RAID

[MaSonZ]

just got a SSD for my OS, and I plan on backing it up to my HDDs. Before I do that however, I want to set up a RAID configuration. I am torn between RAID 1 or RAID 0, both offer what I want, but I dont have the money for 2 more HDD's to do a Raid 1+0 or a RAID 10. I have two Seagate HDDs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433

I have not had any issues with these two (had one since April of last year, the second since Decemberish), but they could still be young in their lives.

my questions? For those of you have had Seagate drives, which RAID would you recommend? Stripe or Mirror? Secondly, I have done some research and already backed up my data, but any tips for setting up a RAID configuration? Yes, my board supports it (ICH10R chipset) and my HDD's are the same. I know I need to switch my HDD settings in my BIOs to RAID and not SATA, then reboot and hit a key combination to set up the HDDs for the configuration, at least thats what I read (posted a few years back), is this true still or no? will setting up my RAID configuration affect my OS (on the SSD which will not be included in the RAID configuration)?

Thoughts and tips?

[guncrasher]

I thought you can only do raid when you have the same hd's.  if you already have the os on your ssd.  is it possible to have the os on 1 hd and raid the other 2 only?  or am misunderstanding masonz?

also i thought raid can only be set up when you install the os and if after then the os must be reinstalled.  unless you let windows itself do the raid.  I heard this can be done in win7 but I never could figure out how.  I am actually waiting for hd prices to go down myself so i can do raid 10.


semp

[MaSonZ]

I thought you can only do raid when you have the same hd's.  if you already have the os on your ssd.  is it possible to have the os on 1 hd and raid the other 2 only?  or am misunderstanding masonz?

also i thought raid can only be set up when you install the os and if after then the os must be reinstalled.  unless you let windows itself do the raid.  I heard this can be done in win7 but I never could figure out how.  I am actually waiting for hd prices to go down myself so i can do raid 10.


semp

I have 2 seagate HDDs, and my OS on a SSD. RAID can be setup whenever I believe, but you have to back up your data or else youll lose everything on the HDDs. I may be wrong, but why I asked before I went into the great uknown.

[2bighorn]

I thought you can only do raid when you have the same hd's.

In most cases, you can have different HDDs, although not recommended.

also i thought raid can only be set up when you install the os and if after then the os must be reinstalled.

Only if OS resides on RAID volume, otherwise you can install RAID driver later.

but you have to back up your data or else youll lose everything on the HDDs.

You should definitely backup everything before configuring the RAID, however, when you configure RAID 1, most of controllers will give you an option to chose the source HDD and data will be preserved, of course this requires the HDD with data to be equal or smaller in size than the other drive. It's easy to select wrong drive as a source. So, backup.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

In most cases, you can have different HDDs, although not recommended.

If a raid contains several kinds of hdd:s it messes up the function. Both drives need to do stuff simultaneously so if either one is lagging behind it will cause problems. Also if drives are of different size, only the capacity of the smaller drive is available.

[Bino]

just got a SSD for my OS, and I plan on backing it up to my HDDs. Before I do that however, I want to set up a RAID configuration. I am torn between RAID 1 or RAID 0, both offer what I want, but I dont have the money for 2 more HDD's to do a Raid 1+0 or a RAID 10. I have two Seagate HDDs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433

I have not had any issues with these two (had one since April of last year, the second since Decemberish), but they could still be young in their lives.

my questions? For those of you have had Seagate drives, which RAID would you recommend? Stripe or Mirror? Secondly, I have done some research and already backed up my data, but any tips for setting up a RAID configuration? Yes, my board supports it (ICH10R chipset) and my HDD's are the same. I know I need to switch my HDD settings in my BIOs to RAID and not SATA, then reboot and hit a key combination to set up the HDDs for the configuration, at least thats what I read (posted a few years back), is this true still or no? will setting up my RAID configuration affect my OS (on the SSD which will not be included in the RAID configuration)?

Thoughts and tips?

Although running drives in RAID-0 (striped) via the ICH10R may give you a small, measurable performance increase over JBOD disks, it is most unlikely to give you a noticeable performance increase.  RAID-1 (mirrored) will give you some protection against physical disk failures (and a tiny increase in read-only performance), but there are no RAID configurations that can provide protection from logical file system corruption (as has been pointed out in this forum before).  And any meaningful performance gains are going to be found primarily in applications that do big, sequential file reads, not in applications like Aces High.

