Can I configure a partition of a drive to use RAID0 and still use the left over partition for storage?

Can I configure a partition of a drive to use RAID0 and still use the left over partition for storage?

I want to set up a RAID0 configuration. I only have a 80 GB drive and a 750 GB drive. I was hoping to only RAID 80 GB of the 750 GB drive so that it would match the 80 GB drive. I heard that this may be possible, but that I would not be able to use the remaining 670 GB of the 750 GB drive. Is that true? I'm planning on using a hardware RAID on Windows 7. Let me know if you think software RAID is good enough.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 354

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Guest [Entry]

"I initially thought about the Intel Matrix Storage Manager and its Matrix RAID feature, where 2 different types of RAID arrays (1 RAID1, 1 RAID0) can be stored on only 2 disks. But it's not possible with Matrix RAID to have one part of the hard disk not in a RAID unfortunately.

However, is it really worth the hassle? Seems to me like a very complex setup and also pretty crash-prone. Furthermore, performance won't be great as all accesses to the non-RAID part of the HD1 will impact the speed of the RAID volume (running on HD2 and a part of HD1).

With that in mind, wouldn't it be wiser, simpler and speedier to buy a second 750 GB disk, put both 750 GB in a RAID0 array and copy over the 80 GB disk? Or eventually use the Matrix RAID feature if you have a supported Intel chipset?"