Disk Stripe Windows XP

Many applications need better performance than a standard installation can generally provide. For example, creating DVDs requires disk to read data at a very high speed. Fortunately, there is an easy way to insure that Windows XP performs at the level you need, by increasing disk performance. How is this done? Implement disk striping. In this article we will explain disk striping, how it works and how to implement it.

What is disk striping?

Disk striping is a technique that data spans multiple hard drives. All hard drives are involved in the stripe set is simultaneously read from and written to. For example, if a striped set of disks composed of three hard drives, so data will be read and written about three times faster because Windows is the distribution of workload among three hard drives. Creating a stripe set is an inexpensive way to drastically increase performance.

Before you begin

In Windows XP, striped sets with parity are not supported. This means that if one of the drives associated with striped set has a problem, the total volume (striped set) will be lost. Therefore you need to back up frequently.

When you create a striped set, only Windows XP will be able to read the striped set. There is a way to make Windows 2000 read set, but generally there will be no other OS access to the striped set if you have a dual-boot system.

Creating a striped set

Before the creation of striped sets, you must create it. Install hard drives. But remember that your primary hard drive can not be included in the striped set, because you can only create striped set of blank disks. You must have a minimum of two new hard drives to create a striped set, but you can use up to 32 hard drives. Since this striped set is driven software is no requirement for the type of hard drive you need. IDE and SCSI are both acceptable.

Once you've installed drive, boot Windows XP and log in as administrator. Next, enter diskmgmt.msc command Run quickly to open the Disk Management console.

When the Disk Management console opens, find new discs and right-clicking on them. Be sure to right click the link to the disk itself and not the space on the disk. Select Convert to Dynamic Disk command from the context menu. When you do, a wizard open, verify that you want to convert the disk to a dynamic disk. Click Yes. When the conversion is complete, repeat the process for each disk in the striped set.

To create the stripes set, right-click in the empty space on one of those new disks and select New Volume command from the shortcut menu. Windows will then launch the New Volume wizard. When the wizard asks what type of device you want to create, select Striped. Then follow the instructions to complete the wizard. The process involves simply select which disks should be included in the striped set. Your striped kit is now ready for use.

Creating a stripe set is an inexpensive alternative to give your PC a serious performance boost. Just remember to backup your striped sets often because it is more prone to failure than the standard partitions because of the number of disks involved.