p5ad2e Raid setup

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wally

I have 2 maxtor plus 9 sata 200gb. drives connected to sata 1 & 2. I'm
trying to set up raid 0+1 using intel matrix, not having much luck
I have the bios setup & installed the raid drivers but I can only have
raid 1 , when I use the app. accelerator It tells me there is not
enough room to create another raid volume to create raid 0. Do I have
the hdds set up correctly, sata 1&2 not 1&3 master/slave?
 
wally said:
I have 2 maxtor plus 9 sata 200gb. drives connected to sata 1 & 2. I'm
trying to set up raid 0+1 using intel matrix, not having much luck
I have the bios setup & installed the raid drivers but I can only have
raid 1 , when I use the app. accelerator It tells me there is not
enough room to create another raid volume to create raid 0. Do I have
the hdds set up correctly, sata 1&2 not 1&3 master/slave?
Click to expand...

Page 41, step 8:
ftp://download.intel.com/support/chipsets/imst/sb/manual45_oem.pdf

There is a "Capacity" field in one of the RAID BIOS setup
screens. The Capacity field can be editted by the user.
If you are referring to using two disks, and making one
portion of the two disks a RAID 0 array, and the remainder
of the two disks into a RAID 1 array, I would think setting
the capacity during the setup of the first portion, would
leave room for the setup of the second portion.

HTH,
Paul
 
I've tried to set the drive(s) to 80gb as per setup readme says, I'm
still not sure if I have them installed right. I have both drives setup
on sata 1& 2 on the board , not 1 & 3 which would be master/slave. I'm
currently running the drives as raid 0 with windows showing 389gb
avalable. Seems to run fine but I was after a 0+1 setup.
 
"wally" said:
I've tried to set the drive(s) to 80gb as per setup readme says, I'm
still not sure if I have them installed right. I have both drives setup
on sata 1& 2 on the board , not 1 & 3 which would be master/slave. I'm
currently running the drives as raid 0 with windows showing 389gb
avalable. Seems to run fine but I was after a 0+1 setup.
Click to expand...

I hope we don't have a terminology problem here.

RAID 0 is striped, and for two matched drives, gives twice the capacity.
RAID 1 is mirrored, and the same data is duplicated on both drives.

Matrix RAID is Intel's feature, where two disks can support RAID 0 for
one portion of the two disks, and RAID 1 for the other portion of
the two disks. If the bottom portion has errors, it is fried,
while if the top portion has errors, the mirrored data means
there is recovery via the redundant data. The OS could go in
the mirror array portion, while scratch data can go into
the (unreliable) striped array portion on the bottom (like a
Photoshop scratch area).

drive 0 drive 1 Intel Matrix RAID
------ ------
|50GB | |50GB | <--- Top half mirror one another
|-----| |-----| Array capacity = 50GB
|------------------|
| 30GB 30GB | <--- Bottom half striped together
|------------------| for performance. 30+30=60GB
when striped.

RAID 0+1 refers to the use of four disks. There are two pairs
of striped disks (RAID 0). The two arrays mirror one another (RAID 1).
If a single drive dies, one two disk array is toast, but the other
two disk array takes over. That is my understanding of 0+1.

drive 0 drive 1 drive 2 drive 3
------------------ ------------------
| | | | Four drive
| striped array | | striped array | RAID 0+1
| (RAID 0) | | (RAID 0) | configuration
| | | |
|------------------| |------------------|
\ /
\__ arrays mirror __/
one another
(RAID 1)

To use the Intel Matrix RAID feature with two disks, you will
need to define the capacity of the lower and the upper halves
of the disks. Say you have two 80GB disks. If we define the
stripe first, we could use 2*30GB for the stripe. This would
leave 50GB in the upper section of each disk, which when mirrored
gives a 50GB top array. We have a 60GB unreliable array and a
50GB reliable array. The numbers don't add up to 160GB, because
the mirror "wastes" capacity. (What this means, is no matter
whether the stripe or the mirror is defined first, the
"Capacity" field must be editted to a number smaller than
the one shown in the interface.)

It should not matter which SATA port(s) you use to construct
the RAID array. When you use the RAID BIOS in fact, the reserved
sector on each disk, keeps track of which disk is paired with
which other disk. You can actually power down, and change the
port the disk is plugged into, if you want. (You should stick
paper labels on the drives, with critical info recorded on
the drives, such as stripe size, in case the arrays ever need
to be deleted and rebuilt. If you were building a true four
disk 0+1, labels can be very important.)

Does any of that help ?

