Raid 0 and Non raid drives. What programs/files to put where?

Hi

For best performance indeed pop XP on the 2xWD Raptors in Raid0, also pop all software applications on the Raid0 drive and use the 3rd HD in non-raid for storing your downloads and important files backups etc

Exactly way I do it and I also have a WD Passport as a backup drive to store/duplicate my important files, I also use Acronis True Image to clone/image my main OS Raid drive to sav ehaving to re-install everything in case of a major failure in the array ( x fingers as this never happened yet ) or complete failure in the OS.

 

I clone/image it to both my 3rd HD which is used for storing my personal files and downloads and also duplicate that copy to my WD Passport USB HD

No the clone is a single data file used to re-create my original install in case of corruption or hardware failure, so if your main Raid0 OS drive is partitioned, then you will have to create an image file for both partitions, but I never partition a Raid0 Array, dont see the need or benefits.

Yes the clone/image has all my default applications installed on it, from Office to security applications, so its just like I never left my PC or it had any issues.

However and I think this is what your after, is that once I cloned/imaged my perfect running OS and all software I un-hook that main drive and and pop in a spare then using the boot disk that you create with the likes of Acronis True Image, I restore the image file to that spare HD, then once tested ok, I unhook it and store it away.


Acronis True Image
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Acronis_True_Image_d2236.html ( 15 day trial and well worth trying out )


and some infos on what it does
http://eu.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

 

Hi

Replied to your original post on this as to keep it in the public domain ( so to speak so all can follow what we are doing, at times helps others ) and I dont generally reply to tech questions in PMs.


To answer your questions above and many thanks for updating me on how your doing with this setup, great you have it all stable and thats what we like to have, but as you know not always going to happen so this is where we came into "Imaging"

This is exactly what these applications allow you to do, they create a full image of your HD, so if in the event you need to restore this image its like you have never left your PC, all OS, 3rd party installed software and tweaks are saved, this saves a full re-install of everything which as you're well aware of can take hours/days. These applciations so in in minutes/hours ( depends where you saved them ( HD is quicker, DVD and CD much slower to recover from, all down to transfer speeds )

For me no I have had no issues with Acronis True Image 6, 7, 8, 9. 10 or now 11 which I am using now, but this is not to say some wont have issues, like all software it fails at times, but I believe that Acronis have version 11 pretty well sorted.

What I tend to personally do is in I dont actaully store any of the personal files that I would have in My Documents on the C drive then are actually on my D drive ( Drive A ) as my D drive is perminently in my desktop, I can show you exactly what I mean with the below screenshot.




Vista (C) is my Raid0 ( 2x74GB WD Raptors ) which have OS and all Software istalled.
Drive A (D) is my data drive, personal files, images and work
Drive B (E) is where I store music and video
Drive C (F) is a new drive and will amongst other things as its large store backups ( images )
WD Passport (I) is my USB external drive which has amongst other things a duplicate set of images from F: and a duplicate copy of my personal files off D: , software installers, plus random music and files etc etc


Below image is my F drive ( named Drive C ) which amongst a few other things houses my image files as in the below screenshot, I tend to keep a rolling 3 images as if one goes wrong and is corrupt I can still recover to another one which may only be days older, they are single compressed files of the whole of your C: drive ( or any other HD you wish to clone/image ) you can explore them as you would a normal HD as they are searchable archives and you can recover single files from them if needed ( image B is me opening the March08b image archive and you can see the normal files you would see in C: )



image B


So basically what I do with the above is create and image and say call it March08a then the next one becomes March08b, then March08c and so on but on the 4th one which will be March08d I will then delete March08a as its likely to be 2 weeks+ old, so surplus, this also keeps you current in backups and saves spaced as these backups are in the GB range.

I also save the same three to the drive in the image earlier called WD Passport (I) as thats my USB external drive.

To recover these images if your main OS C drive is not working, you will need to either have the D drive already hooked up or hook it up, boot to the already created Acronis Bootup CD and once booted choose Restore, then navigate to the D drive and choose the image file you wish to recover from, then the process is automatic after a few clicks, once finished your C drive will be restored and back to how you basically left your PC, with the OS and all software installed, jsut like nothing had ever happened ( depending on when you created the image archive file ).



You can however, if you dont wish to store these images in their normal form as single files on HD, CD*, DVD* is to and you would need to have saved the image file to C: or DVD to do this as it wouldnt work being in D: is to start Acronis and at the point below choose D: to restore your saved image, this will uncompress the image of your raid C: and be to all intense and purpose a working HD straight off the bat. ( *will be on multiple disks depending on image size )



BUT TBH and I would urge this as not the route to go as its fiddly and if not done right may actually overwrite your C drive, plus will need doing every week or so, so my personal advice is to hook up the D: drive and use it like I do my F: drive, store the main image files and say a duplicate copy of your My Documents folder there ( with any other personal files ) just right click copy my docs and paste it into D: somewhere.

Also always run Validate Backup Archive once you have created a image file, this tests the integraty of the file for errors, even go to the step of how I did earlier in image B open the archive manually and goto say your my documents folder, just to test it opens.

Its not complicated mine at all, actually its helped recover to a fully working PC in the event of an OS or major application ( mainly beta software ) crash or me just playing with the internals of the OS.



I hope I have made this clear enough to follow, but do ask away on any steps I may not have.