Question about ... RAID and ARRAY

[airmess]

Hi all

I want to add 2 more Harddrives (a total of 4) on my PC. I use a Moterboard which has RAID Controller on it (ASUS A7V333). The manual confuses me and i dont want to try something and drive down my OC (again).

So .. what do i need to keep watching when i do that about the ARRAY 0 and 1 stuff.

Some help would be appreciated.

airmess

AMD 2000
Asus A7V333
1 GB RAM
Radeon 9700 Pro
1x80 GB IMB
1x60 GB IBM

[Dingbat]

Head over to storage review for a briefing, comeback if you have any questions.

Storagereview on RAID

[AKSWulfe]

RAID= slower hard drive performance and is only good if you want it to back up your main HDD.

If you want to add more HDDs to your chain, get a SCSI controller card and buy SCSI HDDs.

They are more expensive than IDE, but also faster and don't use nearly as much of the CPU to process disc access.
-SW

[Dingbat]

Originally posted by AKSWulfe
RAID= slower hard drive performance and is only good if you want it to back up your main HDD.

If you want to add more HDDs to your chain, get a SCSI controller card and buy SCSI HDDs.

They are more expensive than IDE, but also faster and don't use nearly as much of the CPU to process disc access.
-SW

You couldn't be more than half right...  yes raid 1 is slower but it provides data protection. raid 0 is faster on sequential reads aka gaming and the like.

I run a raid 0 config but I religiously make ghost images to another separate drive and put it in storage.

[AKSWulfe]

They are still slower than no-RAID what-so-ever.

airmess stated he wanted to add 2 more HDDs, using the RAID setup won't be beneficial to him... SCSI would be.

He could even keep those 2 HDDs and run a SCSI controller card with the other 2 HDDs on it.
-SW

[Furious]

RAID is not used to speed up the read/write process.  Its used for data safety.

Why for personal use you would want more than a 2 HHD level 1 RAID, I don't know.

SCSI is going to be faster, RAID or not.


F.


hmm, after rereading the entire post again, i think i restated the obvious a few times.

Airmess,

You don't need to do a RAID setup unless you are trying to mirror one of your HDDs.  If you are, realize that you will only be able to use 1/2 or less of you total storage capacity.

[AKSWulfe]

Data redundancy Furious, get the lingo right!

Yes, SCSI is the fastest of 'em all... but going the RAID route is only good if you are looking for backup/redundancy/safe data storage.
-SW

[Furious]

Dang SWulfe,

you post to fast.

[AKSWulfe]

What can I say, I'm a UBB potato.

(or extremely bored at work, take yer pick )
-SW

[Hussein]

Akswulfe: You're just wrong there.. Raid 0 almost doubles the hd performance. That's what people use it for..

But.. I would strongly suggest to test drive your harddrives for a few hundred hours at least before arraying them. Even then with raid-0 constant backups are no bad idea.

I personally destroyed 80Gb of data as a result of a bad combination of harddrive and chipset. Chipset bluescreened whenever I tried to transfer large amounts of data (no backups then) and in a week the other hd crapped out.. Making me a very happy man.

I haven't touched RAID ever since, even though I still might.

[AKSWulfe]

If each of your hard drives is ATA100, 7200RPM, and defragged weekly you will not see any performance "doubling" or anything of that nature with RAID.
-SW

[Dingbat]

Originally posted by Furious
RAID is not used to speed up the read/write process.  Its used for data safety.

Wrong, you can use striping to speed you the write process and mirror improves the read performance.  Whether or not it's noticeable gain is another story.

Why for personal use you would want more than a 2 HHD level 1 RAID, I don't know.

I agree

SCSI is going to be faster, RAID or not.

I agree

Now if he just wants to use the raid controller to add 2 more driver her can just hook them up without defining an array as raid 0/1.  they can still act as independent disks.

[Dingbat]

Originally posted by Hussein
Akswulfe: You're just wrong there.. Raid 0 almost doubles the hd performance. That's what people use it for..

But.. I would strongly suggest to test drive your harddrives for a few hundred hours at least before arraying them. Even then with raid-0 constant backups are no bad idea.

I personally destroyed 80Gb of data as a result of a bad combination of harddrive and chipset. Chipset bluescreened whenever I tried to transfer large amounts of data (no backups then) and in a week the other hd crapped out.. Making me a very happy man.

I haven't touched RAID ever since, even though I still might.

Hence the 3rd drive for ghost backups + CD-RW for the really important stuff.  I feel like I need to break out the flame-retardant gear

[AKSWulfe]

Originally posted by Dingbat
Now if he just wants to use the raid controller to add 2 more driver her can just hook them up without defining an array as raid 0/1.  they can still act as independent disks.

Ah, he should do that then and not bother with the SCSI host controller/HDDs (to save cash)..

I thought using the RAID controller for additional HDDs would result in a RAID system (backing up, multiple data stores, etc),
not independent drives...
-SW

[Dingbat]

Originally posted by AKSWulfe


Ah, he should do that then and not bother with the SCSI host controller/HDDs (to save cash)..

I thought using the RAID controller for additional HDDs would result in a RAID system (backing up, multiple data stores, etc),
not independent drives...
-SW

He'll save a lot of cash  I love scsi don't get me wrong but I just can't seem to cough up the loot for it personally.  All my users at work however get scsi   I'll have none of this My pc is too slow with ADA160s and Cheetahs.