and just a fyi...

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/5828/hd2jx7.jpg

might be interested what a little Raid 0 can do for you depending on how many hardrives you decide to plug in.

i've seen some people as well as managed to pull figures MUCH higher than this.. pushing basically 1GB/S with bursts into the 5000MB/s range with the newest Western Digital 500/640 64mb sata 3 Drives.

But even at 1GBPS..... a SSD pushing 500MB/s (half the bandwidth) will be faster..... it's not all about bandwidth, it's all about the I/O per second not to mention all the other little things such as seeks and random access.

This is why even if you see a maximum bandwidth change going from ide to ahci or raid... (shouldn't be much.. should be faster usually), it doesn't amount to really anything because the other little things are working WAY faster than if you were running IDE mode.

sorry.. windows 8 and this damn forum software used on this website ever since they updated about a month ago.. has weird issues.... for the longest time i couldn't get a damn thing to work... and ironically it works WORSE in firefox than in IE10.... so go figure...

When i backspace at all, it does screwed up things.. i don't have any issues on other forums.. just this one.

Yeah don't install the matrix garbage.... just make sure you get as much as you can from the actual manufacturer of the devices your install... intel chipset.. go to install. don't use Asus's ... only download from asus when it's a last resort.. and IF that doesn't work... the panic solution is the damn cd lol

but otherwise.. yup got it right

Oh and after your graphics driver..... ensure you install the latest Via Audio Controller software/driver too

For your convience.... direct link here ~> http://www.viaarena.com/Driver/v8700a_20100923.zip


lastly for anyone else interested in the board he's using... http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1156/P7P55DE_PRO/#specifications

Sorry i didn't notice that it only had 6 Intel SATA Ports that were sata 2 only... not the newer boards with 4 sata II and 2 sata III

Ahhh, one of the reasons I let brave folks like you try an OS beta as a day to day desktop vs using the release versions

You all svck!

Seriously, 700+ MB/s is just sick and with the setup BumpInTheNight described all I want to do now is make tons of cash and lock myself in a room full of hard drive awesomeness. And what's up with Windows 8 and IE10 at work? And here I'm struggling to grasp Windows 7 with a single SATA HDD in RAID mode.

I haven't read everything yet but I want to just say that I'm glad to hear about the game issue that I was facing. I have been installing to a custom games folder for quite awhile now without any issue so that wasn't as much of a concern. It was the spreading of certain files across different partitions that worried me since my custom location was still always on the C drive. Seems like I should just get past that already and break them off from the pack.

EDIT: Sorry, I just noticed that I pasted from the wrong file when posting my specs. I have a version saved where everyting is a hyperlink to the data sheets. I thought that was the one that I was pasting from. Would have made things easier for everyone else I'm sure.

Oh yeah, I've got it now. It all came together for me just recently and it's starting to feel good again.

You can fit something like 11 hard drives into this case. I built the system on a rather tight budget but I wanted something that was considered above average for the time as well as something that I could continue to grow through expansion & upgrades throughout the next several years. The last system that I built is now 8 years old and it still runs Skyrim rather smoothly and without crashing. If my original plan had come through I would have at least one or two more drives by now and I would have already gone through all of this but for better reasons (to actually have a true RAID). But alas, building a custom system for my lady, losing my job, and losing my financial aid has taken a huge bite out of any "extra" cash that I might have had to spend on such things. O'well, such is life.

Check, check, and check. I pretty much completely understand exactly what everyone is saying now. Re-reading this thread several times has helped a lot.

I installed the Matrix on accident. I used the first Intel link you provided to get the INF update, which was the first driver update that I did after Windows update was completed. I used the second Intel link and must have screwed something up and got the Matrix instead. Once I actually downloaded Rapid and installed it the Matrix software was removed so I'll be sure to skip that step this next time around. Also, I have the BIOS already updated as well as the latest Realtek LAN driver, USB 3.0 driver, and I had already downloaded the VIA Audio driver from the same link that you just provided...all straight from the source and ready to go.

BTW, please don't think that I was ignorning anything that you had already posted yet needed to post again. Sometimes it just takes me awhile and I had a lot of information coming in from several different sources all at once (not just from here). My brain seems to have finally wrapped itself around all this though so it should work out well from this point forward.

The only thing left for me to decide on is a final partition layout (Sorry BumpInTheNight but I'm going back to partitions). Shouldn't take much more than looking back at your partition suggestions from earlier.

I'm off to bed for some much needed rest but I'll update this thread as I can.

no problemo.

just keep in mind that once you get the final partition made... any "reinstalls" will be made easy if you move/backup your data to the partition that you don't need to overwrite.

For me..... when i do windows reinstalls or did something that ended up screwing something up... or windows 8 install or whatever.. swapping between OSes and so forth... to do clean installs it's as easy as slipping the disk in.. booting from it.. getting to the partition selection screen.. DELETEING the primary partition and then recreating it followed by installing windows... boom clean install done

I've removed the 6 GB/s SATA3 cable and reconnected the internal drive with a 3 GB/s cable into the first SATA2 slot (Port 0). The DVD in now plugged into the last SATA2 slot (Port 5) with the 3 GB/s cable that it was already using. I then set Configure SATA as...RAID & disabled the Marvell SATA Controller via BIOS. Booted right into Windows and Intel Rapid Storage now recognizes the drives properly with the HDD in Port 0, the DVD in Port 5, and Port 1-4 open.

