Ryan Mason Posted November 28, 2008 Share Posted November 28, 2008 Hey guys, due to a downturn in finances lately (good old US economy!) I am not going to be able to upgrade my whole computer so I am looking at getting 2x7200 rpm 160GB HDD to put in Raid 0 plus going to 4gb memory and vista 64 bit, its not the best option but it will have to do for now, I am a total novice on these things and wanted to know if this was an ok drive for my gateway FX - P171 model laptop (1.83 Ghz, 3GB ram T555 core 2 duo) as I wouldnt know the first thing about what is compatible and what is not. I am also looking at getting someone to try and overclock the CPU as far as it can go being stable, maybe 2.4 Ghz? So could someone tell me if this is the one(s) I need? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152129 Thanks in advance for any advice. Cheers AC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolter van der Spoel Posted November 28, 2008 Share Posted November 28, 2008 Hi Ryan, O'clocking a laptop is a bit of a dead road, for the very simple reason that cooling the thing is problem numero uno, I know there are sort of docking stations for laptops that "allegedly" provide extra cooling but can't tell if that is wise, putting in two extra HDD's in RAID 0 would bring a bit of speed to the read/write capability of the system, as for Vista 64 I do not know how that plays out with your current CPU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted November 29, 2008 Share Posted November 29, 2008 Most Lap Tops you can't have more than one HD internally as there just isn't room. Besides this RAID0 is not much faster than a single drive and has NO redundancy as the term RAID name suggests. External for backup and a decent internal drive is IMHO your best option. Never run programs from a USB Drive either as the USB Port is just too bloody slow for live program execution end of story. With Notebook Drives they get bloody hot the faster they run, other than loading I see absolutely NO advantage in any drive faster than 7200. I'd just get a 500 Gb unit and back it up regularly with Acronis or GHOST or similar to an external Backup drive. As you know I'm not and have never been a fan of overclocking, even more so with a Laptop get a faster Processor to start with is my advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Mason Posted November 29, 2008 Author Share Posted November 29, 2008 Mozz, I have an empty slot for a second HDD and have an external HDD but alas its only usb for backup purposes. I guess I will ditch this idea as you both say its pointless. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted November 30, 2008 Share Posted November 30, 2008 You can put a second HDD in the Lappy mate if there is a slot for it but as for RAID forget it there is NO performance gain to be had for what your doing. Yes the USB will be fine for backup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolter van der Spoel Posted November 30, 2008 Share Posted November 30, 2008 must concurr with the Mozzmann, when you can get that 2nd HDD in there, I'd say move fsX to it or do a complete fresh install of it and clean out your C drive to bare essentials, this will allow the OS to run faster~smoother and with sitting fsX on it's own Harddrive will suffer from the same improvement Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Mason Posted November 30, 2008 Author Share Posted November 30, 2008 update, I may have found a place that can upgrade my chip from a T5550 to a T9300 which should at least put me somewhere around 2.4-3.0 GHz which with the upgrade to 64 bit and 4gb of ram should at least make some improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
}SkOrPn--7 Posted December 1, 2008 Share Posted December 1, 2008 RAID0 that baby and it will be turbo charges aussiecop that's a fact!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted December 1, 2008 Share Posted December 1, 2008 It will still be software RAID and this WILL eat into system Processor time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Mason Posted December 1, 2008 Author Share Posted December 1, 2008 Well the second HDD is only $50 so I guess I cant complain about the price and maybe making it the FSX only drive will help but how will that benefit me in speed if both are still running off the same slow a** processor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted December 1, 2008 Share Posted December 1, 2008 Warning Will Robinson! If the laptop's RAID is software based (like the Intel software-RAID on my Dell), then you may want to avoid Vista64 and RAID. I installed V64 + s/w RAID and it completely foo-barred my FSX installation during a commercial demo. Could not have been worse timing. I went back to XP Pro SP3 and FSX sitting on a seperate 200GB 7200RPM HD on its own. Has been rock solid since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted December 1, 2008 Share Posted December 1, 2008 Thanks John that was the info I was waiting for, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Mason Posted December 1, 2008 Author Share Posted December 1, 2008 Thanks for the feedback John, I am thinking I will use the other HDD as just a separate FSX drive, my only question with that is, isnt FSX C drive bound? I thought I read somewhere here of people having problems if FSX was on a dedicated drive other than C? I thought it was a FSX.cfg issue that was the main problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted December 2, 2008 Share Posted December 2, 2008 Nope, my FSX installation is on D: and it works 100% fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Mason Posted December 2, 2008 Author Share Posted December 2, 2008 Ta for the info mate, I guess I am off to new egg to get the HDD. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolter van der Spoel Posted December 2, 2008 Share Posted December 2, 2008 my fsX install is on J: ........ wich is first partition of second RAID 0 array Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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