Asus A7V266-E

[Eagler]

I have one of these MB's on order with an AMD XP 2000 cpu & two sticks of Crucial PC2100 256MB ram. This will go with a geforce4 ti4400 I bought local last week.

The board is raid ready.
Question is:
Would I get better performance with a single western digital 100 gig 7200 ATA100 drive or strip raid two 80 gig Maxtors. These are ATA100 also but are only 5400 speed. Can I dual boot win98 and XP off raid drives?
Never setup a raid before.

tia for any tips or suggestions

[Reschke]

Good question there Eagler. I have a 7200rpm 80gig Maxtor ATA-133 running along side an older IBM 13.3gig 7200rpm drive. I have the Maxtor on an ATA-133 card running as my back up drive at the moment. Soon it will be primary and this 13.3 will go into my little boy's computer.

[LoneStarBuckeye]

I have the same motherboard, and use two Maxtor 40-Gig, 7200 RPM drives in a RAID-0 configuration.  I also set it up as a dual-boot system with WinXP and Win98 SE.  Setting up the RAID array is simple, just read the MB's user's guide and activate the appropriate set-up menu (using control-f, I think) during the boot sequence.  Setting up the dual-boot configuration is also painless; just use Fdisk (or a comparable program) to set up multiple partitions on your disk (or disks, in the case of a RAID array), and install Win98SE first.  I set up my WinXP partition as an NTFS file system, which has some advantages (e.g., encryption) over a FAT-32 system.  If I had to do it over again, however, I think I would make both partitions FAT-32 so that I could freely transfer files back and forth.  As it is, my WinXP installation can access files in my Win98SE directory structure, but not vice-versa.

Using the RAID chipset on your motherboard, you can configure two identical drives as a RAID-0 array or as a RAID-1 array.  A RAID-0 array offers a performance advantage (over either of the drives configured as a stand-alone drive) because of the way that it stores data in alternating "stripes" on the two drives.  I canont quantify the advantage a RAID-0 array of two 5400 rpm drives would have over a single 7200 rpm drive, but I don't expect that it would be extreme.  Moreover, a RAID-0 connection of two n-byte drives yields an array of size 2n bytes (e.g., your two 80 GB drives would form a 160 GB RAID-0 array).  A RAID-1 array offers no performance advantage, and a RAID-1 array of two n-byte drives yields an array of size n bytes (e.g., your two 80 GB drives would form an 80 GB RAID-0 array).  The advantage of a RAID-1 array is that it uses data redundancy so that the failure of either of the two drives should be (I have not used a RAID-1 array) recoverable.  

From my experience with RAID-0 arrays on two different motherboards, there are (at least) three problems or potential problems of which you should be aware before going down this road.  You'll have to decide whether those problems are worth the modest performance gain.

First (and this applies to either RAID configuration), you will not be able to unplug your two RAID drives and connect them to another motherboard (unless it uses the same or a compatible RAID controller) if you decide to build a new PC, upgrade, tranesfer data, etc.  If you use a single, EIDE drive, you will have much greater flexibility in that regard.  

Second, RAID-0--the only configuration that gives you increased performance--offers no increased protection against drive failure.  To the contrary, if you use RAID-0, if either of the two drives fails, you are likely in an unrecoverable situation (i.e., the probability of an unrecoverable failure is GREATER for a RAID-0 configuration than it is for a single drive).  A RAID-1 configuration uses data redundancy, so that if one drive fails, you should be able to recover.  I've never tried this on a PC with two drives, so I don't know how well it works.  RAID-1, however, provides no performance advantage and your two 80 GB drives would yeild only 80 GB of storage.

Third, it is a bit of a hassle getting the operating system installation programs to recognize the RAID array, which you set up (define the array, its partitions, and format) prior to installing the operating system.  If I recall correctly, use must use a utility on the ASUS driver CD-ROM to create a floppy disk containing the RAID drivers.  The WinXP set-up routine will prompt you for this disk during installation.  It is no big deal, really, but if you don't have a working PC on hand on with which to make the required floppy, it can be frustrating.

If I were in your situation, I would create a dual-boot system, placing the Win98SE installation on one of the 80-GB drives and placing the WinXP installation on the 100-GB drive.  Even though I have a dual-boot system, I almost never use Win98SE, so placing it on the 5400 RPM drive would be no big deal.  In particular, I play AH under WinXP, and find the performance to be as good, if not better, as under Win98SE.  

(If, by chance, your reason for installing Win98SE is to use a Saitek X-36 or X-45 rig, you can use it under WinXP with drivers available from http://saitekhelp.simhq.com.  Those drivers are, in my opinion, superior to Saitek's SGE solution under Win98SE.)

Hope that helps.

- JNOV

[Eagler]

LoneStarBuckeye
thanks for the info
gonna stay away from raid at this point and go with separate drives on separate ide controllers, as you stated above.
with the XP drivers for your Saitek, can you get the rotors to band?
thanks again

[LoneStarBuckeye]

No, unfortunately, the rotors are not supported at all.

- JNOV

[bloom25]

Although it looks like the question's already been answered, I'd go with the single 7200 rpm drive.  Performance ought to be about the same as the raid array, but reliability would be far better with just one drive.

I'm not completely familiar with your situation, but if I had those drives I'd do the following:  Split the 7200 rpm drive into 2 partitions.  If you are doing a dual boot, install WinXP on the first partition, put win98se on the second partition.  Format the 5400 rpm drives as FAT32 and use them as storage for things like MP3s and downloads etc.  Keep the 7200 rpm drive for programs and system files only.  That is what I would do, given your situation as I understand it.

