How should I setup raid

[Sydog]

On Friday I'm gonna get a new motherboard, the new Abit with raid.

I want to run raid on my drives off the raid controller because it's faster but I'm thinking about leaving my 80gb on ide and just have the 40gb on raid as i've heard data can get corrupted in RAID.

The 80gb has all my storage stuff and the like, it wn't be running games just has install files and movies and whatever else I have on there.

The 40gb will be running Windows and all my games so it will benefit from the speed so I will put this on raid.

Is this a god idea? I don't really want to lose any of the stuff on my 80gb at all.

Also will i need to reinstall Windows when I put my 40gb on raid, I don't really want to do this as I just recently installed win on it and have basically got it running how I like

[SecretSquirrel]

If thats an 80gb JB drive, I'd be using that sucker for windows etc, faster = better performance.

And definately games. Mp3s etc can all go on the slower drive...doesnt require the speed, whereas windows especially, and games DO.

[dustyslapper]

Ummm...

As RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independant Disks - think about it.


ROFLMAO

[SilverPriest]

err, raid requires a minimum of 2 drives.
they will be used together in raid
raid0 = striping - speed
raid1 = mirroring - security
raid 0+1 = speed and security + a big waste of money

These are most likely the only options your onboard raid will offer.....
Best to use identical drives as well.
U haven't done much research have you sydog?

[Geek4Life]

Although you can use the HDDs on the raid controller (but not in raid) so as to keep everything on their own channel.

[Sydog]

no I have done no research actually.

I was originally gonna get the normal mobo without raid but Sern said that would be a long wait as his supplier didn't have any.

A666 told me I could have just one drive on raid and the other on ide, I thought that would be fine as I only use my 80gb for storage.

the drives are identical both maxtor 7k fdb except the sizes are different.

So is there no way i can have just one hdd in RAID, I don't wanna lose 40gb using striping so I guess I will just have to wait a while and run ide untill I have the dough to get another 40gb or something

[Sydog]

Originally posted by Geek4Life
Although you can use the HDDs on the raid controller (but not in raid) so as to keep everything on their own channel.

would this have any speed benefits, or is it just like a normal ide

[p01s0n_p1e]

prepares for flaming.

all you needa do then is buy a cheapo 2 gig from somewhere- stick some stuff on that, and raid it with the 40gig...:D

[dustyslapper]

Try this Sydog:

http://www.rojakpot.com/Speed_Demonz/IDE_RAID/RAID_01.htm

You really want to use identical disks.

[Wibber]

tell me about it, had no matched disks and only had a small performace increase (on the sisoft raid test majig) didn't do jack fo my load times

[Sydog]

Thanks for the link, me is reading now.

hehe never actually read anything about RAID, I've never been interested about it at all until I had to buy this mobo

[I.R]

This is gonna sound dumb but assuming the two different sized disks had the same interface speed could you just format the larger HDD to the smaller HDD size (leave the extra space raw) and set it in a RAID0 config:(

mmmmm...... RAID0 :D

[jeef]

i have mobo with onboard RAID also, currently i have 1 hdd runnin on the RAID controller but not as a RAID array as such, it works, it boots but a couple of points to note:

-need to use that higher density cable, else it wont work (according to my manual)
-and, u already got win2k setup, good, make sure its got your RAID controller going good, then switch it over to the RAID controller, i had problems where win2k didnt have the drivers installed so it wouldnt boot up...

according to my manual, although u can have 4 devices hooked up, only 2 can run in the RAID array?

[SilverPriest]

You could run a RAID 0 Array with 4 identical HD's on the onboard controller.
Assuming it is a highpoint.
Or a raid 0+1 with 2hd's for striping and mirroring respectively.
higher density cable?
WTF?
Just use normal 66/100 cables, the 80wire ones and you will be sweet.
If you have a relatively modern comp, u should be using them anyway......
Safer for data, faster, bla bla bla bla bla.......
I'm sure there is something called a JBOD array, or "just a bunch of disks", which lets you add lots of different HD's into one bigarse volume.
That's my understanding anyway, please correct me if i am wrong :)

[jeef]

80wire might be what im thinkin of... it dont actually got 80pins, its just got like an insulation between each wire... something like that... the wires look smaller then on normal(/old?) ide cables

[Wibber]

you need ata 66/100 cables, the old ata 33 cables are no good, round ones should be sweet tho JBOD's are just one big volume, but not, at the same time :) mostly looks like a volume when mounted, then there's DFS where the disk can be in different machines

[Sydog]

Thanks for the replies guyz :). Ive decided that Im gonna run either one hdd on the raid controller but not in raid or just ide depending on where they are located so as to keep clutter in case to a minimum.

Maybe at the next L3 I might buy a new 40gb or 80gb and raid them, but until then its ok to be IDE

[farns]

What sort of speed gains would you get from striping(RAID 0)?
Seems to me I'd rather spend the $200 for a HD+controller on a way faster vidcard or better cpu/more ram.

[shag]

As for speed, with the right drivers, controler and disks (do some research) You should get around an 50% or so speed increase with 2 disks. The latency will be slightly higher but the write and read speed increase sure makes up for that :cool:

[shag]

ok, just ran up HD tach and my raid0 array gave a steady read spead of over 40Mb/s with the highest peak transfer being 72Mb/s Those numbers vary a bit at times. I havent done a defrag in quite a while so those scores can be improved on ;)

thats 2* 30gig maxtor dm60+ drives

Mmmm... those numbers are prety shody really arent they. I know when i first formatted and tested the drives, sandra was giving much higher scores on the raid compared to my standard 40 gig drive.

[Agent666]

Originally posted by farns
What sort of speed gains would you get from striping(RAID 0)?
Seems to me I'd rather spend the $200 for a HD+controller on a way faster vidcard or better cpu/more ram.

there is quite an appreciable increase in speed if you set it up properly.... after a few days you dont really notice it much until you have to go back to a single drive again..... then you appreciate the extra speed gain quite a bit more

[farns]

I would be doing a 2HD RAID 0 array also .
I just saw in a forum someone said about 17% write speed increase and half that read speed with a 2 HD RAID 0 array?!?
Dam 50% tho thats worth doing, is ur 30gig maxtor dm60+ the same drive u had pre-RAID?

[Agent666]

I mean its not going to be like 10x faster or even 2x faster but you will notice it.........

give it a go .... wont take long to try it out if you have a third HD to backup all your stuff on....... if you dont like it then go back to 2 separate drives .... probably loose a day of computing reinstalling and the like........

[shag]

I took that 50% figure from my sisoft sandra results when I first tested the array a couple of years ago. At the time I had a 40 gig maxtor dm60+ on it's own and the 2* 30 gig maxtor dm60+ on raid0. The 40 gig was scoring someware over 20,000 and the raid array was getting just under 40,000 points... think it was 38k - 39k. That testing was done straight after formatting the drives.

Just tested my new 40 gig fluid drive maxtor with hd tach and it seems to be giving the same read speed results as the raid array. So either the array needs an overhall or the new maxtor drive is a lot faster than the old dm60+:(. Anyone else know about this?

[Agent666]

or sandra is the most ****ed benchmark program on the planet........... you decide.......

edit :/ use something like atto instead....... for some real results