller_l.htm#wp1052310

    guess thats the answer you needed... raid is supported.

    Message Edited by sleeplesman on 02-05-2006 04:00 PM

  • J

    jayrcr3

    2 Posts

    269

    0

    Posted February 5th, 2006 20:00

    Thanks for the info. I will be off to get a new hd.

    Thank you very much.
  • A

    audiopho

    601 Posts

    269

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    Posted February 6th, 2006 12:00

    Or you can leave the current drive alone and get two new exact models and configure it as RAID-0 which is exactly what I did for my Gen 4. I use the single drive for o/s and other essential apps. The RAID0 drive is for all gaming related. All RAID setup drivers are in bios and just follow the user manual instructions for RAID configuration.
  • A

    Aivas47a

    1227 Posts

    269

    0

    Posted April 1st, 2006 22:00

    I'm very intersted in doing exactly what you describe. 

    I have an XPS 600 with a single hard drive.  Can I add two additional small but speedy drives (I'm thinking two 75 G WD Raptors at 10,000 RPM) in a Raid 0 array while leaving my original non-Raid hard drive alone?  The plan would be to leave Windows XP, Microsoft Office, and other storage on the original hard drive but play games off the Raid drives.

    Do I just need to install the new drives, configure them as a Raid 0 array, and install my games there?

    Thanks

  • A

    Aivas47a

    1227 Posts

    269

    0

    Posted April 6th, 2006 18:00

    Audiopho, thanks for the advice.  I have added two new drives in Raid 0 (for gaming only) while leaving the original drive alone as you suggested and it works great.

    For some reason I could not get the Raid configuration to work righ using the nvidia MediaShield RAID BIOS as described in the users manual, but eventually achieved the desired result using "Disk Management" in Windows.

    The Windows utility also seems to support a Raid 5 configuration for anyone with three drives who wants the best of both worlds, but I'm happy with my non Raid OS and application drive and Raid 0 gaming drives.

    Thanks for your advice. 

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