Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: airmess on October 03, 2002, 07:49:28 AM
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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
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Head over to storage review for a briefing, comeback if you have any questions.
Storagereview on RAID (http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/raid/index.html)
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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Dang SWulfe,
you post to fast.
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What can I say, I'm a UBB potato. :)
(or extremely bored at work, take yer pick ;) )
-SW
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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.
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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
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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.
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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 :)
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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
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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 :D I'll have none of this My pc is too slow with ADA160s and Cheetahs.
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RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks -- or if you'd like, Redundant Array of Independent Disks.
RAID level 0 is really not redundant in any way, so purists will argue that by definition it really isn't RAID. All RAID 0 offers is data striping. This is a process where multiple drives are used to store information, by storing it in a "stripe" of a defined size on each drive. If a file is larger than the stripe, it is then stored on the next drive in the array.
A benefit of this type of setup is that the data transfer is equal to the transfer rate of the slowest drive, multiplied by the total number of drives. A problem with this setup is that if one drive goes bad, all data/files on the entire system, are lost.
RAID 1 is mirroring of one drive onto another. This type of setup is very useful for managing data, especially for things like webservers and database servers. The key benefit of this RAID setup is its redundancy. However, where it lacks is write time to disk. Also, it is an expensive solution because you have to buy at least 2 disks to store the amount of data that could fit on one.
The best of both worlds is RAID 0+1 (also known as RAID 10). It combines striping and mirroring. Typically, this is a 4 drive setup, where either you stripe the mirrors, or mirror the stripes. It offers the advantages of RAID 0, but has the disadvantages of RAID 1.
There is also RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5 and RAID 6. Since these are generally not offered on typical controllers (ie, ones that come on your motherboard, or those you get at Best Buy), I won't go into detail on them.
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Right-on, just like it's described in the first link I posted.
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I saw a benchmarked 65% speed increase using RAID-0 over a single drive, and a definate noticable "seat of the pants" speedup in all windows activity. Everything, bootup, virus scans, program loads, etc. goes faster with RAID-0.
If you use 4 identical drives in a RAID 0+1 setup, the RAID 0 speedup will pretty much counteract the RAID 1 slowdown.
The downside of course with RAID 0, as others have said, is that if either one of the two drives crashes, you lose 100% of the data. So don't keep anything important on a RAID 0 setup without creating periodic and frequent backups. You may also want to ensure your drives have adequate cooling. In my system I have 2 case fans blowing air directly over all my hard drives so I have done all I can towards protecting myself against the drives crashing.
That, and I have a third hard drive I use to back up critical files plus I occasionally burn a CD with my email archives on it.
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Those of you running SCSI drives under Windows XP (non-SP1) are not getting anywhere near top disk performance. There's a bug with the SCSI drivers under XP. Service Pack 1 supposedly fixes this.
Raid 0 arrays are generally faster than a single 15k rpm SCSI drive. The problem is that should one drive fail, you've lost all your data.
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bloom25,..how dare you! XP is the best OS Microsoft has ever shipped! There are no bugs,....only features. :D
I remember doing an install of XP a couple of months ago, and went to the MS update site only to find a new IDE driver.
Sheesh,..all these years and they can still find a way to mess up something that has been a part of every version of Windows since W95.
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Bloom25: If the performance bug you're talking about is missing scsi write cache setting in XP (common problem), it can be fixed easily with a change in registry. No need to install that infamous SP because of that.
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That's true Hussein, the problem is that some software isn't going to run right if you just fix it in the registry. (LOL, at least M$ claims that.)
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Any speed lost in writing to a mirror set should be more than regained in the reading - simply because most people do a lot more reading than writing.
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I had a single disk server crash on me when I came back from my honeymoon - RAID 1 all the way from now on. I bought 2x60GB IBM IDE disks and they are whirling happily away now.
A question for the gurus: I have a PCI SCSI card (non-RAID), two 18Gig disks but the mobo's RAID is IDE... It won't work, will it?
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Lynx, you can get software SCSI RAID under XP Pro, but it's complex. You're best off getting a SCSI RAID card - check ebay.
For those whose interest I have tickled, here's how to get software disk mirroring under XP Pro:
Install NT4 and create a mirror set.
Upgrade the NT4 installation to XP.
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NO NO NO
software raid sucks
ask anyone
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Or was this the original product concept for that bloated POS called XP? :D