[Eagler]

thanks bloom for your input

I was thinking along those lines. I need to format the WinXP partitation as ntsf to get around the 4gig limit for my digital video experiments. If the storage drive(s) are fat32, wouldn't that limit back to 4gig on file size? Can I partitation the 80gig into two drives for storage, one being fat32 and the other being ntsf?

Would I gain anyhting by putting each IDE device on its own IDE controller? Going ATA100 on the raid ports, the board gives me up to eight ide devices - two per port. I was thinking to put the 100gig 7200 WD on the ide0, a 80gig on ide1, the plextor burner on ide3 and the cd rom player on ide4. All with their own cable and without having to share the ide port. Or would the two 80's on ide1, one formatted for fat32 and the other for ntsf be the way to go?

[Skuzzy]

Personally, I would not use the NTFS filesystem.  While it has some advantages over FAT32, it also comes with the possibility of a hard crash.
It is possible for the NTFS filesystem to get damaged in a system crash to the point it cannot recover.  With a FAT32 filesystem in the same scenario, you end up losing a file or two.
FAT32 does not suffer from the 4GB limitation.  I have 2 partitions of 20GB each with FAT32 on both.  One is 98SE and the other is W2K.
In this configuration you can copy files back and forth without regard to which OS is booted.

blooms configuration suggestion is a good one when you have 2 drives to dink with.

[Eagler]

Skuzzy thanks for your input
what I ran into with the fat32 was a digital video file would not capture past 4gig worth of stuff (avi) in one file. It'd breeak it off, in 4gig chunks which required assembling them back together before I could make them into a svcd. With ntsf, I would not have that limitation - I think.

[Skuzzy]

Ahhh,..ok...and WOW!  Uh, Eagler I think you may have hit the wall on the maximum file size of a single file in the operating system.
I do not believe this is a file system issue, but an OS issue.  Could be wrong,..it has been a while since I dug into that stuff.

[Bodhi]

Eagler,

How did you get AH to work with a GeForce Card.... mine keeps locking up when I go into the game.  

Bodhi

[minus]

eagler about video ,   got crap load of problems with 266a2 chipsed based boards

in my old kt 133a just worked fine the DVB-s and WinTV PWR

both have hardware  MPG2 and MPG 1  , after many reinstal finaly PWR  work but XP display   the videos  distorsed and  crah if trying play MPG2 clip with media player   < strange on Kt 133 board and Win ME it never crashed even if runed 5 divx  proces in backround> with XP i can play MPG2 clips only with SOFT DVD player or my MPG2 card

now smashin the MB266a out of windows and will  try next week the KT333, hope will be beter


ups just forget ,  with latest update and  on Win XPi have no limit on file size , can go over 4 go  , wery useful for burning DVD vobs

[Eagler]

thanks minus
Got the board this morning, haven't put it in et. Still on the IWILL KK266 with 1.33 T-Bird.

Bodhi
Mine's the PNY model.
I just set the adapter back to pci vga then switched out the geforce2 ultra for the geforce4 ti 4400 and loaded the default settings using the driver on the cd rom. I was switching around btwn the ti4400, an ati 8500 128MB and the old ge2 ultra. I do not think i have a clean install as I do not get fps hardly any if at all and sometimes below what  got on the geforce2. But then again the ge4 has AA set to "use if software wants" which I think sets it up to run 2X in AH. Good looking scenes in the game but the new map in CT (Stalingrad) put a hurtin on the ti4400, running slightly slower than the ultra.
Check out the Geforce4 ti4400 thread. I have the settings for the stereo glasses posted. With this setting the mouse works. It's pretty neat looking, though harder to hit anything.
Let you know when I have the new stuff in and running.
Bodhi
Are you associated with Warbird Adventures in Kissimmee? Any of your buddies? I have a date 4/1 at 1100 for an hour ride in their T-6. Xmas present from the wife. Looking forward to it.

[Bodhi]

Eagler,

Head into the museum after and ask for Bodhi, they will find me.

[mrsid2]

Eagler if you're going to do videoediting, I'd consider getting another 7200rpm drive and use it in raid-0 configuration. It speeds your IO up considerably and that's exactly what you need when dealing with 4gig+ files.

What you said about different IDE ports on the drives - yes, it will help your performance if the drives do work simultaneously.

One trick to speed up action is to place your vcache (swap) to the drive which does _not_ contain system files and make sure that drive uses a different IDE port than the hd that has your OS in.

That way when the system accesses the system files and writes stuff to the cache simultaneously, they use different IO channels which works a bit faster.

Uh, and Skuzzy: Fat32 in a corporate enviroment is a security risk since it contains no user restrictions. Fat32 workstations are an open invitation to anyone who gets their hands on one, directly or via the network.

I've worked for 4 years administering NT servers and workstations with full NTFS fileformats (totaling of 80 workstations and 4 servers) and I have never seen the described 'hard crash' even at the post which had severe quality-of-service problems electricitywise which effectively cut the mains from the workstations for a couple milliseconds each time large milling machines were started next door.

The OS's were a true mess, yes, but NTFS survived the ordeal. Naturally I upgraded the UPS systems to that office when I got to the job and realized the reason for the constant software errors.

I wouldn't worry about using NTFS, I really don't see it as a risk. A bigger risk is to go to raid-0 and this is what you should seriously consider eagler.. Raid-0 brings IO speed, but doubles your chances of losing data. Nevertheless unless you can afford to get more hd's to build raid-5, I'd build a raid-0 for videoediting purposes.

Just back up your data often enough.