2nd Harddrive Q's

i just bought a second harddrive and i have a few questions

1. the harddrive didn't come with any screws, so when i installed it, i took two screws from my other harddrive...so right now, both harddrive only have two screws holding them to their little individual case things...two instead of four...in the corners....i don't see how this would be a problem, but just to make sure: that shouldn't be a problem right? i mean its still quite snug and secure...haha, i'm just being paranoid...

2. whats all this talk about raid setup and stuff? i mean are there any special things that i can do with 2 harddrives? anyways to combine them or something...

anywho, thanks

 

Should be fine. I have a second HDD installed without a bracket. I'm only using a foam that was installed inside the bay.

With two HDDs there are two RAID options open to you.

RAID 0 basically combines your two hard drives into one big drive. For any given file half will be stored on HDD 1 and the rest on HDD 2. A computer will access both HDDs when it wants to open a file, thus making the loading processor faster.

RAID 1 is basically a mirroring method. Whatever you do to one disk will be mirrored on the other.

 

are there any requirements for raid 0? do the harddrives have to be the same size?

 

Yep, RAID "combines" the two of them, to form a single partition (That is, if you do not wish to create any) with its capacity doubled of a single harddrive that came with it. To quality for RAID, yes two of the harddrives has to be the same (Both model and capacity) in order for RAID to work.

RAID 0 is fast; I see a 30-40% increment in the applications or huge files that I open, install or transfer. I'm using RAID 0 for my M1730 (twin 500GB 7200.4) to form 1TB of storage.

However, do know that RAID 0 has its dark side - if one drive fails, all is gone. So backup regularly. Shouldn't be a problem for RAID 1 as it mirrors the information over, and you won't loose all your files, but it uses more space as opposed to RAID 0.

And of course like in all RAID setups you need to do a fresh installation of Windows.

But first, what notebook are you using? Some notebooks with dual HDDs, though it's weird IMO, don't offer RAID options. Dell Studio 17 is one example.

 

I'm using a Gateway P7811fx...i'm quite certain that it supports raid...BUT, i just noticed that my new harddrive is 5400rpm, while my old on is 7200rpm...i thought it might work with differant harddrive sizes...but i'm quite certain that it won't with differant rpm's....right?

 

They have to be the exact same hard drives, unfortunately.

Between you and me, though, I'm very happy with two seperate drives. I use one for OS and work files, the other for media and games.