Raid 0 X SCSI

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zalman
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Zalman

Hi all,

Sorry if this has been answered before, I did a search and could not find.
I have my Windows XP Pro setup and running ok on a RAID 0 configuration (2
seagate 80gb barracudas).
I know RAID 0 is not fail safe, so I am planning to buy a SCSI Hard Drive
and clone my OS to the SCSI using Northon Gosth.

Question: Will that work? I mean, everything is working fiine, if I clone to
the SCSI will I be able to boot?
What problems may I face if I ever do this?
Waiting your answer before rushing to the stores.

Thank you.
 
Zalman said:
Hi all,

Sorry if this has been answered before, I did a search and could not find.
I have my Windows XP Pro setup and running ok on a RAID 0 configuration (2
seagate 80gb barracudas).
I know RAID 0 is not fail safe, so I am planning to buy a SCSI Hard Drive
and clone my OS to the SCSI using Northon Gosth.

Question: Will that work? I mean, everything is working fiine, if I clone
to the SCSI will I be able to boot?
What problems may I face if I ever do this?
Waiting your answer before rushing to the stores.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

You may have to edit the boot.ini file.

Kerry
 
Since the system was installed on non-scsi drive, most likely there is no
scsi raid drive installed and your drive will most likely not boot with out
this driver. This driver has to be installed in the early stages of
installation.
What you need to do before cloning is simply install the SCSI raid driver in
the existing windows and then do the cloning. That should do it.
But I am curious....are you adding the SCSI thinking that it will make your
system more "fail safe"? or you just want to have a backup of your drive?
The SCSI does not offer anything special. The only advantage with SCSI is
the ability to do all the data processing on it's own controller instead of
having the CPU do it.
 
The only advantage with SCSI is
the ability to do all the data processing on it's own controller instead
of having the CPU do it.
Click to expand...

Let's see...Higher Spindle speeds, MUCH higher MTBF, NCQ, TCQ, HUGE
bandwidth...

Yeah, you're right. They only have one advantage.

Matt Gibson - GSEC
 
Matt,

You are right. But for the average user this means nothing. As for my self
I would not have anything else but couple of 15k SCSI drives in Raid. But
the one thing I miss is the fast initial boot in the non-Adaptec-scsi system
specially when debugging problems where you have to do constant re-boots.
My Adaptec 320 controller adds about 10 seconds to it.
 
Pavel said:
Since the system was installed on non-scsi drive, most likely there is no
scsi raid drive installed and your drive will most likely not boot with
out this driver. This driver has to be installed in the early stages of
installation.
What you need to do before cloning is simply install the SCSI raid driver
in the existing windows and then do the cloning. That should do it.
But I am curious....are you adding the SCSI thinking that it will make
your system more "fail safe"? or you just want to have a backup of your
drive? The SCSI does not offer anything special. The only advantage with
SCSI is the ability to do all the data processing on it's own controller
instead of having the CPU do it.
Click to expand...

Your right about the driver. I forgot about that when posting about editing
boot.ini. Your wrong about SCSI only having one advantage. :-) If you are
doing video editing, running a server, generating large database reports,
anything that demands high CPU time while simultaneously accessing the hard
drive SCSI has much faster performance. Also "most" SCSI drives have higher
MTBF, faster rotation therefore faster sustained data transfer etc. There is
a reason SCSI drives are more expensive. SATA may eventually equal them but
at that point they will cost the same and require expensive hardware
controllers as well.

Kerry
 
Kerry,

For those that know SCSI as you do, you know that all this you mentioned is
possible because the controller does all the processing instead of the CPU
handling all the tasks. I may not have used the right words when I said that
there is no difference but if the average person goes and spends the
additional money for SCSI drive just to have his/hers Outlook PST file or
some other data file be more fail safe then that person is simply wasting
his money.
As I have replied to Matt, I would not have anything else but fast 15k SCSI
raid because of all the benefits that you mentioned.
 
Pavel said:
Kerry,

For those that know SCSI as you do, you know that all this you mentioned
is possible because the controller does all the processing instead of the
CPU handling all the tasks. I may not have used the right words when I
said that there is no difference but if the average person goes and spends
the additional money for SCSI drive just to have his/hers Outlook PST file
or some other data file be more fail safe then that person is simply
wasting his money.
As I have replied to Matt, I would not have anything else but fast 15k
SCSI raid because of all the benefits that you mentioned.
Click to expand...

Point taken. For most people the hassle and cost of SCSI outweigh the
benefits. If redundancy is the issue then a IDE RAID controller or even
software RAID can accomplish it much cheaper.

Kerry
 
Hy Guys, thanks for taking the time :)
Let's see if I got this right:

When I installed XP-PRO on my current RAID 0 (2 SATAs), I had to install the
driver for it in the early stage (¨F6 key.. you know the history). That
driver is seen on XP as a SCSI driver, even though we know it is really not,
so I assume it will NOT work if I clone to a real SCSI drive without
installing the driver first.. right?.

So my next step would be install the SCSI controller and SCSI drive and then
install the driver in WinXP for it to recognize the SCSI and then clone
using Ghost... that makes sense?..
If I have to edit Boot.Ini, what should I edit there?

Pavel, I need a fast drive for my OS now, I choose to use RAID O due to the
speed gain but I am not happy with the setup. RAID 0 is stripe, so if one HD
fails I loose everything. So I want to clone this perfect installation to a
SCSI drive (faster) and boot from there, and them use those 2 sata
barracudas as backup and storage for large data files.

Waht do you mean by hassle? The installation?
Point taken. For most people the hassle and cost of SCSI outweigh the
benefits
Click to expand...

Thank you again.

