what is better: 3*2disks in mirrors or raid 5*3disks+2 disks in mirror?
83031
I use mirrors only when I need integrity and only have 2 drives to work with.  In the case of having three or more drives, and a Raid 5 controller, you (a) get more space and (b) get more speed and STILL have fault tolerance using Raid 5.\n\nNote, in either case, the "space used per disk" in a mirror or Raid 5 is equal to the SMALLEST disk drive, so if you have 3 LARGE drives and 2 SMALL ones, I might go with the Raid 5 on the three large disks and mirror on the two smaller.\n\nFor example 3 - 200GB drives and 2 - 100GB drives\n\nRaid 5 using all 5 disks = 5 * 100GB (smallest drive) - 100GB(smallest drive) = 400GB\n\nRaid 5 on three and Mirror on two = (3 * 200GB - 200GB) + (100 GB) = 500GB
1138517
They all work well. Even the off brands. Don't be deceived by "speed" claims. Any will serve your purpose.\n\nJust get one in the largest size you can afford. You will never say "I have too much space."
719445
Okay...  The difference between a 3.0 and a 2.8 is negligible.  However, if the 3.0 were tapped with HT, or Hyperthreading, the difference would be enormous.  Hyperthreading virtually turns one processor into two.  It will significantly increase the PC performance when it comes to multi-tasking.  Look for it.\nFSB... or Front Side Bus...  Imagine a funnel.  The CPU speed, like 3 GHz, would be the top of the funnel.  The FSB would be the bottom.  No matter how big the top is, the bottom can only allow so much out at one time.  There are FSB's up to 2000 now.\nMemory... the speed is what you're looking at.  This means that the memory clock is set at 533 MHz/sec.  The higher the speed, obviously, the faster information can be retrieved from memory.  The DIMMs are the number of slots availible.  If you have 2 DIMMs, then you have 2 slots for memory.  A maximum of 2 GHz of memory is availible.  At 4 DIMMs, your maximum is 4 GHz.  The more memory, the faster you can get programs to load, or the less lag you'd see in high res games.\nHard Drive...  As a hard drive reads its disks, it writes information to the cache.  The larger the cache, the more information you can access before the HDD has to read more.  So, the higher the Cache, the better.  As far as RPMs, this is the speed at which the disks spin, and logically, the higher the RPM, the faster the HDD can access new information.\nYour options are all dependant on your budget.  You will get great performance with the 2.8, with 512 Megs of memory, with a 7200 RPM hdd with an 8MB cache.  But, the more you can afford to put in it, the longer it will take before you are way behind tomorrow's technologies.\nIf you have further questions, feel free to email me at this yahoo screen name.  I build and repair PCs for a living.
931990
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. this is used to improve the performance of a system. there are many RAID levels. RAID 0 to RAID 6. each level has a different approach to improve the performance. \nfor example in RAID 0, disk mirroring is done. mirroring is nothing but creating duplicate copies of the disks. this increases reliability because we can refer to the duplicate copy in case of a system crash, but it considerably decreases the speed.\n\nin other RAID levels, we have "stripping" which is removing redundant data. stripping can be done at bit level, which is called bit level stripping or it can be done at block level, which is called block level stripping. this improves speed, but reliability is not increased.\n\na combination of these two, ie., stripping and mirroring comprises a RAID level, which is widely used now a days. \n\nhope this explains about RAID
690691
Short for Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks, a category of disk drives that employ two or more drives in combination for fault tolerance and performance. RAID disk drives are used frequently on servers but aren't generally necessary for personal computers.\n\nThere are number of different RAID levels:\n# Level 0 -- Striped Disk Array without Fault Tolerance: Provides data striping (spreading out blocks of each file across multiple disk drives) but no redundancy. This improves performance but does not deliver fault tolerance. If one drive fails then all data in the array is lost.\n# Level 1 -- Mirroring and Duplexing: Provides disk mirroring. Level 1 provides twice the read transaction rate of single disks and the same write transaction rate as single disks.\n# Level 2 -- Error-Correcting Coding: Not a typical implementation and rarely used, Level 2 stripes data at the bit level rather than the block level.\n# Level 3 -- Bit-Interleaved Parity: Provides byte-level striping with a dedicated parity disk. Level 3, which cannot service simultaneous multiple requests, also is rarely used.\n# Level 4 -- Dedicated Parity Drive: A commonly used implementation of RAID, Level 4 provides block-level striping (like Level 0) with a parity disk. If a data disk fails, the parity data is used to create a replacement disk. A disadvantage to Level 4 is that the parity disk can create write bottlenecks.\n# Level 5 -- Block Interleaved Distributed Parity: Provides data striping at the byte level and also stripe error correction information. This results in excellent performance and good fault tolerance. Level 5 is one of the most popular implementations of RAID.\n# Level 6 -- Independent Data Disks with Double Parity: Provides block-level striping with parity data distributed across all disks.\n# Level 0+1 – A Mirror of Stripes: Not one of the original RAID levels, two RAID 0 stripes are created, and a RAID 1 mirror is created over them. Used for both replicating and sharing data among disks.\n# Level 10 – A Stripe of Mirrors: Not one of the original RAID levels, multiple RAID 1 mirrors are created, and a RAID 0 stripe is created over these.\n# Level 7: A trademark of Storage Computer Corporation that adds caching to Levels 3 or 4.\n# RAID S: EMC Corporation's proprietary striped parity RAID system used in its Symmetrix storage systems.
