I'd like to upgrade from my current SATA drive to a Raptor. However, I really do not want to go throught he faffery of reloading the O/S & apps. Does anyone know of a way to reliable do a bit for bit copy of drives. The O/S is windows BTW. It will also likely be a change in drive size.
Try to find a copy of Norton Ghost...it works pretty well. I don't need to suggest any illegal ways...*ahem*...bittorent...*ahem*...
But I would recommend you just get do a clean installation of Windows XP...things work so much better
But I would recommend you just get do a clean installation of Windows XP...things work so much better
Buy 2 hard drives and go Raid 0. You will have to do a complete new install but the difference in terms of performance and loading etc definitely makes it worth while. Well fast.
Two Hitachi deskstars either 160GB or 250GB giving a Raid 0 array of 320GB or 500GB respectively. I have 2 160GB deskstars.
Regarding backing up BF2. Uninstall and back up the EA games folder. Replace after reinstall. Back up anything else important aswell. Worth doing for increase in performance.
Last edited by General_CoLin_Tassi (2006-03-01 10:32:31)
150gb raptor FtW....!!!1!!!11!
Ghost and Drive Image both cost money. A freeware alternative is XXCOPY. It's more cryptic, but will do what you want. A lot of drives also come with utilities that'll do what you're asking.
I don't know if you're doing all of this simply for the space, or if you're doing it for performance. If it's just for space in a single-drive system, I'd suggest leaving the old drive in and adding a 2nd disc to hold all your 'crap'. Since you're running a SATA drive anyway, I will assume disk performance is decent as is (not an ancient 5400rpm slower drive). Unless you go fancy, you'll not get much better access time.
RAID 0 will give you faster performance (data is sliced up and shared between each drive). It's not really RAID per se, as there is no actual redundancy involved, but it is fast. The Raptor drives are fast too, but expensive and some say noisey. A 150gb Raptor will set you back close to 300 U.S. bucks (can get a 500gb 'regular' drive for a little more). It's uber fast for an IDE drive, but the price, and possibly the noise may not be worth it too you. I've also read of folks having problems with these drives and some IDE chipsets. You might want to read up if you go the Raptor route, as you may end up having to jump through some hoops.
I don't know if you're doing all of this simply for the space, or if you're doing it for performance. If it's just for space in a single-drive system, I'd suggest leaving the old drive in and adding a 2nd disc to hold all your 'crap'. Since you're running a SATA drive anyway, I will assume disk performance is decent as is (not an ancient 5400rpm slower drive). Unless you go fancy, you'll not get much better access time.
RAID 0 will give you faster performance (data is sliced up and shared between each drive). It's not really RAID per se, as there is no actual redundancy involved, but it is fast. The Raptor drives are fast too, but expensive and some say noisey. A 150gb Raptor will set you back close to 300 U.S. bucks (can get a 500gb 'regular' drive for a little more). It's uber fast for an IDE drive, but the price, and possibly the noise may not be worth it too you. I've also read of folks having problems with these drives and some IDE chipsets. You might want to read up if you go the Raptor route, as you may end up having to jump through some hoops.
Agree with above. Yep, Raid 0 doesn't having redundancy but for a home gaming rig, speed is the key.
I bet you could get 2 160mb Hitachi Deskstars for just under $300! Will be alot faster than one raptor.
I bet you could get 2 160mb Hitachi Deskstars for just under $300! Will be alot faster than one raptor.
best drive in the world, im gonna get it after it releases here in taiwan.ACB|_Cutthroat1 wrote:
150gb raptor FtW....!!!1!!!11!
Did you know that two of the new Western Digital 160gb 10,000RPM 16mb cache Sata raptors on Raid O go so fast you can actualy travel back in time
Only if your computer was going at 88GHz with a flux capacitor hooked up.
*Cough*Bottleneck*Cough* Anyone with ANY sense knows Raptor beats the shit out of that particular model. I don't see what your post has to do with helping the user...Just to point that out.General_CoLin_Tassi wrote:
Two Hitachi deskstars either 160GB or 250GB giving a Raid 0 array of 320GB or 500GB respectively. I have 2 160GB deskstars.
