HDD Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Muttly
  • Start date Start date
M

Muttly

Hey all.
I've got my spare hard drive connected to my raid controller. All is fine.
But I want to add a third hard drive. How do I set them up to be seperate
drives ie. not mirroring each other (they have to be on the raid
controller). Should they be on seperate channels? Finally, the second drive
I have is a 120gb Hitachi Deskstar 120GXP. I know its a good drive because
I've been using it for ages and every review I've seen said they're good.
For my new drive should I buy the same type of drive? I was told about WD
Caviar drives and I was told they were good but I'm stuck for money and
there's a fair bit of a difference in price.
Martin.
 
Hey all.
I've got my spare hard drive connected to my raid controller. All is fine.
But I want to add a third hard drive. How do I set them up to be seperate
drives ie. not mirroring each other (they have to be on the raid
controller). Should they be on seperate channels?
Click to expand...

Im not sure Im getting what you are saying but if you are saying you
DONT want raid then the raid controller acts just like any other
controller.

You can put any master/slave HDs on them. Just dont put any ATAPI
devices on the extra IDE channels. Ive read that some work but Ive
never gotten them to work right on two different boards with builtin
extra Promise and Highpoint raid controllers and with a Maxtor/Promise
add on IDE card Im using now on an ASUS a7n8x deluxe.
Finally, the second drive
I have is a 120gb Hitachi Deskstar 120GXP. I know its a good drive because
I've been using it for ages and every review I've seen said they're good.
For my new drive should I buy the same type of drive?
Click to expand...

Buy anything you want to buy. Ive had WD and Maxtors and they both
work great. The only rap against IBM was the hysteria over some
failures - after which they were branded by many as horrible drives.
But before then people pointed to the reviews you mention and claimed
they were way way way better than any other drive and you were a moron
if you suggested otherwise. After a spate of failures which some claim
is limited to one type of model - everyone started saying they were
all horrible. Ive never owned one myself so I really cant say but you
still have some defenders who say it was one model or that they fixed
the problem or that the problem was overblown.
 
OK. I've got a Chaintech 9EJS1 board. My IDE0,1 channels are full, due to a
hdd, cd-rw, dvd and zip. The board has an inbuilt raid controller but I only
want to use this as IDE3,4. Trouble is I don't know much about raid. I don't
know what kind of an array I need to not mirror the drives, or is striping
what I should be doing. As for the hdd type question. Which is better WD or
hitachi, considering I have the Hitachi I was looking at and I know its good
would it make sense to buy something different.
Sorry about the confusion.
Martin.
 
OK. I've got a Chaintech 9EJS1 board. My IDE0,1 channels are full, due to a
hdd, cd-rw, dvd and zip. The board has an inbuilt raid controller but I only
want to use this as IDE3,4.
Click to expand...

Yeah thats how I always used it. In other words you dont want raid.
You dont have to do anything. Just use it as an extra IDE channel.

The only difference between the first two channels is - you need
special drivers for the "extra" IDE. Usually its made by someone -
Promise, Highpoint etc.

Your board its got the usual two channels (4 devices) builtin . But it
also has the Promise add on builtin extra IDE channels (4 more
devices).

You can use it for RAID or not use raid. You ARENT using RAID I take
it so all you do is hook it up like ANY OTHER IDE. The two things that
are different :

a) You cant as I said or at least with many "extra" IDEs - use ATAPI
devices on the EXTRA Promise channels. Put your CDRW s etc on the
FIRST TWO channels - NOT THE PROMISE.

b) The problem with that is when you install win xp etc the "extra"
IDE isnt recognized like the first two. WINDOWS and your PC wont "see"
the other two channels at all until you install the special Promise
drivers.

You can get around it by putting your hard disk on the first two
channels when you install win xp and then install the promise drivers
THEN move the HD over to the promise channel.

