I bought a laptop with 2 500gig drives in it. It said it came with RAID 0 already setup. I have never used Raid before, but know enough to be dangerous. From what I read, Raid 0 Treats the two drives as 1 larger drive.
So, does it all start with the BIOS seeing them as just 1 terabyte drive?
When I look in Windows I see it partitioned with 2 hidden partitions, and two visible partitions: C: (530gig) named as 'OS_Install' and D: (325gig) named as 'Data'. So, all four of these partitions are seen as part of the one Raid 0 drive?
I am a little confused because in Windows I still see a C: and D: drive. And I do have two physical 500gig drives.... I am guessing them just made two partitions so you could have a place to back stuff up? Not sure
But in the Disk Management I see one physical Disk 0. With C: And D: and the other two hidden drives on that one Disk 0. So, Windows must treat these two disks as one disk and then partition all of the partitions in that one disk..
If I have that correct so far, I am wondering how Windows takes advantage of this to make the system run faster?? Does it take every file in the system and put half on one physical disk and the other on the other physical disk so that it actually has two devices spinning and two read/write heads, thus doubling the access speed? ??
Why do they name the C: drive OS_Install, and the D: drive Data? If as I guess, every file is split on each physical drive for speed, then separating the OS from Data/Programs/etc. would not be necessary??
So, should I ignore these drive 'names'? and just use the C: for installing all programs and D: for personal data like My Documents; Pictures; Movies; stuff I want to save..
Sorry this confused though stream here.. but I have to run out the door and wanted to post my confused thoughts about this before I left. So, maybe I'll have an answer when I get back... I am at the point where I am read to start installing games, and many of my programs and am wondering if there is a point to installing them to the D: drive at all... Plus I want to make a backup image before I do all that as well...
Snacko