2 questions, 1 vista 1 hardware

**grandkodiak** · 04-25-2009, 10:32 AM

So when I open explorer the file/edit/view bar isnt there unless I hit F10, then it will appear, but go away once you are done with it. I HATE that, I want it there all the time. Wtf is the keyboard shortcut to have it stay, I always forget!

Also alil more techincal... I have two sata 250gb drives now, but i'm runnin out of space. I've decided to get a 1tb sata drive that im gunna use for bulk storage of documents, pics and videos, and keep the 250 as the os/progs/game drives. what i want to do is set up raid so i have to twin 250's working together, but its been 3 years since i last even touched hardware. which raid is the one designed to have max speed by splitting data between the two drives? ie. i DONT want them mirroring each other for backup redundancy, i want them goin together to get a boost out of speed for gaming/programs. i know itll drop my total space down to 250 total but thats plenty of space for just os and games, all my bulk is in pictures/videos and will remain soley on the 1tb.

thanks!

**tnthub** · 04-25-2009, 12:25 PM

You could use RAID (striped) for maximum speed for the two 250G drives. However if either drive fails... You will likely lose all your stuff. You will not lose any space with this configuration as both drives work as one drive and the space is combined...

Like I said... This is NOT a "safe" configuration. Basically, you can configure both drives to work as one drive (F:\) for example, and the drive volume will span both drives.

"View"...

Click the Start button located in the lower-left corner of the Windows Vista desktop.
Then click on the Computer tab in the right side pane.
The Computer tab will open and launch a Windows Explorer window.
Now click on Organize located on the current top menu toolbar.
Then point to Layout and click on Menu Bar.
Windows Vista will then display the Classic Menu Bar in Windows Explorer.

**Tide** · 04-25-2009, 09:08 PM

Easiest thing for your storage issue is to just buy 1 TB external and use it when needed.
As far as your F10 thing. That's weird. Try right clicking the bar and doing Customize Toolbar (if I got what you're saying, which I think I did).

Shady is the man when it comes to computer stuff. He knows his stuff.

**grandkodiak** · 04-26-2009, 05:15 AM

ok that fixed the toolbar problem.

i googled the stripped raid, it came up as raid 0, is that the one you are talking about? found a sight with like 10 different raid setup formats, man have things come a long way haha

**tnthub** · 04-26-2009, 05:54 AM

Originally Posted by grandkodiak

ok that fixed the toolbar problem.

i googled the stripped raid, it came up as raid 0, is that the one you are talking about? found a sight with like 10 different raid setup formats, man have things come a long way haha

Yea, RAID 0 is striped. It is the a way of configuring multiple hard drives for maximum speed but also the most likely to fail because if one drive fails you lose your stuff on both drives. However it is cost effective because you can use the full amount of space on both drives. Whenever I set this up for clients I make sure to have two (or however many they want) drives matched for the best chance at reliability. In other words.... If I am using new drives I buy them in sets... If I am using older drives they should really be matched for speed and cache sizes to minimize the risk of corruption.

Some programs may not work well with this configuration (Quick Books Professional comes to mind), but most modern stuff will like it just fine.

Actually stuff has not really changed that much in terms of concepts like RAID... I was building RAID into servers back in the early 1990s...

**grandkodiak** · 04-26-2009, 02:53 PM

I build a new computer roughly every 3 years but my last build I went all out so I still have yet to find an excuse to build a new comp, there isn't anything I can't run at full speed, but I got into digital photography in a big way over the last few years and started downloading tv shows etc so I quickly ran out of space, I have dual sata 250gb wetern digis, I was just using one for backup but then I started using it for music and pictures and bam, before you knew it i relized, i need more space! haha but the overwhelming majority of my space hogging data doesnt require fast loading so i could sit on a network drive for all i care, but then i noticed you can grab a sata 1tb for under a $100 bucks! figured why not do a fresh install while im at it but then i thought, why not raid! my biggest bottleneck right now is the drive transfter speed so... why not!

thanks for all the quick info, next paycheck the adventure begins!