So far so good.

Just finished backing up the drivers and applications that I've downloaded over the past couple of days (not forgetting about Favorites that I've bookmarked as well). So I'm good to go this morning and I'm hoping for the best. I've come up with the following drive structure and I'm felling like it should meet my needs rather nicely:

C:\System (100 GB)
D:\Games (400 GB)
E:\Data (500 GB)
F:\Backup (500 GB Internal USB) <-- I ended putting this inside the case and running the cord out an extremly small, already exiting hole in the back. So I'm calling it an Internal drive
G:\Vault (250 GB External USB) <-- This one only comes out of the desk drawer when needed.

I'll pay more attention to space usage over the next couple of weeks and possible adjust accordingly (like maybe bringing the C drive down to 50 GB). Otherwise, I feel good rather positive about this and I think that it's time to commit.

On a sadder note...after much research I have discovered that I had the wrong data sheet for the 500 GB USB driver. Turns out that it's not 3.0 compatible so the 34 MB/s is actually considered above average for that drive. O'well, I've never complained about its overall performance, reliablitiy, and usefulness so I'm not going to start now.

I'm off to start the process. Again. Finally.

good luck.. and make sure that other hardrive is very well secured inside...

You should definitely notice a bump in your windows 7 index score for the hardrive both due to the ahci/raid mode used as well as when using partition 100gb or smaller..... might see 6.0 ... most everyones drives sit at 5.9 and never see anything higher without moving to a first generation or newer solid state.

setting the primary partition smaller does have an impact on the index score given though..

A raid 0 array of 2 640gb WD Black 64mb cache SATA III using SATA II mode connections scored 6.2/6.3 with a 75gb partition for the primary partition (C:)

My single Vertex2 120GB scored 7.5...partitions svck.

My single vertex 3 scored 7.6/7.7 using full 120gb..

setting a partition of 50gb bumped it to 7.8

setting a partition of 35gb bumped it and is rock solid at 7.9



Although in the end.. it's pretty damn irrelevant lol

Oh whoops, I thought that was the score for your SSDs not regular HDDs Yah while its 11:30am here I'm still not nearly awake yet

Very Impressing scores. I'll be happy not to see 5.9 again if that's possible with this drive.

So it's been a happy Sunday morning so far. I just finished installing Windows as well as all the drivers (one by one with a reboot between them). Now it's time for Windows Update while I find something else to do for the next 3 hours. Hopefully I'll have a game installed for testing purposes by this afternoon. I think The Witcher 1 should suffice for now since it can be rather demanding on max settings. I'll start with that and work my way back up to Civ5 and Skyrim.

BTW, if anyone knows about Windows 7 User Profile Corruption...that is what sparked this endeavor in the first place. Seems my user profile had become corrupted somehow and it wouldn't allow me to install downloaded files without moving them to the temp directory first. Kinda weird that it happened out of the blue and the really odd thing is that it has now happened on my other system as well. The only thing that they have had in common over the past week (time frame that I narrowed it down to) is updating Windows and sharing a network. I can still install programs by manually moving them and everything else seems to work just great so I'm at a loss as to why it happened, how to avoid it in the future, and how to fix it without a complete re-install of Windows.

If I can't find a solution to that particular issue then it looks like I'll be re-installing everything on my second system soon enough.

Thanks again to everyone. The insight provided was priceless and much appreciated. I really couldn't have done such a satisfying job without all your help. You're all the best in my book.

Huuuh...
First thing that comes to mind...Virus...has now spread? Just a thought.

That was my first guess but it's not a virus as far as I can tell. There's no other signs of it being a virus and I've come across several in my time (all of which I have been able to manual deal with without a re-install). In other words, I know what to look for in that regard and haven't seen anything that would point to that...out side of this one symptom of course. I've also run several different updated virus checks and not a shred of problems reported back. Plus, I have 4 systems on this network and only 2 of the system have this issue while the other two continue to work perfectly. Lastly, I was ablel to create a new user profile that doesn't experience this issue so unless it's a very specific virus that only targets a specific profile and only in this particular manner then I'm leaning towards not a virus considering all other evidence. If such a virus existed it would be way to limiting IMO for anyone to bother distributing it. Kinda a waste of virus if you can simply create a new profile to avoid it.

I've done a lot of research on this over the past week and everything I find seems to point at a fault in Windows 7 and the best advice that MS has to offer is to mitigate user profile settings over to a new user profile. I considered this but it seemed like more work vs reward as opposed to re-installing everything nice and fresh.

I'll continue to pursue the virus possiblity because I'd be a fool to dismiss it outright but any other possibilities would be nice to know about if anyone has anything else to offer.

Thanks for the quick response.

Spindle hard drives write from the outer edge in (opposite of CD/DVD's) and the outer edge is the fastest part of the hard drive.


