cool thanks man! yeah i was thinking of the 74gb for main drive and install games and misc windows shat and im sure i wont use it all mostly for games. would it be good to set it up as RAID 0 ? im still new to the RAID stuff and how it works.

 

 

 

Doogie

I have the same 250gb Samsung drive that came stock with my Dell XPS 410.

 

After hearing it grind rocks, I decided to install my old school Raptor (36gb / 8mb cache version). It out-performs the Samsung, but not by much.

 

I've read some great reviews on hard drives on http://www.storagereview.com/php/cms/cms.php?loc=articles&fyr=2006  (that's 2006 reviews, none for 07 yet).

 

I'm still thinking about a single 150 Raptor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136012

 

 

 

or going with 2 - Seagate 7200.10 320's in a RAID 0 (yeilding 1- 596Gb drive roughly)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148215

Note, that's the SERVER version of the drive. It's made for 24/7 uptime and should last you a long time. Read the reviews.

 

 

I use a 320gig internal and a 250gig WD Mybook for backups and as a file repository. SO, the 2nd option would be because I'm cheap and want more for my money :) lol

 

If I wanted all out speed and the $$$:Gb ratio wasn't a factor, I'd get the window-less 150gb Raptor and never look back.

 

I generally don't install alot of software on my system drive anyway. I'm using a 36gig now and it's only half full. 

 

Hope that helped.

 

Gahh... i think im just going to do 1 rap drive then use the 250 as back up. should be fast! haha thanks for the posts

I haven't setup a RAID since IDE's were the only game in town. SO.. my knowledge could be off.

 

RAID 0 = two like drives combined to make 1 faster drive. data transfers are almost double or read/write times are almost cut in half since the PC writes HALF the file to 1 drive and HALF the file to drive 2.  Since your drives only have to work as hard as it takes to read/write HALF as much, it's faster.

 

RAID 1 = you have two like drives but only see 1 drive. everything you do on one drive is mirrored onto the drive you don't see for backup purposes. This method is ideal for someone looking for data security or someone worried about losing everything and starting over.

 

With RAID 0, you lose one drive you lose both but you're fast.

with RAID 1 you lose one drive, you're okay, you have a backup but it costs you double. No real speed increases either.

 

I'm going with a single 150 Raptor myself.

 

 

Doogie, you're on the right track.

 

Get one fast drive such as a Raptor (74 or 150gig), use that for the OS, and use a seperate larger drive for all your data.

 

Yes using two drives in a RAID 0 array increases the performance over just one drive, but overall, the gains aren't enough in everyday usage to offset the dangers of a RAID 0 along with the issue that the 410 is designed to support two drives at the bottom of the case with a fan cooling them. If you go past having two hard drives, then you have to mount them in other places in the case that by default don't have as much cooling as where the HD's are usually mounted.

 

 

Doog,

 

RAID 0 is nice, but (in case you didn't know) if you are planning on striping the 74gb Raptor and 250gb drive, only 74gb of the 250gb drive will be used.  In effect, you'll loose 176gb of usable space.  I would recommend just using the Raptor as your primary drive, partition it and use the front end of the drive for your OS and the back end for programs/games. 

 

In a semi-perfect world I would get a second 74gb Raptor, stripe them into RAID 0 and use the 250gb drive for storage (use one of the 5.25" bays with a cooler). 

 

 

 

 

XPS400 2.8Gig 820 D Dual Core -VIIV
O/S WinXP Media Center Edition 2005
2G.B. DDR2 RAM 533MHZ-4x512M.B.
Hard Drive 250G.B. 7200RPM
ATI 128M.B.HYPER Mem PCI-E X16 X300SE.DIM
ATI TV Wonder Elite PCI
19" FP
Sigma-Tel Intergrated Audio 7.1 channel
Logitech G15 Keyboard
DVD-/+RW & DVD-ROM
Pertelian X2040 ForeSight Systems LCD information Display
Dell 944 AIO Printer

 

   

        My XPS400 has a Samsung 250G.B. 7200rpm  8M.B cache, I did a google search on reviews on this piticular drive and did not find one negative review ,in fact it was the opposite all the reviews where very positive .The reason I was checking the quality of this hard drive was because when my PC is running idle something is constantly either reading from or writing to the drive and I was curious if this was a prob others have been having with this H.D. ,well apprently not ,now I have to thru a process of elimination try and figure out what is causing this constant sound of my drive being used ,Iam alerted to this by a notify signial I have set in my audio for open & close program ? Any suggestion on this problem greatly appreciated ,I have one memeber recomend I download and install a freeware app called Process Monitor ver1.1 !

                             Thanks & Take Care

                                           Gumba Nick

Check your system processes and applicatoins in CTRL ALT DEL (task manager)

 

Make sure you're on the processes tab and then click on USERNAME to list processes by order of user. Look for anything you don't recognize, then google info on it (the Image name, for instance : ZCfgSvc.exe).

 

You may have any security software running, well, guess what, it'll be sniffing for turds as long as your pc is on.

 

You can also go to Start > RUN and type in MSCONFIG and check your startup programs and services for any unwanted programs that load when you start windows.

 

My money is on security . I'd rather get hacked then deal with 40% of my resources going to anti-this and anti-that and firewalls.

 

Come get some!

 

;)

 

 

XPS400 2.8Gig 820 D Dual Core -VIIV
O/S WinXP Media Center Edition 2005
2G.B. DDR2 RAM 533MHZ-4x512M.B.
Samsung Hard Drive 250G.B. 7200RPM
ATI 128M.B.HYPER Mem PCI-E X16 X300SE.DIM
ATI TV Wonder Elite PCI
19" FP
Sigma-Tel Intergrated Audio 7.1 channel
Logitech G15 Keyboard
DVD-/+RW & DVD-ROM
Pertelian X2040 ForeSight Systems LCD information Display
Dell 944 AIO Printer

 

 

   Thanks for the reply Ninefoot3 ! I just checked the Windows task Manager (Ctrl/Alt/Del) and I have some 56 proccesses running on my system including my Pertelian LCD information display ,my TV Wonder with TV in a small screen on my desktop monitor (19"FP) and then what you mentioned all of the security setups with Norotn Security ,firewall,antivirus ,etc. ! The amazing thing is that for the most part the system still runs fast ,I alreay turned several items off in MSCONFIG and my system is set to selective startup ! Iam going to try when Iam off the internet and my system is not online turning off /disabling all of tthe Norton Security applications and see if that stops my H.D. from constantly being dinged ? Also I believe Iam going to try the freeware app that tells you what activity is accessing your H.D. while you PC sits idle ? I narrow it down and kill it !

                                         Thanks & Take Care Gumba Nick

Seems to me to be silly to install another program to have running so you can see what programs you have running, but to each their own.

 

Just make sure and do a few googles on the software first to make sure it isn't harvesting or doing anything other than what it says.

 

Norton was the 2nd thing I removed from my XPS 410 and my XPS m140. AoL takes first prize. There are so many better products out there that don't  cause the system hangups and make you feel like you're stuck walking behind the fat lady going up the stairs who's going way way way too slow and giving you visuals you really aren't up to seeing.   That's Norton. Remove immediately, actually do a google for Norton removal tools.

 

Good luck to ya.