15k scsi FtW
I have only done this once before...-=|BW|=-Hollow_Moon wrote:
Did you know that two of the new Western Digital 160gb 10,000RPM 16mb cache Sata raptors on Raid O go so fast you can actualy travel back in time
Performance - I am thinking about upgrading to a Raptor since I saw my friend's at work. Jeeze it's fast. I think my MOBO might even support RIAD 0. That would rock.
The guy is thinking about upgrading his HD. 2 hitachi's on raid 0 is better than one raptor, unless your getting two raptor's of course. Just pointing out the benifits of raid 0 as he is doing a HD upgrade. So what's your problem dude, plus hitachi deskstars, if you know your stuff, are one of the best hard drives around. Obviously not as fast as a raptor, but 2 deskstars on raid 0 is more cost effective and faster. Read some independent reveiws to find out. k. And I have got sence, in fact, I had the sence to spend £3000 on a bad boy PC last March which I built myself. Bet it beats the pants off your system, chump. And read all my posts in order and you might understand what I'm saying re backing up etc.Cyberwolf wrote:
*Cough*Bottleneck*Cough* Anyone with ANY sense knows Raptor beats the shit out of that particular model. I don't see what your post has to do with helping the user...Just to point that out.General_CoLin_Tassi wrote:
Two Hitachi deskstars either 160GB or 250GB giving a Raid 0 array of 320GB or 500GB respectively. I have 2 160GB deskstars.
Last edited by General_CoLin_Tassi (2006-03-03 05:55:21)
Don't forget you need 2 drives for Raid. Two raptors would be super super fast, but expensive. Go for it if you can, else look at getting 2 of the same drives from another manufacturer. My loading time between maps is 1min 7secs with all graphical options set to ultra high and 4 sample AA. Hell yeah!Kaosdad008 wrote:
Performance - I am thinking about upgrading to a Raptor since I saw my friend's at work. Jeeze it's fast. I think my MOBO might even support RIAD 0. That would rock.
i would rather have a fx-60.ACB|_Cutthroat1 wrote:
15k scsi FtW
I'd rather have this
How much would that cost though-_{MoW}_-Assasin wrote:
screw thatsixshot wrote:
I'd rather have this
http://www.asetek.com/main/page.asp?sideid=559
ftw
Probably more than a CPU upgrade
u mean hardrive upgrade...InnerMonkey wrote:
Probably more than a CPU upgrade
i would rather have... the ownership of amd!
GAAAAA!!!!!
First, I want to thank all of you for your ideas. And one got me to thinking - which is usually disasterous. I checked my motherboard (ABit AW8-MAX) and yes indeedie! It supports RAID! So then I remembered that I purchased a second hard drive a while back for another reason. Checked the model against what I already had in the box and BINGO! A perfect match (SeaGate Barracuda 7200 300GB).
In went the drive (and did a little clean up while the box was open). Fired up the PC, told the BIOS to go into RAID awareness, loaded Windows, logged in and the happy "Hey! You Gots New Hardware!" message came up.
So, in went the ABit Utility & Driver disk and off went Windows searching for the perfect driver - found it! The Silicon Image Soft SATA RAID driver - W00T!!! Restarted the PC. Browsed the CD, found the Intel Matrix RAID Controller software, double-clicked "Install" and
I have the one, THE ONE, sub group out of the Intel 82801 chipset that doesn't support RAID - the 82801GB.
GAAAAA!!!!
First, I want to thank all of you for your ideas. And one got me to thinking - which is usually disasterous. I checked my motherboard (ABit AW8-MAX) and yes indeedie! It supports RAID! So then I remembered that I purchased a second hard drive a while back for another reason. Checked the model against what I already had in the box and BINGO! A perfect match (SeaGate Barracuda 7200 300GB).
In went the drive (and did a little clean up while the box was open). Fired up the PC, told the BIOS to go into RAID awareness, loaded Windows, logged in and the happy "Hey! You Gots New Hardware!" message came up.
So, in went the ABit Utility & Driver disk and off went Windows searching for the perfect driver - found it! The Silicon Image Soft SATA RAID driver - W00T!!! Restarted the PC. Browsed the CD, found the Intel Matrix RAID Controller software, double-clicked "Install" and
I have the one, THE ONE, sub group out of the Intel 82801 chipset that doesn't support RAID - the 82801GB.
GAAAAA!!!!
Last edited by Kaosdad008 (2006-03-04 15:30:25)
Oh well, you had better "raid" your piggy bank. No pun intended!