Topic: New computer question

[Lloyd007]

Okay I'm building a new computer and I have a situation that I want to know how to deal with. I have all the parts and stuff to build this computer including a 500GB SATA drive. I'm planning on using an old WD 200GB ide drive from my old computer. This drive has XP installed. I want to be able to use the 500 gb as the boot drive and I got an OEM copy of XP Pro just in case since I plan on throwing in a 40gb hd into my old comp and using it as a backup (with the original XP Pro license). Now my problem is I have no idea how to set this up having never dealt with a RAID or two different hard drives formats.

The old drive is set on master and i lost the jumper settings long ago all I know is its a Western Digital 200GB ATA100. Basically the 'best case scenario' for me is to be able to do a clean install on the new HD and migrate all my data and stuff and leave the old HD as storage. 'Worst Case Scenario' is I gotta use my old HD as my primary drive and the new one becomes 'just storage'

[Sirgod]

First, I'm not sure you can do a RAID over an IDE and a SATA, at least I never tried to do so before, I could be wrong.

second. On that WD drive, does it still have the model number on it? If so punch it in at the Western Digital website, and it will give you the jumper settings.

Now you can use the new drive as your primary pretty easy though. Once set to master, go into your Bios and tell it the proper boot order. That's easy enough Bro. the Raid thing has me wondering now.

Stephen

[Lloyd007]

Maybe you don't have to do a raid. What I want is for both drives to show up at once so i can do stuff with either while in Windows. If It's only to tranfer everything over and then disconnect the one drive that's fine too... $120 for a 500GB HD is low enough I can get another if I need to.

[Sirgod]

Maybe you don't have to do a raid. What I want is for both drives to show up at once so i can do stuff with either while in Windows. If It's only to tranfer everything over and then disconnect the one drive that's fine too... $120 for a 500GB HD is low enough I can get another if I need to.

Nah you don't have to do a Raid. Heck at that price, I'd grab another drive.

Here's what I would do. Install xp on the big drive, get it updated etc. Then add the smaller drive and just copy over the stuff you need ie. anything not OS related.

Sure some programs might need to be reinstalled from the older drive, (Registry needs), but for the most part, it would all be good. And yes, I have hooked up ide and sata drives at the same time.

Man, I can't imagine having a terabyte of HD space. I think my PC would have heart failure at that.

Stephen

[Nemesis]

(Simply put) RAID is a system to span data across multiple drives.  One key aspect though is that you only use as much space on each drive as is available on the smallest drive any excess is wasted.  That is why normally people use identical drives for RAID.

On the jumper issue if you only have the one ATA drive in the system you don't have to worry about it being on Master as the SATA drive is not affected by that setting.  If your DVD or CD is on ATA (as is most likely) you would need to put it as Slave if its on the same channel (cable) as the ATA HD.

Since you are keeping the old machine functional it would be best just to network the two computers (which most likely have network cards built in these days) and transfer the data between them over the network.  Once the data is transferred and your fully confident in the new machine you can move the 200gb over and resetup the old machine with the 40gb.  If you are not already set up for networking you would need to get a "crossover cable" to link the two machines but those are cheap.

[Sirgod]

Yeah what Nemesis said.

Stephen

[Lloyd007]

The thing that was confusing me was the RAID 1 configuration (or was it 0?) where it allows you to use both drives to store seperate data. I though I had to use that with 2 drives or something. I know the other configuration is more of a safety feature in case a drive goes down or something for servers. Also is there any possible way to transfer installed programs. I know it sounds stupid but I have $32,000 on M$ Tripeaks (part of the excellent and ancient M$ Entertainment Pack) and I don't want to lose it 

Thanks for the help btw I was getting nervous reading my Mobo instruction manual which has about 16 different RAID configurations including Cool Ranch and Chemlawn. 

[Javora]

First, I'm not sure you can do a RAID over an IDE and a SATA, at least I never tried to do so before, I could be wrong.

Stephen

You can but it depends on the motherboard.  Mine can, I origanally planned on having a 4+ hard drives set up in some type of Raid system.  Hard drive sizes exploded since then and I never needed the space anyway.

[Electric Eye]

second. On that WD drive, does it still have the model number on it? If so punch it in at the Western Digital website, and it will give you the jumper settings.