OTOH, if you install a fast, caching controller (i.e. Adaptec 6405 for $360) and a quartet of fast 15K-RPM SAS disks (i.e. Seagate Cheetah 15K.7 at $550 a pop) in a striped & mirrored RAID-10 array... now you're talking fast!  But to throw hardware at the problem, you spend money.  No getting around that.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Although running drives in RAID-0 (striped) via the ICH10R may give you a small, measurable performance increase over JBOD disks, it is most unlikely to give you a noticeable performance increase.  RAID-1 (mirrored) will give you some protection against physical disk failures (and a tiny increase in read-only performance), but there are no RAID configurations that can provide protection from logical file system corruption (as has been pointed out in this forum before).  And any meaningful performance gains are going to be found primarily in applications that do big, sequential file reads, not in applications like Aces High.

OTOH, if you install a fast, caching controller (i.e. Adaptec 6405 for $360) and a quartet of fast 15K-RPM SAS disks (i.e. Seagate Cheetah 15K.7 at $550 a pop) in a striped & mirrored RAID-10 array... now you're talking fast!  But to throw hardware at the problem, you spend money.  No getting around that.

Much cheaper and easyer to slip in an Intel 910 or any run-of-the-mill SSD instead.

[MaSonZ]

Got the configurartion all set up. ran into a hiccup when I first got it running (didnt read the array when I checked it) didnt realize I had to run the New Disk Setup wizard first, so I was hung up a few hours. but now I just have to transfer everything back over to my machine. 

[Bino]

Much cheaper and easyer to slip in an Intel 910 or any run-of-the-mill SSD instead.

Cheaper?  Over at Techspot they report that, "Pricing for the Intel SSD 910 Series is $1,929 for the 400GB capacity and $3,859 for 800GB..."

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Cheaper?  Over at Techspot they report that, "Pricing for the Intel SSD 910 Series is $1,929 for the 400GB capacity and $3,859 for 800GB..."

Yeah, cheaper price/performance wise. Raid card + raid 10 using 15.5k scsi amounts to 3000 bucks and it's still left cold by the 910. Not to mention a regular raid 1 sata3 ssd which drops the price to 5-600 bucks and still outperforms the scsi raid

[2bighorn]

Yeah, cheaper price/performance wise. Raid card + raid 10 using 15.5k scsi amounts to 3000 bucks and it's still left cold by the 910. Not to mention a regular raid 1 sata3 ssd which drops the price to 5-600 bucks and still outperforms the scsi raid

910 is not bootable, secondly, it's just PCe SSD storage (no data redundancy), and it won't outperform Adaptec 6405, thirdly, in RAID10 conf on 6405, with 600GB storage (4x300GB 15k SAS) will cost under $1500, card included, lastly, 6405 Adaptec will absolutely smoke any firmware SSD RAID1, even more so if you add NAND module.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

910 is not bootable, secondly, it's just PCe SSD storage (no data redundancy), and it won't outperform Adaptec 6405, thirdly, in RAID10 conf on 6405, with 600GB storage (4x300GB 15k SAS) will cost under $1500, card included, lastly, 6405 Adaptec will absolutely smoke any firmware SSD RAID1, even more so if you add NAND module.

Adaptec may smoke, the 15k platter drives won't. How did you get that price figure when I just saw 500 bucks quoted for a single drive?

[2bighorn]

Adaptec may smoke, the 15k platter drives won't. How did you get that price figure when I just saw 500 bucks quoted for a single drive?

Cheetah 15k 300gb SAS, $248.78 each (at Provantage) x 4 = $995.12 + Adaptec 6405 $314.99, subtotal $1,310.11 + tax and shipping = $1,454.92

[guncrasher]

leave it to you guys when somebody asks a simple question and you guys complicate it  so much that even the government would say "damn, that's expensive" .


semp

[2bighorn]

leave it to you guys when somebody asks a simple question and you guys complicate it  so much that even the government would say "damn, that's expensive" .


semp

Well, in that case, get motherboard with  Intel RST support, configure 2 SATA drives in RAID1, add SSD (20-60GB) via IRST as caching drive. You get data redundancy, lots of storage and almost SSD like performance.