New Build GA-EP45-DS3 + Q9550

[NimrodAUS]

I get most of my stuff from MEGABUY - Buy Cheap Computer Parts Computer Hardware & Software Online they are very well priced most of the time.

Oh I re read your post. Im in Central Queensland. A Place called Emerald, its about 900Km East of Brissy.

[NimrodAUS]

Well I wont get to build my new systems this weekend, I didnt get a single part. Stupid Australian Frieght companies. Damm them.

[elite786]

damn! that sucks! itll be worth the wait.

cool, cant say ive been there, i was there back in 2005 stayed at gold coast for couple of nights. didnt want to leave

[NimrodAUS]

Yeah the Gold Coast is good. Spent a few wild weekends there.

I hate waiting, It keeps me awake. My little brain is thinking about the build and configuring all the programs and stuff. Im looking forward to the RAID 1 Set up. Shhhhhhhhh. Dont tell my wife what I dream about. She already thinks im a Nerd.

[elite786]

lol i know what you mean, ive got some bits on order looking at making my own custom raid tower with 10 hard drive slots, custom cooling and lots of leds. not going to get it until brother in law gets back from US in 8 weeks!!!

as for the the mrs, mines thinks the same oh well lol

[NimrodAUS]

Originally Posted by elite786

lol i know what you mean, ive got some bits on order looking at making my own custom raid tower with 10 hard drive slots, custom cooling and lots of leds. not going to get it until brother in law gets back from US in 8 weeks!!!

as for the the mrs, mines thinks the same oh well lol

LOL. So im not a total loser then. lol

[NimrodAUS]

Ok So I'm Just wondering if anyone has any Ideas on what I should do with these two 1tb drives before I make the RAID. Ive heard of Low level formatting? Should I do this, as previously mentioned the vista onwards disk formatting doesnt seem to take very long and I was thinking a proper hardcore format might be the go?? Any Ideas? Also, I just for the fun off it changed my X48 HDD settings over to RAID and I didnt get a option to press Control + I to get into the RAID menu??? Im going to format the drive and install Windows 7 X64 Build 7232 just for the hell of it using the RAID drivers so It will be a RAID ready drive???? I dont know Im just experimenting.

[NimrodAUS]

Ok So I have sorta found that I dont think it detects my SATA DVD rom drive when I change over to RAID i cant boot to the windows disk. I do have it plugged into SATA 1 and just one HDD plugged into SATA 0 I may have to try using the DVD in GIGA1 or something?

[Psycho101]

Ports0-3 are on a seperate controler to ports 4-5, so try your DVD drive in the last two ports. If this doesn't work, then use the JMicron.

As for formating, the traditional format should be fine. Absolutely definately do not low level format! This was useful many moons ago, as thermal expansion meant that where the disk heads expected to find tracks and sectors was sometimes wrong. heat caused the platters to change shape slightly, resulting in errors. A low level format effectively re-writes the tracks and sectors to a disc, meaning the heads can seak them again.

If you want to be thorough, use a zero fill utility. This will restore each hard drive to as good as factory new. Have a google as to the utilities currently available, or ask Lsdmeasap. I believe he's recommended certain program(s) before.

Have a read of the X48 manual, as you will definately need to crate the array before you install Windows. If you do it now you'll probably find that you have 2 1TB drives in AHCI, not 1 2TB partition in RAID0. You'll have to choose a stripe size too, ranging from I believe 4K up to 128k. I found 64k to be the best performance for my two old WD drives, as I wasn't much of a gamer then and dealt with rather large files. 32k would be an option if you deal with files of varying sizes.

[NimrodAUS]

What controls the Ports 4 and 5 I though the North Bridge did the 6 yellow ports. Anyway it doesnt matter your probably right. I wont worry too much about it till i get all the parts early next week Im hopping. Im gunna do a RAID 1 not a RAID 0 so I dont think I need to choose a stripe size??

As for the formatting side, how are your thoughs of formatting it NTFS with the Windows XP setup and then installing Windows 7. I just dont get how it can "format" a 1TB drive from a new Partition in like 5 seconds.

As you said if all else fails ill just re-emable the JMicron (Gigabyte) SATA ports and use it for my DVD Drive. Easy. Maybe it wont let me get into the RAID Menu Ctrl + I because I only have the one HDD connected? I just wanted to have a look.