Dell XPS/Dimension XPS Gen 5 - Manual (Page 18)

18
Setting Up and Using Your Computer
www
.dell.com | support.dell.com
Changing the Display Settings
1 After you connect the monitor(s) or TV, turn on the computer.
The Microsoft
®
Windows
®
desktop displays on the primary monitor.
2 Enable clone mode or extended desktop mode in the display settings.
• In clone mode, both monitors display the same image.
• In extended desktop mode, you can drag objects from one screen to the other, effectively
doubling the amount of viewable work space.
For information on changing the display settings for your graphics card, see the user’s guide in
the Help and Support Center (click the Start button, click Help and Support, click User and
system guides, click Device guides, and then click the guide for your graphics card).
About Serial ATA Drives
Your computer supports up to three serial ATA hard drives. Serial ATA drives provide the
following benefits by transferring data using serial technology and flexible cables that are
thinner and longer than IDE cables:
• Improved cable routing facilitates more efficient airflow inside the chassis.
• Compact cable connectors save space on the system board and on the hard drive. Combined
with the improved cable routing, this allows a more efficient utilization of space inside the
chassis.
See "Hard Drive" on page 94 for information on serial ATA drive connections.
About Your RAID Configuration
This section provides an overview of the RAID configuration that you might have selected when
you purchased your computer. Although several RAID configurations are available, Dell offers
either a RAID level 0 configuration or a RAID level 1 configuration for its Dimension™
computers. A RAID level 0 configuration is recommended for high-performance gaming, and a
RAID level 1 configuration is recommended for the data integrity requirements of digital
photography and audio.
The Intel
®
RAID controller on your computer can only create a RAID level 0 configuration
using two or three physical drives. If a third drive is present, then that drive can be made part of
a RAID level 0 configuration using the Intel RAID configuration program, or it can be used as a
spare drive in a RAID level 1 configuration (see "Creating a Spare Hard Drive" on page 26). The
drives should be the same size in order to ensure that the larger drive does not contain
unallocated (and therefore unusable) space.
NOTE:
RAID levels do not represent a hierarchy. A RAID level 1 configuration is not inherently better or
worse than a RAID level 0 configuration.
D8659bk0.book Page 18 Thursday, March 10, 2005 10:18 AM