816887
I found this snippet on the net for you:\n\n"Hard Drive: The dv8220us has a unique hard drive array for a notebook--two separate 80 GB (5400 RPM) hard drives for a total storage capacity of 160 GB. They can work together to boost performance, particularly when handling large files, and you can use one as an exclusive media drive for saved TV programming and an MP3 library."\n\nThis would mean they they are in RAID 0 formation. They are working together as one which would mean they are both seen as a single 'Drive C:'
973443
You probably purchased a dell with a hard drive that has  Data Safe, it uses a protocol called Raid 1. This means that your computer uses two hard drives and the 2nd hard drive mirrors the first to protect from data loss. If the raid mirror has degraded then the 2nd drive is no longer able to mirror the 1st.\n\nLuckily, your computer won't suffer any ill effects from this aside from the message you are getting. I suspect that 2nd drive is in some way defective, so you probably won't be able to fix it yourself. In short, its time to for you to invoke that warranty that the folks at dell force you purchase.
857261
One that will burn both + and - discs, at 16X speed, and has a good reputation for reliability.  You might want to consider one that will handle dual-layer discs as well.  Below is a link to a web page that has numerous ones to look at.
870592
You need to verify that your controller supports hot-swap.  Some early controllers did not support this.  Also I think many cheap on-board controllers may not support it.  Also remember you can't hot swap your OS drive.\n\nBut the short answer is no, raid is not required to have a hot swap sata drive.
1025166
Im not sure which one you need but here are the files.\n\nSCSI RAID Controllers\n1. Adaptec PERC 320/DC\n2. Adaptec U320 HostRAID Controller\n3. Adaptec U320 SCSI RAID 0 or 1\n\nSerial ATA\n1. Adaptec CERC SATA1.5/6ch\n2. Adaptec SATA HostRAID Controller\n3. Maxtor 6V080E0, 80GB, SATA, 3.0Gb \n4. Maxtor 6V160E0, 160GB, SATA, 3.0Gb \n5. Maxtor 7V250F0, 250GB, SATA, 3.0Gb \n\n---------------------------------------------------------------\nYou can download these below.
1111907
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/multibooting.html\nhttp://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=59318\nhttp://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=69211 \nhttp://www.pcquest.com/content/dvd/103101105.asp // seems to be best answer
668804
you would be better off using 2 500GB HDs or 4 250GB HDs. they are cheaper than a one tera HD.
872759
You can create a RAID 0 setup because some hdd managers just see one disk instead of array.\nA RAID 0 splits data across 2 (or more) disks thus it provides with hdd speed advantage. However I strongly recommend to special software in order to backup a RAID 0 setup because the corruption of only one disk leads to the complete data loss
306857
Hard to say without knowing what you are using to control RAID.  Is it software raid controlled by OS?  Do you have a dedicated RAID controller?  How much memory on the RAID controller?\n\nGuessing you are using software RAID, I would say the reads and writes will be faster to 1 SCSI drive then to mirrored 7200 SATA drives.\n\nSee this article for comparison of the two:\nhttp://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=41803&DisplayTab=Article
696655
Look over the list here, sort by rating, get one of the better drives with more reviews. \nhttp://www.videohelp.com/dvdwriters\n\nNote: you want a drive that supports "DL" - DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, for example.  "DL" means dual layer.  Generally, the higher the number preceding it, the better.  For example, a 4X DVD-R DL will write a DVD twice as fast as a 2X DVD-R DL.
873110
the easiest way would be to use 3d party partitioning software, for example disk director. all you need is to install it, and choose what you want to do with the partitions, then follow the wizard:\nhttp://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/
188988
i dun think it will be that good cos according to standard data transfer procedures for corrupted disk, it will be safer to transafer via using 2hdd instead of partition method.u see if u do it safely, u get to keep yr data n yr hard disk , if not u run a chance of losing both.for me, i partition so i b4 format , i transfer to the next partation or copy them else cds , maybe portable hd borrowedfrom frenz blah blah..