HTH,
Paul
 
thanks paul,
I understand the 0-1 concept stripe mirror but following instructions
it says to create a raid
1 mirror volume 1/2 the size of 1disk at boot up then run windows setup
install all drivers then install intel application accelerator
software. After this you are to choose create a raid volume from
existing harddrive then create a raid 0/stripe volume. Problem is
everytime I do this it tells me non raid disk not found.. I'm beginning
to think you need 4 drives to do 1+0. I'm on my 7th go round trying
this with deleting raid volumes/ re windows setup, cable configs. This
is my first sata raid experience been building rigs since my first 286
,even built a cyrex 586 once :-) , can't seem to get a handle on this
0+1 thing with 2 drives
 
wally said:
thanks paul,
I understand the 0-1 concept stripe mirror but following instructions
it says to create a raid
1 mirror volume 1/2 the size of 1disk at boot up then run windows setup
install all drivers then install intel application accelerator
software. After this you are to choose create a raid volume from
existing harddrive then create a raid 0/stripe volume. Problem is
everytime I do this it tells me non raid disk not found.. I'm beginning
to think you need 4 drives to do 1+0. I'm on my 7th go round trying
this with deleting raid volumes/ re windows setup, cable configs. This
is my first sata raid experience been building rigs since my first 286
,even built a cyrex 586 once :-) , can't seem to get a handle on this
0+1 thing with 2 drives
Click to expand...

Where are you getting these instructions from ? Are they in the
user manual or are you using a manual you found on the motherboard
CD, in the manuals/ folder ?

One possibility, is you are using the wrong version of IAAR. The
original Intel RAID software didn't do the Matrix configuration,
and either did RAID0 or it did RAID1. Since you have the latest
and greatest hardware, the Windows software should support the
Matrix option.

To get the latest driver, go to downloadfinder.intel.com ,
select "chipset" from the side bar, "chipset software" from
the menu, then "Intel Matrix Storage" from the next menu.
After selecting your OS (WinXP), you should end up here:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scr...XP+Professional&lang=eng&strOSs=44&submit=Go!

The floppy maker stuff is at the bottom of the page, if you
want to make a floppy for the OS drivers, to be installed
with F6 at Windows install time. The topmost download is
for the full package to install once Windows is installed.

In order for this thing to work, the success ingredients will
be:

1) When you set up the first RAID volume, make sure the capacity
you select is small enough, so there is room for the second
RAID volume later.
2) Convince the software to accept adding the second volume,
to the existing two disks.

I suppose the reason the instructions are having you create
one volume in the BIOS, and the second volume at runtime, is
to make sure you are using the right drivers for them ?
Otherwise, if it was me, I would be trying to make both
volumes using the RAID BIOS interface. After all, both levels
of the system have to understand how the Matrix RAID data is
laid out on the disks, in order to do anything.

One of the critical aspects of using RAID, is understanding
what to do if something goes wrong. Many people use the
RAID for a while, and then one day, they get a "degraded"
or "failed" status on their RAID and they don't know what
to do. When you have live data on a disk, is not the time
to be experimenting. No matter what you decide to do, make
sure you have a backup strategy, as even a RAID mirror
needs to be backed up. A mirror is not a replacement for
a backup strategy.

The maintenance aspect is one reason I refuse to use RAID
on my computers here. I like my hardware to be simple to
understand and maintain, and running non-RAID is what does
that for me. If a single disk fails for me, I replace the
bad disk, restore from backup, and carry on. With the RAID,
I can never be sure I am supposed to "delete array" or whatever,
after a failure occurs.

Paul
 
The instructions were from the manual/cd, I've been to intel and
already downloaded the drivers, did that after the first attempt. I'm
just going to go standard and be done with it. If I really wan't to to
go 0+1 in future I'll just get 2 more disks..
Thanks for your help..
 
If my memory serves me correctly, you will need a minimum of 4 drives for
Raid 0+1.
 
IT WORKS ! I finally figured it out with 2 hhds. The manual on the cd
gave conflicting instructions. I took 2 200 gb maxtor drives-sata and
used intel raid rom to set up a raid volume of 90 gbs. (mirrored) then
ran xp setup installed intel drivers -F6 partitioned the drive for 90
gbs then formatted it, let windows finish setup and then used intel
app. accelerator software to create a second volume as striped with the
remaining space on the drive(S). I kept telling the software to create
the volume from existing hard disk as per instructions only to get
message saying non raid disk not found. Below that is a command to just
create raid volume and what do ya know, it worked. After this I open up
xp disk managment then set the volume as a dynamic disk then format &
thats it.. when I reboot the bios shows 2 raid volumes 1 mirror & 1
striped.. They seem to work fine.. =8^) . Also found 1 other
misinformation in the user manual about updating bios and can cause a
real headache. Rename the the file P5AD2XE.rom not P5AD2E.as the manual
says or you will suffer bad juju.
 
wally said:
I've tried to set the drive(s) to 80gb as per setup readme says, I'm
still not sure if I have them installed right. I have both drives setup
on sata 1& 2 on the board , not 1 & 3 which would be master/slave. I'm
currently running the drives as raid 0 with windows showing 389gb
avalable. Seems to run fine but I was after a 0+1 setup.
Click to expand...

RAID 0+1 should be four drives: two drives in a raid 0 configuration
and two drives to mirror your raid 0 array. I don't know if the
p5ad2e supports this configuration, but i am inclined to purchase this
board and am printing the manual as i type this. If it doesn't, I'll
let you know.
 
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