![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Hello I have a computer with 4 hard drives and I'm wondering how I should go about setting them up. They are: 2 SATA Western Digital Raptors 36 GB at 10,000 RPM
1 Western Digital 200gb IDE at 7,200 RPM
1 External 160 gb not sure the speed at the moment
The person who gave me the computer said that one of the SATA Raptors will stop working during the boot process if the computers been on for a long time. I've seen it happen, if I'm in windows for a day and reboot it physically clicks and the RAID will be lost until I let it sit for awhile. At which point I boot and it works fine. I'm thinking this is cause by overheating? and I have two 120mm fans on the way (back exhaust and one that goes right over the hard drives). If the fans don't solve that problem feel free to give me some ideas. Last step is to try and return it, buy another, or forget about it.
Now my main question is how should I set these up doing a fresh install of XP?
1) Assuming I get the SATA drive working should I RAID them? (my mother board is capable of doing that). Or is that a bad idea? Would the RAID setup that makes the two hard drives work together improve performance?
2) Install XP to the one working SATA Drive?
3) Should I use the 200 gb for games and non essential programs? (I use photoshop a lot and figure that should go on the fastest/same drive as the os)
4) Do I need any self imposed partitions for page file or anything like that?
5) And I'm thinking the external should be for movies, music, downloading, etc... So i can bring it to friends house if need be.
The main question is would RAID improve performance of XP any? And if not, how should I utilize the faster SATA Drives. As of now, one is having major problems though. Thanks.
1 Western Digital 200gb IDE at 7,200 RPM
1 External 160 gb not sure the speed at the moment
The person who gave me the computer said that one of the SATA Raptors will stop working during the boot process if the computers been on for a long time. I've seen it happen, if I'm in windows for a day and reboot it physically clicks and the RAID will be lost until I let it sit for awhile. At which point I boot and it works fine. I'm thinking this is cause by overheating? and I have two 120mm fans on the way (back exhaust and one that goes right over the hard drives). If the fans don't solve that problem feel free to give me some ideas. Last step is to try and return it, buy another, or forget about it.
Now my main question is how should I set these up doing a fresh install of XP?
1) Assuming I get the SATA drive working should I RAID them? (my mother board is capable of doing that). Or is that a bad idea? Would the RAID setup that makes the two hard drives work together improve performance?
2) Install XP to the one working SATA Drive?
3) Should I use the 200 gb for games and non essential programs? (I use photoshop a lot and figure that should go on the fastest/same drive as the os)
4) Do I need any self imposed partitions for page file or anything like that?
5) And I'm thinking the external should be for movies, music, downloading, etc... So i can bring it to friends house if need be.
The main question is would RAID improve performance of XP any? And if not, how should I utilize the faster SATA Drives. As of now, one is having major problems though. Thanks.