RAID help

[Nagasama]

hey all.
my girlfriend wants to put sh*tloads of music on my (our LOL) computer. i don't want it clogging up hard drive. i also would like to store our pictures on a new one, as the file is becoming quite large. and all other miscellaneous crap.
basically i want my o.s. and games on my current drive, and pistures, music, documents, internet files, spyware, diagnostic programs, overclocking tools and all the other stuff that isnt an o.s. or a game lol on the new one.
somebody point me in the right direction of how to do this...
stickies, articles, opinions, etc. i.e. how to transfer the files intact to the new one, erase from the old one, set partitions on the new one, i probably? need to redo the partition on the old one and raid up the hdds. i am a total noob when it comes to multiple hdds. no sh*t...
by the way i will be purchasing a duplicate of my current hdd, WD caviar 7200k 160GB.

 

[Sora]

Im clueless when it comes to setting up RAID at well man but I think you'll want to go RAID 0 even though it might not be two completley different HD's but you will see increased performance in your system though so it may be worth it.

I don't think you have to really set up RAID if you just want two whole different storage drives on. I think you can hook up another HD W/O windows and open it up like you would like C:

I may be wrong though as there are many different types of RAID though....0 and 1 being the most popular but neither doing exactly what you want. I still say set those up on RAID 0 though and just keep different folders and stuff becuase not only will this increase your space for your girl but it will increase gaming and overall windows performance.

Just my two cents, but if you don't want RAID 0 then I believe you can just hook up the other HD straight in and stuff.

 

[Nitestick]

agreed, it doesn't sound like you'll be needing a RAID array. my suggestion is just use a program like BootIT NG or PM8 to clone your current partition to the new drive and set it as the active partition (as well as changing the boot order to that drive). then reformat and partition the second drive for storage.

 

[Nagasama]

okay so once again my noobish ness shows with this...
i thought RAID was a way to run two seperate hdds faster.
but, if i am reading you guys correctly, i can RAID my single hdd i have now and increase windows performance?
or what would be the point of RAID with seperate hard drives?i'll google it this evening and perhaps have a better understanding, but help is appreciated...
nitestick you are saying that i will use the new hdd for the master, and my current for storage? i.e. clone my current to the new and then erase all of the storage files and what not?
argh i hate not knowing things...

 

[Nagasama]

ok i think ive got it...
RAID is really just for making the hard drives behave as one, ie storing the information on different drives so it can be retrieved faster, instead of having a "c" drive, an "e" etc...?
i see what you guys are saying... since i am just going to use the new hdd as basically a storage device, i will not need RAID.
but having the new one set as like "e"...will i have problems sharing my files from it...say something like a video, stored on "e" with the windows media player program, stored on "c".i hope that makes some kind of sense...
also i ma reading about the risk of data loss...as with RAID the information is stored on different discs so if you lose one in the RAID array, you lose that information.
i think i will screw something up with this, boys...lol (kinda)

 

[pinoy3000]

if your gonna go for Raid 0, I would recommend another hard drive just for backup. That gives you a total of 3 hard drives.

Get raid 0 on say..... two 250gb hard drives or something and get another say 320 gb harddrive as backup. raid 0 tends to fail much more frequently than other raids.

 

[Apokalipse]

You don't need a RAID. just get one or two 320GB drives or something. 320GB drives are best for the money right now.