Four Candles or Fork Handles

from WinCustomize Forums

Actually, it is 4 questions that I have moved from a previous post.

1. New kit has been ordered which include 2 x 500 GB HDD.

 

2. Would it be better to run them under Raid 0 or 1 with 3 or 4 partitions, or as 2 separate drives?

 

3. Has anyone any strong thoughts on moving to Office 2007 or possibly 2010?  At the moment I am quite happy with 2003.

 

4. How does one move Impulse,WB etc from an XP backup to Windows 7, 64 bit?

 

5. When installing the new OS, do I attach peripherals and let Win 7 sort it out, or visit the appropriate websites to obtain what is needed?

 

Sorry about the long list, but while I was typing…………..

 

4,931 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Raid is faster.

Office 2010 is in beta and just about anyone can get a copy to check out. Give it a try if you want.

Archive your programs in Impulse, redownload and install Impulse on your new OS, restore your archives once you copy them over from your old system. Make sure they are versions that are compatible with Win 7 before you try to restore them.

For Win 7, hook everything up and Windows should find all of them.

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

1. Congrats on the new rig, I hope it performs to your expectations

2. Running your HDD's in Raid formation will speed things up some, but if one drive goes down/crashes it takes the other's data with it.  While Raid might give you a performance boost it might be safer (date-wise) to partition your drives to house your OS and then storage/backups seperately.

3. I've had Office 2007 for a while and think it's ok, but 2003 is good also, so if you're happy with what you have there's no real need to upgrade... 2007 doesn't bring a lot more functionally to the table, other than a new GUI.

4. Install Impulse in Win 7 and re-download your apps... the XP backups were assigned to that OS and are not likely to run in Win 7 x64.

5. Hook up all your peripherals and internet connection prior to running your Win 7 disc, the installation/Windows Update will detect them and assign drivers.  Yeah, it's that easy!  Most modern hardware have x64 drivers these days so you should find no issues.

:)

Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

You'll have problems with Outlook 2003. It stores passwords in a location which is unavailable to Vista/W7. Each time you connect you will have to type in your password...!

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Fuzzy, reply 3
You'll have problems with Outlook 2003. It stores passwords in a location which is unavailable to Vista/W7. Each time you connect you will have to type in your password...!
End of Fuzzy's quote

That's a bu**er!  It looks as if my daughter will get her wish and inherit 2003 for her XP machine, although I doubt whether I will get a financial contribution towards 2007.

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Fuzzy, reply 3
You'll have problems with Outlook 2003. It stores passwords in a location which is unavailable to Vista/W7. Each time you connect you will have to type in your password...!
End of Fuzzy's quote

I've never had that problem with Outlook 2003 and Vista.

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Running your HDD's in Raid formation will speed things up some, but if one drive goes down/crashes it takes the other's data with it.
End of quote

Raid 1 will provide mirroring and thereby would be the safest choice for you. If 1 drive has hardware problems you will not lose your data. However, if you corrupt the OS on 1 drive you will mirror the problem on the other.

Raid 0 is striping. Data is distributed across both disks. If you lose one drive you lose all. Best to stay clear of that one.

 

Here are the Wiki full explanations:

  • RAID 0 (striped disks) distributes data across multiple disks in a way that gives improved speed at any given instant. If one disk fails, however, all of the data on the array will be lost, as there is neither parity nor mirroring. In this regard, RAID 0 is somewhat of a misnomer, in that RAID 0 is non-redundant. A RAID 0 array requires a minimum of two drives. A RAID 0 configuration can be applied to a single drive provided that the RAID controller is hardware and not software (i.e. OS-based arrays) and allows for such configuration. This allows a single drive to be added to a controller already containing another RAID configuration when the user does not wish to add the additional drive to the existing array. In this case, the controller would be set up as RAID only (as opposed to SCSI only (no RAID)), which requires that each individual drive be a part of some sort of RAID array.
  • RAID 1 mirrors the contents of the disks, making a form of 1:1 ratio realtime backup. The contents of each disk in the array are identical to that of every other disk in the array. A RAID 1 array requires a minimum of two drives. RAID 1 mirrors, though during the writing process copy the data identically to both drives, would not be suitable as a permanent backup solution, as RAID technology by design allows for certain failures to take place.
  • RAID 3 or 4 (striped disks with dedicated parity) combines three or more disks in a way that protects data against loss of any one disk. Fault tolerance is achieved by adding an extra disk to the array and dedicating it to storing parity information. The storage capacity of the array is reduced by one disk. A RAID 3 or 4 array requires a minimum of three drives: two to hold striped data, and a third drive to hold parity data.
  • RAID 5 (striped disks with distributed parity) combines three or more disks in a way that protects data against the loss of any one disk. It is similar to RAID 3 but the parity is not stored on one dedicated drive, instead parity information is interspersed across the drive array. The storage capacity of the array is a function of the number of drives minus the space needed to store parity. The maximum number of drives that can fail in any RAID 5 configuration without losing data is only one. Losing two drives in a RAID 5 array is referred to as a "double fault" and results in data loss.
  • RAID 6 (striped disks with dual parity) combines four or more disks in a way that protects data against loss of any two disks.
  • RAID 1+0 (or 10) is a mirrored data set (RAID 1) which is then striped (RAID 0), hence the "1+0" name. A RAID 10 array requires a minimum of two drives, but is more commonly implemented with 4 drives to take advantage of speed benefits.
  • RAID 0+1 (or 01) is a striped data set (RAID 0) which is then mirrored (RAID 1). A RAID 0+1 array requires a minimum of four drives: two to hold the striped data, plus another two to mirror the first pair.