Edit - Regarding partitioning for speed, we're talking fractions of a second at best. If you're worried about your data make a backup, don't partition.

This thread is MUCH too long already.

BioFringe you have given the best reason for a dedicated windows partition in your initial post.

- Only install programs to c: .
- Keep installer files for said programs on a seperate drive/partition.
- Install games to seperate drive/partition.
- Keep your downloads and media files on seperate drive/partition.

Why?
- Because this way you always have the option to wipe your system drive incase of major hardware changes (or you just mess up your windows too much).
- The only thing you need to backup then are your emails, maybe savegames from my documents folders, browser settings and the like.

Also.
- Using different physical drives instead of only partitions gives you a (slight) performance advantage for HDD heavy games/applications.
- Some (mostly older) programs/games do not run well (or at all) when installed to the system drive. (rights issues, spaces in file paths, etc)

Thanks for the info but I'm well beyond all that. The thread is so long because there is way more to it than just the original questions that I posed (ie leaning about RAID vs IDE). Today's post was just an update to the situtation for those that were helping me along. It wasn't meant to keep the thread on top or anything so I'll let it die now.

Thanks again to everyone.

hmm... i think i did this mistake in my set up

If that WD green drive listed in your sig is the drive you're thinking may need a sata3: Nope, those drives just svck, hard. Very hard. Very very very hard.
Sorry, they just do.

yea it is :/ it was an external drive that i pulled out of its enclosure which i never knew was going to be a green till i did. I was hoping it was going to be black.

Also, im not meant to install the Asus drivers from the Asus site for my mobo?
Seems to be alot for me to learn in this thread, so i've bookmarked it

Oh for the drivers it just depends on which driver you're referring to. Something that's actually asus branded: Sure grab it from their site. Realtek audio? Sure since realtek's own driver support very deliberately tries to point you at the motherboard maker's own version instead. Something like the Intel chipset drivers? No, go to Intel for that, they know best and as the source of those drivers likely have the best version of them on hand for you to acquire.

So yah, if you ignore that realtek example since they're an anomaly the general rule is acquire drivers from whoever made the thing the driver is for and know that a motherboard is made up of a bunch of things, that's all.

Good to hear that someone other than me is learning something from this thread. It's got a wealth of information that I think everyone could benefit from. It's almost pure knowledge and not just a bunch of bickering about who's opinion is right. Overall, I'd say that it was a success.

FWIW: The only drivers that I used from ASUS were the BIOS update and the USB 3.0 update (which apparently I don't really need right now anyways). Other than that it's best, as I've learned, to get them straight from the source.

Regarding the Windows 7 Profile Corruption issue..

I can't say anything about it as i've never encounter it on all the machines i've worked on in the last 2 years and 3 months that windows 7 has been out... and the year prior to it launching that i was using it.

Could be SATA III cable related...

Corruption tends to only happen for these reasons.

1: Data cable/Hardware related failure or intermittent random issues .... such as using a sata III cable on a sata II connection... or perhaps a Physical memory issues that isn't bad enough to cause a major crash or BSOD. .but enough to just through your data "out of wack" over time.

2: Software related, could be due to improper shutdowns or failure to sleep/hibernate properly... Personally for desktop computer, i DISABLE hibernation and sleep states completely, essentially set them to never sleep/hibernate with monitors set to go into standby after an hour.. but it's personal preferrence. IT's ALWAYS best to shut down you computer if your not going to use it for say 2 or 4 or more hours ... and always... always... ALWAYS shut down your computer at night unless it's doing something, like downloading or uploading or doing something that is going to take all night to complete.

3: Software Installed and used, such as registry cleaners.... CC Cleaner for example is one of my most hated tools that people seems to insist on using..... Cleaners are to be avoid as best as possible, if you must, use as an absalute last resort.. DO NOT make it a habit of using it every time you do your own little cleanup or performance tuning..... Windows does a fairly decent job of keeping some things straight.... but these programs have totally ruined computers more often than i like to count. Removing registry entries that were ment to remain claiming they were not in use, even when they go dormant for a reason and are only required at another specific time. Worse yet is when they make the mistake of removing something that is indeed required. Either way, there are tons of these free and paid for cleaners out there that are more of a problem and placebo effect than being benificial.

When it comes to the registry, either don't mess with it at all, OR do all the work manually. Obviously it's not recommended to jump into the registry and manually do removal/additions/changes unless your well aware of the risks. One of the most significant registry changes you can do is to clean up startup items that is probably the easiest and trouble free without worry. Beyond that.... you essentially start venturing into the deep dark forrest full of anything that you may change or remove or add resulting in failure to access windows again after restarting.


4: is just Fluke situations..... just like a failed windows install that appeared to install just fine.. but things just work oddly or imporperly for no apparent reason. I've seen perfectly fine system fully tested where it appeared like during installation.. a single bit or 2 just decided to wonder off resulting in the whole system working abnormally randomly giving either weird unrelated errors or performing poorly or whatever... requiring a full wipe and reinstall again. I've never once been able to install a 2nd time and reproduce the same thing. If i have, it was due to a hardware failure related to such things as a bad cpu or ram or motherboard or something other than that that would explain it.