Dell Dimension U7021 Owner's Manual

Contents

Dell Dimension U7021 Owner's Manual Manual pdf 17 page image

Setting Up and Using Your Computer 17Changing the Display Settings1 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, effectivelydoubling the amount of viewable work space.For information on changing the display settings for your graphics card, see the user’s guide inthe Help and Support Center (click the Start button, click Help and Support, click User andsystem guides, click Device guides, and then click the guide for your graphics card).About Serial ATA DrivesYour Dell™ Dimension™ XPS computer supports up to three serial ATA hard drives. Serial ATAdrives provide the following benefits by transferring data using serial technology and flexible cablesthat 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. Combinedwith the improved cable routing, this allows a more efficient utilization of space inside thechassis.See "Hard Drive" on page 90 for information on serial ATA drive connections.About Your RAID ConfigurationThis section provides an overview of the RAID configuration that you might have selected whenyou purchased your computer. Although several RAID configurations are available, Dell offerseither RAID level 0 or RAID level 1 for its Dimension computers. A RAID level 0 configuration isrecommended for high-performance gaming, and a RAID level 1 configuration is recommended forthe data integrity requirements of digital photography and audio.The Intel RAID controller on your computer can only create a RAID volume using two physicaldrives. If a third drive is present, then that drive cannot be made part of a RAID volume using theIntel RAID configuration program, although it can be used as a spare drive in a RAID 1configuration (see "Creating a Spare Hard Drive" on page 24). However, if four drives are present inyour computer, then each pair of drives can be made into RAID level 0 or RAID level 1 volumes.The drives should be the same size in order to ensure that the larger drive does not containunallocated (and therefore unusable) space.NOTE: RAID levels do not represent a hierarchy. A RAID level 1 configuration is not inherently better orworse than a RAID level 0 configuration.