Can I add a 2nd 10K Vraptop to my XPS730x without loosing restore

Hi all,


I'm new here, and glad to finally be a member.

I have built many gamers, over the last 10 years, but due to a back injury, I cannot do the work needed to build a rig anymore


I found a XPS 730x with
64 bit Vista Ultimate
I-7( 940 ) 2.93Ghz CPU
6GB Tri-channel 1066Mhz RAM
2048MB ATI 4870X2
300GB 10K Velociraptor
6GB Blue-Ray Burner
DVDRW Burner
X-fi Titanium
Killer NIC

It was in the outlet for under $1600 (someone goofed)

So I bought it.

I always built them(before my back injury) with 4 (or more) drives in RAID 0+1 or RAID 5

This XPS 730x only has the one drive, but I have 2 x 250GB 10K Raptors here, and a 1TB Cavier 32MB cache HDD for data
that I had left from a build I was working on when I hurt my back.
(I have to sell all those other parts now too)

Anyway

Is there a way, I can add these other HDDs to make RAID 0 work, by imaging
the one coming from Dell onto a RAID 0 Array created by me(or a buddy) with the 2 Raptors I have?


Thanks for the advice

Jonny Boy


PS. At time of writing this I am trying to get dell to just add the 2nd Velociraptor & setup RAID 0 for me from the factory, so I won't have to struggle to do it.
I just don't have the patience, I used to, in order to install the OS from scratch & then add all the drivers, etc to remove the bloatware (which I always did on my Alienware Gaming lappys in the past)

I'll just delete the Dell bloatware & go from there the create a Full PC image once I have all my games on it!
If it's possible

Also is it true that the I-7 I have(940) can be OCed close to 4Ghz on Air Cooling?
They want $600+ for their H2C...I could have a buddy put in custom watercooling system, I put together for way less

I've never had luck imaging a RAID array to use on another drive/array so I'd recommend doing a clean install of the OS on the new RAID0 array instead and use nLite/vLite to cut down the bloating as Shadow suggested. Just remember with a vLite'd install any future service pack won't work.
I mostly use Server 2008 (converted to workstation) instead of Vista now and find it to be less bloated, no user friendly GUI etc. But still has full Aero interface.

For short period benchmark runs that's no problem with most 120mm-class aircooling. If you want to use it at that speed continuously e.g. x264 encoding then you'd definitely need a proper watercooling setup like shadow listed above.

Jab-tech and PetrasTechShop have the lowest prices around and of course cheap & fast shipping rates, even internationally.

For rad. you'll want to look into Swiftech MCR320 instead which is both cheaper and less flow restriction while performing the same as GTS360.
I have the GTS360 myself and the only reason I picked it over MCR320 was due to space constraint, I needed 30mm instead of 35mm thick.

The EK 4870 X2 block is the best full-cover block out there for HD4870x2 I think. As long as it's not insanely priced (should be no more than $120) it's good.