Raid partition question

[BullSchmit]

Set up my new computer this weekend and using two 250 GB disks created a raid 0 array. Installed drivers correctly and then when prompted by Windows XP install I created two equal partitions (232.88 GB each) at that point. Windows XP then preceded to format the drive on which it installed the OS, but never formatted the other half. Now after install, using Disk Management utililty in windows, it shows the disk at 465.77 GB with half of that allocated of course as drive C:, and the other half unallocated. Follow me here? (not sure I follow myself and I assumed I'd have drive D: also after install) Never assume.. as my mother told me...

NOW my question is what can I do, if anything, to allocate and format that unused space without having to do a complete reinstall? When I use the partition wizard within the disk management utility, it gives me the option of either a primary partition, or an extended partition with the logical drive option greyed out. I used NTSF file system when installing. I am hesitant to do anything until I am sure that I won't corrupt or format the entire array. And if it matters the nvidia raid program Media Shield shows the two drives like this:
Channel: Device:
Drive 1 Primary Master
Drive 2 Secondary Master

Any help and or advice would be much appreciated !

 

[pip_seeker]

not trying to be rude here, but why would you do this?

You have two drives that you Raid together to make one big drive and then you try to partition them to seperate them? What the heck you using raid for then?


Your thinking is flawed... if you want two seperate partitions then use the drives seperately and scrap the raid. Most users don't need raid anyhow. For every drive you put in the Raid the greater the chance the Raid will go down and with Raid 0 that means all your data is gone.

So looks like you're back to square one if you ask me.

 

[BullSchmit]

To anwswer your reply pip, from what I have read, and that's all I have to go by, a raid array improves the performance of your drives. I am not concerned with losing data. Anyone out there with a real answer ? Thanks again.

 

[Cortez]

Yes it does improve the performance but the trade off is one big drive c: the only way too get drive c, and d is too use 2 differant channels the speed increase is so small most users wouldn`t even notice.

 

[nanoprobs]

You should have a look at your manual on how to setup raid0, i know some M.B don't explain how to configure it. For Nvidia u might need to go into bios and select the 2 H.Ds to function in raid mode, then u should press a button during startup where u can go into another setup screen to select what H.Ds u want to run in raid. And u can also select what kind of raid u want to run. At startup if ur M.B support raid mode, it should have a message appear like "Press (something) to configure raid". After you've done that u need to reinstall window xp, PRESS F6 to install 3rd party raid/scsi driver, which u can obtain from the M.B CD that came with your M.B. These steps are roughly what u should do, coz every M.B is different.

 

[pip_seeker]

To anwswer your reply pip, from what I have read, and that's all I have to go by, a raid array improves the performance of your drives. I am not concerned with losing data. Anyone out there with a real answer ? Thanks again.

Well then you should also know that the more partitions a drive has the more hits it takes on performance. I would suspect this would be less of a hit on Raid 0, but I don't know of even a single person who has ever done such a thing.

 

[Pain]

I've done it. The reason being that I always partition my system partition to some small size, 20 gigs for a raid array, and then have the remaining array for data and such. Then, I can run ghost images. I always recommend users keep their data off the system partition, but thats because I like to run ghost images that don't include user data.

 

[Anoobis]

I have 2 80 GB on RAID 0 with 4 partitions. One for the OS, one for Program Files, one for CD/DVD burns and one for data. It keeps everything nice and tidy, especially when I defrag. It much easier to defrag only a portion (mainly the burns partition) as opposed to having to defrag the entire disk all the time.

Could you please explain the performance hit of having several partitions on a drive/RAID array? I would like more information on it.

 

[Pain]

Any partition has a performance hit from the basic partition. I've never tested it with w2k or xp where you can make up to 4 basic partition, opposed to logical partitions which were the norm a few years ago. It used to be that logical partitions have a performance decrease...well, it still is, but I do not know how much it degrades with the new system. I would guess it is still lower, but whatever.

If it were me doing it, I would only use 2 partitions one for the OS and another for your stuff and just seperate it with directories. That way, your directories could grow larger as required, instead of being a fixed size due to the partitions. Frankly, I defrag my OS partition, but not my other partition. I may defrag it occationally, but not very much at all because I don't want to mess with the data.

 

[fazBACK]

sorry dude. but how is it possible to raid just one 80gig partition from both of my drives and leave REMANENCE capasity as storage? please explain,thanks

 

[sminlal]

To anwswer your reply pip, from what I have read, and that's all I have to go by, a raid array improves the performance of your drives.

You will get better performance while accessing the OS partition, but if you alternate accesses between the OS partition and the data partition then your performance benefit will be reduced.

The unallocated space on your RAID volume is easy to set up, there's absolutely no need to reinstall

- Right-click on "Computer" and select "Manage"

- Click on "Disk Management" in the left pane

- Right-click on the unallocated space in the right pane and select "New Simple Volume". Don't use one of the software RAID options - you don't need it since you've already got it set up outside the OS.

- Work your way through the wizard by clicking "Next". You have the option of allocating less than the complete amount of space, the option to assign an alternate drive letter, etc.

 

[sminlal]

sorry dude. but how is it possible to raid just one 80gig partition from both of my drives and leave REMANENCE capasity as storage? please explain,thanks

The RAID volume you set up using the motherboard or RAID controller BIOS looks to the OS like a single disk. From the OS you can do anything to that single disk that you could do to a real, non-RAID disk. So during the installation of the OS you can choose to use less than the complete amount of space, and after the OS is installed you can use Disk Manager to add new partitions as I described in the last post.