Windows XP Setup

[daveygravey]

Hi Guys,

As you have probably already guessed, amongst much indecision I opted to stick with Windows XP!

My new rig was delivered this morning, I'll be putting it together this weekend BUT I'm not sure which RAID set-up to use?

I have 2 SATA2 drives and want an install that is both stable and delivers good performance.

If any of you could offer me any advice and/or point me in the direction of some good sites/tutorials that'd be great!

[Rik]

Hi Dave

With two drives, you have the choice between performance and security. Raid 0 will deliver increased performance by striping the drives, but the risk of failure is increased significantly. Raid 1 will improve security, but with no gain in performance.

Personally, I'd not use RAID with just two drives, but then I'm a paranoid, security-loving, old codger. 

There's a setup guide here:

http://www.pctechguide.com/tutorials/RAID.htm

[daveygravey]

Hey Rik,

Yeah I was kinda thinking that 'do I need to RAID my drives, just because I have the option'

I think I'm just gonna plug them in and let them do their thing, I dont think the performance gain with RAID 0 is significant enough for me to risk losing all of my data!

[Rik]

I agree with your sentiments completely.

I did have RAID0 on one machine for a while, but tbh, I didn't notice a significant performance gain. Against that, there was always the increased risk of loss. Set up is easier without too!!

[Lance]

Wise option Dave!

[daveygravey]

haha, that was an easy one to solve

I like the 'thinking out loud' power these boards give you

Cheers guys

p.s. Rik what XP setup do you use i.e. partitions/swapfiles etc, I'm presuming you have it optimised for Photoshop and the likes?

[Rik]

Hi Dave

I have two 80GB Samsung drives for C (System) and D (Apps plus swapfile). I have two 750GB Seagates for Data (E) and backup (F), plus three external USB HDs for backup. I have the Photoshop swap on E then F.

[daveygravey]

Cheers Rik,

Blimey that's alot of data!

I have 2 * 250G SEAGATE SATA2 - I think I'm gonna have the OS and apps residing on one, then the other will be for data & swap

Is it best to have the OS totally seperate to everything else?

[Rik]

Hi Dave

It's not a lot of data, it's a lot of space for data at the moment. Given the costs of drives nowadays, it just seemed sensible to put enough platters in the box to take care of the next few years.

Ideally, use a separate physical drive for the OS, it tends to improve performance and makes management easier. Comparing my two desktops at the moment, this machine (with the 80GB system drive) boots in less than half the time of the other machine, which has a 200GB drive partitioned to C/D. Even allowing for the different processors, this machine has much more to load at boot, so I figure the speed difference is down to the drive setup.

[Lance]

On a XP machine with plenty of ram (2gb for example), is there really much of a benefit to having a swap file? Could you not have a swap file and have the machine use the available RAM? Or am I misunderstanding the purpose of a swap file?

[Rik]

Have a read of this, Lance.

I've always understood that Windows does make use of the swap file, regardless of RAM, and that has certainly been my observation.

[Lance]

Thanks for the link, Rik.