Upgrading your Os and Raid 0
As I am still green about the ears when it comes to configuring a Raid array using two hard drives, I opted to let Fedora 16 configure them for me at installation, as Raid 0. Raid 0 means that the data is "striped" across the two hard drives. My system has only one SATA raid controller. Both drives are assigned the same letter and visually the system shows one hard drive, with one hard drive of space available.
So what is the value of having a Raid 0 configuration? If I had opted for Raid 1, at some point where one of the hard drives fails, I would be able to recover the data by putting in a third hard drive, and magically back up my data to the third drive before disabling the failed hard drive and removing it.
As it is Raid 0, the only value is that data is retrieved faster than if working with one hard drive.
Next time an upgrade is required I will hopefully have learned how to reconfigure it to Raid 1.
So now, with Fedora 16 freshly updated to Fedora 17, I chose to install Virtual Box and install a copy of Windows 7 on a virtual machine. That process was relatively easy. The only part I hesitated on was the reference to creating a virtual hard disk. What does that mean and where was I going to store it in Fedora? The Virtual Box wizard makes it easy enough, as it gives you a drop down list of suitable devices on which to store it. Mine only showed the useable part of my hard drive .. dev 0? It doesn't show the boot sector, as I was worried that I may install it to the wrong sector. Creating a virtual hard disk simply means that its creating a windows file and it has to store it somewhere. Virtual Box did the hard word for me and set up a folder system and put it in there. Done!
Previously I had Windows 7 on one drive and Fedora on the other drive with a dual boot to decide which to use. Every time an upgrade of Fedora was required, it was a heart stopping event as to whether I would inadvertently wipe the windows drive in the upgrade process. Instead, with Windows 7 now on a virtual machine inside Fedora, when I upgrade Fedora, it wont leave me sleepless thinking about all the programs I will have to reinstall if I mess it up.
So what is the value of having a Raid 0 configuration? If I had opted for Raid 1, at some point where one of the hard drives fails, I would be able to recover the data by putting in a third hard drive, and magically back up my data to the third drive before disabling the failed hard drive and removing it.
As it is Raid 0, the only value is that data is retrieved faster than if working with one hard drive.
Next time an upgrade is required I will hopefully have learned how to reconfigure it to Raid 1.
So now, with Fedora 16 freshly updated to Fedora 17, I chose to install Virtual Box and install a copy of Windows 7 on a virtual machine. That process was relatively easy. The only part I hesitated on was the reference to creating a virtual hard disk. What does that mean and where was I going to store it in Fedora? The Virtual Box wizard makes it easy enough, as it gives you a drop down list of suitable devices on which to store it. Mine only showed the useable part of my hard drive .. dev 0? It doesn't show the boot sector, as I was worried that I may install it to the wrong sector. Creating a virtual hard disk simply means that its creating a windows file and it has to store it somewhere. Virtual Box did the hard word for me and set up a folder system and put it in there. Done!
Previously I had Windows 7 on one drive and Fedora on the other drive with a dual boot to decide which to use. Every time an upgrade of Fedora was required, it was a heart stopping event as to whether I would inadvertently wipe the windows drive in the upgrade process. Instead, with Windows 7 now on a virtual machine inside Fedora, when I upgrade Fedora, it wont leave me sleepless thinking about all the programs I will have to reinstall if I mess it up.
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