RAID anyone?

[Oneiron]

I just got my new setup, and aint it sweet. :) As allways thou... as with all computers, trouble usually rears it's ugly head just when you think you've got it all nailed down. For MY problem:

I RAID (stripe) 2 x 100GB WD HD's. I use 10GB for system, and thought I'd use the rest to store all my crap. My only problem is that Windows XP refuses to format the damn thing into anything but NTFS! Since I wanted FAT32, I sense we allready have a problem. I know FAT32 can take up to 8 TERRAB, so 187GB shouldn't be such a big problem. I have tried FDISK (dah! that didn't work) and the old format command, I have tried the tools that came with my ABIT KR7A-RAID mobo and I have tried Partition Magic 6.

HELP!


P.S. no... I don't want to split it up into more disks.

[Jon]

-----Moved post to Operating Systems-----

Why not use NTFS? It's much more efficient than FAT32 and will be faster with drives that large.

Jon

[rogerdugans]

NTFS is also more stable.

The only time I don't use NTFS is when I need to dual boot a partition or the os doesn't support it (Win9x)

[DJL]

I would use NTFS its much better than FAT32

Anyway here is the answer:

You cannot format a volume larger than 32 gigabytes (GB) in size by using the FAT32 file system. Windows XP can mount and support FAT32 volumes larger than 32 GB (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB by using the Format tool. If you need to format a volume that is larger than 32 GB, using the NTFS file system to format it.

You could format the drive using a windows 98/ME startup disk

[Oneiron]

ok...
I must bow down to such overwhelming numbers! ;) The trouble is I haven't used NTFS before, so I don't know what to expect. So, a few questions about NTFS;

1. If I'm at a LAN, can ppl running only FAT32 still copy files from my NTFS disk if I share it?
2. Can I copy files without accident between my two disks? (FAT32 to NTFS again...).
3. And last but not least... All the data I have stored, on HDD's as well as CD's have been stored on FAT32... will this be a problem?

As you can see, I'm not well versed in NTFS! ;)


EDIT:
What Allocation unit size should I use? (and whats up with that file and folder compression??)

[XprincoX]

I think this lil article could help answer some of these questions you have:http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=94

and also this thread is somewhat related too: http://forums.overclockers.ws/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58328

[Kingslayer]

Hmmm....the true meaning of NTFS seems to be lost.

SECURITY!

NTFS has more and better security parameters than FAT32 ever will.

[XprincoX]

Well yes ntfs has better security.. but basically its better than fat32 because:

1. Better file security
2. Better disk compression
3. Support for large hd, up to 2 TB

More indepth comparision here:http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...l/october01.asp

[Oneiron]

Thanks alot for the help! that was very helpfull! :)

I would still want to know what Allocation unit size to use! (allso... file and folder compression? what ho?)



Xprincox: I couldn't get that link to work.

[XprincoX]

oops sorry bout that.. lets try this again: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/russel/october01.asp

also another great article: http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=94

And some explanation of how to chose your stripe size..
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/concepts/perfStripe-c.html
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=1491&p=5

just remember when the disk accesses are mostly for sequential sectors a larger stripe size provides the best read performance. When the disk accesses are mostly for random sectors, a smaller stripe size is best for performance.