Or theres an option when you first start installing WIN XP where it
asks whether you want to install some other IDE drivers. You hit some
key which I forget and then have the drivers ready on a floppy or CD
rom. I cant remember if you have to have at least one HD on the first
channels. If you still get the NO HARD DISKS FOUND problem then do it
the first way and move to the first channel and move it to the extra
IDE later but remember to install the promise drivers or it still wont
work.
Trouble is I don't know much about raid. I don't
know what kind of an array I need to not mirror the drives, or is striping
what I should be doing.
Click to expand...

You dont need raid. If you want raid then do it but the extra IDE work
without doing anything but it wont be RAID. Itll be just like the
other HDs on the first 2 channels.
As for the hdd type question. Which is better WD or
hitachi, considering I have the Hitachi I was looking at and I know its good
would it make sense to buy something different.
Click to expand...

If you are going to do raid - you dont have to have same exact HD but
as everyone says you should have similar disks. And since you say the
Hitachi is cheaper - it probably is better to get the same size, type
HD if you want to do raid.

But as I keep saying you dont have to use RAID just because you want
to use the extra RAID controller. You can just add HDDs onto the extra
IDE without doing raid.
 
Thanks, John. This post helped me out. I have an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe
motherboard with the VIA VT6410 IDE RAID controller. Unfortunately, after
purchasing this motherboard, I'm hearing some bad things about VIA. I'm
wondering if I should just return the motherboard. But I thought I'd give
your suggestion a try and it did get the controller working like I wanted it
to (as just a ATA 133 controller for my hard drive, not as a RAID
controller). However, after installing the drivers, Win2K does not shut
down properly, if at all. It just seems to hang. So this is not making me
feel warm and fuzzy about VIA given the other things I've heard. Do you
know anything about them?

Thanks,

Russell Campbell
 
Thanks, John. This post helped me out. I have an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe
motherboard with the VIA VT6410 IDE RAID controller. Unfortunately, after
purchasing this motherboard, I'm hearing some bad things about VIA. I'm
wondering if I should just return the motherboard. But I thought I'd give
your suggestion a try and it did get the controller working like I wanted it
to (as just a ATA 133 controller for my hard drive, not as a RAID
controller). However, after installing the drivers, Win2K does not shut
down properly, if at all. It just seems to hang. So this is not making me
feel warm and fuzzy about VIA given the other things I've heard. Do you
know anything about them?

Thanks,

Russell Campbell
Click to expand...

Yeah RAID is an option implemented on the extra IDE channels. Not sure
about your particular board though. I think Ive read they included the
option also on the first two IDE channels. Im still wondering if RAID
is worth it or not. Various sites say its ONLY worth it for video
editing and then people keep saying its not even worth it for that.
Accessing both drives as if they were one seems like it would be a
benefit anytime you were doing lots of HD accesses but who knows.
The thing that worries me about it is - if there isnt THAT much of a
benefit and if one screws up - all your data may be at risk and an
article I came across which claims when they measured the temps - two
drives in raid configuration dramatically uppped the temps on the HDs.
Then it seems like it would shorten the life of the HDs.

Everytime Ive had problems with stuff like that if I keep doing clean
installs of WIN XP and do all the updates and get the latest drivers
for all - it tends to go away. Dont know that much about WIN 2k though
- always see people having problems with this and that in it.

A good source for any detailed problem fixes is the ASUS group if you
have an ASUS and ABIT if you have an ASUS because people have your
exact same board so you can find out info on weied quirks peculiar to
your exact board and configuration.
 
Well, striping is supposed to be faster, but I don't need blazing speed. I
would go for one of the RAID versions that offers redundancy if I went for
RAID at all. That would be a big benefit, IMHO. But for now I'll just try
to keep the backups current and let that be my redundancy.

Thanks again,

Russell
 
Oh, one more thing. I did post in the ASUS NG
(alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus), but got no replies. I am getting replies
here thanks to you and a few others.
 
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