That's what I love about the net, it's like the Great Library at your fingertips. You can even get manuals for old products sometimes from company websites. I still try to put all paperwork in the file cabinet though.

[Nemesis]

Raid 0 Data is split between 2 (or more) drives performance improvement because the data is transferred at the cumulative speed of all the drives.

Raid 1 Identical Data written to both drives.  This means if one drive fails you can still work off the 2nd without loss.  This gives you half the drive space of the total drives

Raid 0+1 Both Raid 0 and Raid 1.

Raid 5 Parity.  One of the drives is used as a parity drive.  If the parity drive fails you continue without data loss.  If any other drive fails the parity drive allows recovery of the lost data.  When calculating capacity you lose that of the parity drive as it is used for the parity information not for your data.

Raid 10  Effectively Raid 5 and Raid 1.  For capacity as Raid 5 then cut in half as per Raid 1

Note:  In all cases the array is based on the size of the smallest drive.  Why is this?  For example in Raid 0 if you split the data in half between 2 drives neither half can be larger than the capacity of the smaller drive otherwise it wouldn't fit.  ( or 1 divided by the number of drives).  In Raid 1 where the data is put onto both drives if you exceed the capacity of the smaller drive there would be no backup ability and the key characterisic of Raid 0 would not be in effect.

For most people setting up a Raid system is not worth the hassle.

[Lloyd007]

Thanks a bunch Nemesis! 

My plan now is to install new drive, load XP and then install the old IDE. And just to be absolutely 100% sure... I don't have to worry about master vs slave jumpers since I have no other IDE devices (I made sure to spend the 5 bucks extra for an SATA burner). The assembly is tomorrow when the final pieces get here from Newegg. In case you wanted ot know here is my expected setup.

Antec P180B Case ($40 rebate!)
Intel Core2 e6600 (nice price drop)
Asus p5b deluxe with wifi (expensive but running ethernet cables is a drag)
2GB Patriot Memory ($50 rebate!)
Foxconn Nvidia 8800GTS 320mb ($15 rebate! Based on the reviewer websites the 640mb version wasn't worth the extra 100 bucks for 1-2% increased performance)
500GB Samsung HD (Really cheap and won a reliability survey on Newegg) + 200GB WD IDE drive (4 years old and still going strong)
Viewsonic VX922 19" LCD ($40 rebate! Great reviews)
XP Pro (cause Vista is way too rough and choked with DRM right now)

That's about it for important parts.

[Skaren]

To mirror the drive raid 1 don't you need a special controler card that, the drives plug into that special card.

I didn't read each post carefully but I think without that raid controler card you will not be able to mirror the drives

[Nemesis]

To mirror the drive raid 1 don't you need a special controler card that, the drives plug into that special card.

I didn't read each post carefully but I think without that raid controler card you will not be able to mirror the drives

Many motherboards now come with a limited Raid ability built in.  The machine I'm posting from for example does though I'm not using it.

[The Bar-Abbas Anomaly]

On the jumper issue if you only have the one ATA drive in the system you don't have to worry about it being on Master as the SATA drive is not affected by that setting.  If your DVD or CD is on ATA (as is most likely) you would need to put it as Slave if its on the same channel (cable) as the ATA HD.

Older WD drives actually had a funky jumper setting setup - If you set your drive to 'Master', you HAD to have a slave on the channel or it wouldn't detect.  Single drive was 'no jumper' on those drives.


Also, here's a good visual for RAID Configurations:

[Nemesis]

On the jumper issue if you only have the one ATA drive in the system you don't have to worry about it being on Master as the SATA drive is not affected by that setting.  If your DVD or CD is on ATA (as is most likely) you would need to put it as Slave if its on the same channel (cable) as the ATA HD.

Older WD drives actually had a funky jumper setting setup - If you set your drive to 'Master', you HAD to have a slave on the channel or it wouldn't detect.  Single drive was 'no jumper' on those drives.


Also, here's a good visual for RAID Configurations:

I have a bad history with WD drives.  Maxtor has been what I've used since with essentially no problems.  The WD Raptor drives are tempting though.

[The Bar-Abbas Anomaly]

 
I think all Seagates now come with a 5-year warranty!

I scored a 320Gb SATA drive for $85 about a year ago...