First RAID setup

[usslindstrom]

-K-

My comp just decided to up and quit working yesterday. No big deal, cause` I was about to nuke it anyway. It just beat me to the punch.

My system has 2 IDE HDs, 1 Maxtor 40Gb and 1 WD 120Gb. Since the thing didn`t want to work for me normally, I went ahead and purchased an ATA 133 Raid PCI controller, and a SeaGate 40Gb.

My question is... (The guys at the store couldn`t answer) I believe that my original drive is only an ATA 100, although I`m not too sure. If I use those two drives in a RAID 0 Config, the speed should be configured to the slowest drive, right?

-And since this is my first RAID attempt, all I should do is nuke the original HD, plug it in, and go... Right? Windows has an option to set up a Third Party Raid driver in it`s setup, so that should be sufficient, or am I just crazy?

With the two 40Gb HDs on the RAID, can I just leave the 120Gb alone on the IDE connector from the mobo? Plus, all the jumper settings should be set to "Master" and not "Slave," right?

[Siliconjunkie]

Pretty much all of the actual technical reviews I have read say that Raid 0 with 2 drives gives basically no performance gain.

That aside, all of your hunches are correct except how to configure it.

Most RAID controllers have a BIOS, you will need to go in there and configure your logical drives. You may also need a driver disk to install Windows. It may only see the 120, if that is the case you will have to hit F6 at the beginning and use a floppy to load the drivers (if it is NT/2000/XP)

[watchtower7]

Could you link the "no performance" gains info on raid0...when i had it for video editing, it was astonishing how fast it was.

[Siliconjunkie]

http://tech-report.com/reviews/2002q...d/index.x?pg=8 that shows minimal gain and is on par with everything else that I have seen, there is basically no real gain and far from astonishing gain. Some have even shown performance decreases.

RAID 0 does give performance gain, but not enough to be worth it for IDE with 2 drives IMO. Now RAID 0 with 40 or so 15k scsi drives running in fibre channel cabinets, now thats astonishing performance.

[watchtower7]

Not trying to be an a@@hole, but the deeper you go into the benchmarking tests, some of the file creation/reading/etc. tests show a single ata133 drive taking twice as long as a raid0 2 drive set up.

edit
http://tech-report.com/reviews/2002q.../index.x?pg=13
actually shows 74 seconds for an ata 133/ 52 seconds for ata100/ and 24 seconds for raid0. Case closed.

If that doesn't qualify as astonishing, saving 1/2 the time to do something, I guess we have different definitions of astonishing.
When I am doing a video project and it takes 30 minutes to complete processing instead of 1 hour, I usually am pretty happy.
Granted, some tests show slower or equal times. But my real world experience mirrors the other benchmarking results...and I think that article is almost 2 years old...perhaps there has been a
leap forward in performance.
imo

[sechs]

Don't confuse two drives being better than one for RAID being better than independent drives.

RAID 0 is almost always going to be at least slightly better than a single drive. Two independent drives is also almost always going to be at least slightly better than a single drive.

[Foggy]

Been running Raid systems for 5 years and I agree with Watchtower7 + I find it better to speak from experience than from opinion

[usslindstrom]

-K-

An update...

I went ahead and decided to go all out on the raid setup. Bought 3 additional drives, as my original. Now I have 4 identical Maxtor 40Gb HDs. Put them with the RAID controller. I can format them using the Windows disk management, but without a Raid array. If I ever try to assign an array at the beginning, the computer won`t boot. It get`s past the CMOS post, then won`t go into windows. It only does that if I set up an array. Otherwise, I can get into windows without one... It will allow me to assign a Drive letter for each individual drive, but that`s not what I want. I want a RAID 0 setup.

What`s the next step?

[Uncle Bob]

My understanding of your set up is, you want the speed of a raid
0+2 striped. You also have a third hdd. the third hdd can be used,
as a "hot" or mirrored drive. You need to load your OS on to the
raid set up as a clean install. If you don't what you have is a
system that allows you to boot from hdds not using the primary
or secondary IDEs and that isn't a raid. If you're using a Promise
Tech Card your manual explains this.

[usslindstrom]

It`s not a "Promise" card. It`s a Japanese manufacturer named: Kurouto Shikou - Experts Oriented. They can be found at http://www.kuroutoshikou.com./produc...idpcifset.html I have the ATA133RAIDPCI card, that allows Raid 0, Raid 1, and Raid 0 + 1.

But it won`t let me assign sets, without locking up. Even on the initial Windows install, if I set up an array, it would lock the system on the "Windows is examining your system configuration" screen, and wouldn`t even go into the installation of windows. Any1 have any suggestions?