No Name's HHD Layout Questions

jedihobbitjedihobbit Central Virginia, USA New
edited January 2011 in Hardware
With the No Name build I will do my first multi hard drive arrangement and venture into the world of Win7 for the first time. This will consist of:

HDD 1: Zalman SSD0032S1 32GB SSD (Primary)
HDD 2: WD V’Raptor 300GB (Misc Apps etc)
HDD 3: 2 x WD1001FALS 1TB (RAID1 Storage)

Items were chosen for a very good reason…..I have them on the shelf and any funds that I don’t have is being spent to water cool this thing by summer.

What my questions are:

1. I have absolutely no feel for how much can be stored on 32GB of space (hence the V’Raptor). My thinking is the SSD is dedicated to OS, systems drivers, and OS associated apps (word, excel, etc). Comments?

2. The 300GB V’Raptor would be used for games, misc apps like photo editing software, video software, any other support software (whatever that is), and maybe “working files”. Does this seem somewhat redundant with the 2 x 1TBs. Comments?

3. Okay now my mirrored storage….while I realize that by today’s standards this ain’t much, but it’ll have to do. So how would this be set up in relation to #2? This is where “finalized” pictures, videos (if any), and documents would be stored. Would have my working files on the Raptor backed up periodically or do I actually store everything on the 1TBs and pull those files from there to work on?

4. Does it make any sense to have both 2 & 3 or is that a waste of power and space?

5. Is there anything special (other than the RAID drivers) that I may need to do to make this work?

Okay back to figuring out where to put stuff for the air cooled version with an eye on where to put water cooling items.

Comments

  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited December 2010
    Things like Word and Excel do not need SSD speeds. I would recommend they go on the Raptor. I would install intensive applications like the photo/video editing stuff on the SSD, use the Raptor for its swap/working area and other programs that won't make use of the SSD's speed, and throw all media - finalized pictures, movies, music, documents, anything that's only retrieved once in a while - on the media drives.

    This is nearly identical to what I have - one SSD in two partitions (OS only on one, then programs that deserve to be on the SSD like Photoshop and Lightroom on the other), other less intensive programs on a regular platter drive, and all media stored elsewhere on a NAS I built - since they're used less frequently, I'm fine with retrieving them over ethernet when needed.

    Win 7 should properly align the partitions if you tell it to install on the SSD. I might recommend starting off with only the SSD and installing Windows. Once installed, plug in the two drives you'll RAID, set up the RAID in BIOS, make sure that the SSD is still selected as the boot drive, and make sure when you get into Windows that all of that works. Then plug in your regular Raptor afterwards, since that's the easiest one - just a single drive.

    One thing to check is that your board has two different SATA controllers, or that you're using a dedicated RAID card - if it doesn't or you aren't, I don't think (correct me if I'm wrong, gurus) that you can have RAID and non-RAID drives set up on a single controller, at least with the last mobo I tried that with. Had to put RAID on the Marvell controller, and the single drives on the ICH10 or what have you.
  • jedihobbitjedihobbit Central Virginia, USA New
    edited December 2010
    MSI NF980-G65

    Chipset Type NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI
    Max Bus Speed 2600 MHz
    Storage Controller Serial ATA-300 (RAID), ATA-133

    So............. :confused:
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited December 2010
    It looks like there's only one SATA controller on that board. I'd have to see the BIOS options to really be sure that you have a choice in what drives are included in the RAID and which ones operate independently. Could always attempt it anyway and see what's what. :)
  • jedihobbitjedihobbit Central Virginia, USA New
    edited December 2010
    Thanks Snarkasm, one question, Win7 was loaded in desperation because of OS issue........http://icrontic.com/forum/showthread.php?t=91515 Therefore the SSD wasn't set up in partitions. Is this something I can do “backwards” in Sys Manager or something simple? I really don’t want to re-install the OS again. Think the only other things on there right now are the chipset & GPU drivers, and AVG. Deleting those would be no biggie for me.<O:p></O:p>
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited December 2010
    Start menu -> Right click My Computer -> Click Manage -> Select Disk Management -> Right click a drive letter (C:) -> Shrink Volume

    However: on a 32GB SSD, there's no point to partitioning. Windows will use around 15-20 of it itself, and at that point, you may as well just leave the whole drive. Just install the OS on the SSD and any critical apps, and throw the rest on the Raptor. Back up the SSD regularly to the RAID array and call it a day.
  • ErrorNullTurnipErrorNullTurnip Illinois Icrontian
    edited December 2010
    Snarkasm wrote:
    However: on a 32GB SSD, there's no point to partitioning. Windows will use around 15-20 of it itself...

    I second that. I have about 23GB used up by Win7 and a hand full of programs I use frequently.
  • jedihobbitjedihobbit Central Virginia, USA New
    edited December 2010
    From within the bios.......

    On-Chip ATA Devices

    On-Chip IDE Controller [Enabled]
    PCI IDE BushMaster [Enabled]
    On-Chip SATA Controller [Enabled]
    RAID Mode [IDE] [RAID] [AHCI]

    Snarkasm, does this tell what you might need to know?? :confused:
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited December 2010
    Yeah, there's only one SATA controller there. You'll have to put it in RAID mode to RAID your two TB drives, and when you plug everything in, you'll have to go into the RAID setup, specify only your two TB drives as forming a RAID 1 mirror, and make sure that the Raptor stays as a regular drive.

    Does that make sense? You're telling the controller "operate in RAID mode" so your mirroring will work, but you're still using another drive on that controller that you won't want RAIDed.
  • jedihobbitjedihobbit Central Virginia, USA New
    edited December 2010
    Snarkasm wrote:
    ........Does that make sense? .........

    :thumbup
  • jedihobbitjedihobbit Central Virginia, USA New
    edited January 2011
    Snark, the V'Raptor has a failed XP load on it, can I reformat in "Disk Management" after assembly, or do I need to do something seperate?
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2011
    Nah, you can reformat in Disk Management. Just make sure you're set to boot first off of the SSD in BIOS (or CD/DVD, then SSD) - as long as the Raptor isn't the boot device, you can do whatever you need to with it afterwards.
  • jedihobbitjedihobbit Central Virginia, USA New
    edited January 2011
    :thumbup
  • jedihobbitjedihobbit Central Virginia, USA New
    edited January 2011
    Didn’t get as far as I would have liked but I did get the assembly basically running (now called KestrelFlight).

    Just for S & Gs I hooked the SSD in SATA 1, the V’Raptor in SATA 2, the Blacks into 3 & 4, the optical drive in 5, and the front eSATA cable into #6. Started it up and not one drive was detected!!

    Pulled the cables for the 2 blacks and moved the optical and eSATA cables up to 3 & 4 respectively. Fired up with the two HDDs and the drive found, and I was able to reformat the V’Raptor. However was told I only had 10GB left on the SSD.

    Looks like I need to go to the mobo manual and see what they say. However why mount 6 SATA ports if the can't be used with out a whole lot of "throwing the bones" and slaying "the fatted calf"? :mad:

    So.....go in and "set up RAID" in bios, have the 2 blacks hooked up where (5 & 6)?
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