help setting up raid 0.

ive recently bought a new computer for gaming, my mother board is asus p8268-v lx, it supports raid 0,1,5 and 10.
i have 2 hard drives in the computer and i asked the people who built it (custom built) to put it on raid 0, i dont think they did because one hard drive only has a ew GB used in it and it isnt anything programs or games just some stuff that was already on it.
i have looked on the BIOS to see if it is on raid 0 and i dont really understand it, so how do i check if it is running raid?
also because i have already set up window 7 and have about 120GB used already, if i do have to put it on to raid 0 will i lose all of this?
thanks for the help.

 

I agree that it appears they did not set up RAID. If under Computer you see both drives listed with different drive letters, you do not have a RAID setup. If properly setup, Windows would see both drives as one and assign a single drive letter (assuming no partitions).

Since RAID0 "stripes" your data across both drives in the array, yes you will lose everything and will need to completely reinstall Windows from the start to ensure all is setup properly.

I don't ever recommend RAID0 - it is too risky. If you lose any single drive out of a striped array, you lose everything. And today, with today's faster drives and cheap RAM, any performance gains are minimal - at best. If drive performance is that critical to you, I would urge the use of an SSD instead of a striped RAID.

 

If you have 2 drives, I'd go with a RAID 1 or mirror, it has saved me many times.
First I'd back up what I have, then you can try to create a RAID, make sure the OS drive (loaded drive) is on 0 and the blank is on 1 and give it a shot, if it doesn't work, you have a backup.

The SSD idea is good if you have the money and don't want large drives with a ton of space. 120GB goes over $100, same $100 bucks can get you 500Gb or maybe 1TB on sale.

 

Yeah, I used to mirror my systems all the time. But since Win7 came out over 2 1/2 years ago and I built all new systems, I stuck with a separate drives and rely on my backup plan to save my butt in the event of a drive failure.

Mirrored RAID is definitely more "robust", but mirrored arrays have also given (way too many times) a false sense of security and that is bad. If you download a virus - it will be on both drives. If you accidentally delete a file, it is deleted from both drives. If your data is corrupted on one drive, it is corrupted on the other drive too. If a badguy breaks into your home and steals your computer - both drives are gone too. If lightning, fire, or flood takes out your computer, both drives are gone too.

Bottom line, mirrored arrays protect you from a hard drive failure only. They do not, and should not be relied on as a backup method, unless you religiously swap in a 3rd drive to sync up your files and then you store the spare off-site.

But also, I buy good drives - "enterprise" editions. These are not necessarily better performing drives, but they are designed to withstand grueling, busy server-type conditions, 24/7/365. And thus they tend to be warrantied for 5 years instead of just 3. Yes, they cost more, but my data is worth much more than the cost of all my hardware put together.

See The differences between an Enterprise Class HDD and Desktop Class HDD or the Intel white paper; Enterprise vs Desktop Class Hard Drive.

Yes, SSDs are still more expensive, Gb vs Gb, but if you mirror your drives, you get half the space for twice the money. Not sure that's a bargain either.