Zalman
 
the one thing I miss is the fast initial boot in the non-Adaptec-scsi
system specially when debugging problems where you have to do constant
re-boots. My Adaptec 320 controller adds about 10 seconds to it.
Click to expand...

*Shudder*

I fully agree with you there. I despise the servers that have 2-3 different
raid controllers, each taking 10-15 seconds to find out that there are/arn't
any drives, and let me move on.

Matt Gibson - GSEC
 
Zalman,

True, if one of the drives goes bad with RAID 0 then you will loose all on
that drive. But you may consider to make an image instead of cloning in
which case you can have multiple images of the same drive taken at different
times. Store the images on a separate drive. As an added bonus, the images
can be compressed so less space is used and can be placed on CD or DVD.
Since you already have Ghost then you already know this.
If you have an older version of Ghost then you may not know this but the
latest Ghost is actually different program originally called DriveImage 7
and it can create Image directly from Windows with out exiting.
 
Zalman said:
Hy Guys, thanks for taking the time :)
Let's see if I got this right:

When I installed XP-PRO on my current RAID 0 (2 SATAs), I had to install
the driver for it in the early stage (¨F6 key.. you know the history).
That driver is seen on XP as a SCSI driver, even though we know it is
really not, so I assume it will NOT work if I clone to a real SCSI drive
without installing the driver first.. right?.

So my next step would be install the SCSI controller and SCSI drive and
then install the driver in WinXP for it to recognize the SCSI and then
clone using Ghost... that makes sense?..
If I have to edit Boot.Ini, what should I edit there?
Click to expand...

That sounds right. I've don't have a lot of experience with Ghost. I use
True Image. What you describe should work. Make sure you have a verified
backup before starting. See the following link for documentation on boot.ini

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmc_str_masc.asp

Pavel, I need a fast drive for my OS now, I choose to use RAID O due to
the speed gain but I am not happy with the setup. RAID 0 is stripe, so if
one HD fails I loose everything. So I want to clone this perfect
installation to a SCSI drive (faster) and boot from there, and them use
those 2 sata barracudas as backup and storage for large data files.

Waht do you mean by hassle? The installation?
Click to expand...

Installation, slower boot up times, harder to troubleshoot problems,
configuring SCSI device numbers, parity, termination etc., may conflict with
other hardware. None of it is insurmountable. Most newer controllers and
drives do a lot of this automatically. Most times it is just one extra step
when installing Windows, and an extra few seconds for the controller to
initialize the drives on startup.
Thank you again.

Zalman
Click to expand...

Your welcome, Good luck, let us know how you it goes.

Kerry
 
Sorry,wont work with a SATA drive and/or SCSI.Do a fresh install,use the
file transfer wizard to save settings,youre files.IDE drives
cloning-mirroring
works fine.
 
Hi.. looks like we don't have a consensus here.. :)
Some people say it will work, some say will not...
Andrew, you confirm that cloning a RAID 0 will not work?
I am almost giving up.. I think I'll buy another HD and make an image.. or
build a new box from scratch with a SCSi...

Anyway.. thank you very much for your help guys, I apreciate (and sorry for
my bad english).

Zalman
 
Zalman,

That is nonsense. The cloning software has no idea if the hardrive is RAID
or not. The only problem will be if the hardware does not know what RAID is
and more specifically, if your cloning software runs from DOS then some
additional drivers may be needed to tell the hardware how to access the
RAID. If the cloning software runs under OS then there should be no problem
at all since all the appropriate drivers to access the RAID are already
installed, otherwise you will not be able to see the drive.
 
Zalman said:
Hi.. looks like we don't have a consensus here.. :)
Some people say it will work, some say will not...
Andrew, you confirm that cloning a RAID 0 will not work?
I am almost giving up.. I think I'll buy another HD and make an image.. or
build a new box from scratch with a SCSi...

Anyway.. thank you very much for your help guys, I apreciate (and sorry
for my bad english).

Zalman
Click to expand...

Most cloning/imaging software has many options. With RAID 0 you probably
won't be able to do a sector by sector image but rather a file by file copy.
In the end your system is transfered so what does it matter?

Kerry
 
Kerry,

This is the first time I have ever heard of such a thing where you have to
copy file by file in order to clone RAID 0. I have been doing sector by
sector for many years on all kind of different system. Actually, I do not
even see such option in Ghost (Drive Image). On the other hand, maybe I do
not know the workings of Ghost and it is possible that it does file by file
but my understanding from reading the literature was that it is done on
sector by sector.
 
Pavel said:
Kerry,

This is the first time I have ever heard of such a thing where you have to
copy file by file in order to clone RAID 0. I have been doing sector by
sector for many years on all kind of different system. Actually, I do not
even see such option in Ghost (Drive Image). On the other hand, maybe I do
not know the workings of Ghost and it is possible that it does file by
file but my understanding from reading the literature was that it is done
on sector by sector.
Click to expand...

I haven't used Ghost for years. I use True Image. It's not installed on this
computer so I can't check but I'm sure it does both depending on what
options you choose. I can't remember the exact terminology but I believe an
image is sector based and a clone is file based. Maybe someone with more
knowledge of Ghost can let us know.

Kerry
 
kerry@kdbNOSPAMsys- said:
I haven't used Ghost for years. I use True Image. It's not installed on this
computer so I can't check but I'm sure it does both depending on what
options you choose. I can't remember the exact terminology but I believe an
image is sector based and a clone is file based. Maybe someone with more
knowledge of Ghost can let us know.
Click to expand...

Depending on the drivers used for the RAID controller, you can use an
Image to restore to a non-raid or other RAID array.

If your RAID is hardware based and you have a bootable disk/cd with
drivers that support it, then you can restore any image made by Ghost to
it - and it doesn't matter if it was RAID-0/1/5.

If you did a soft-RAID (using the OS), since you can't image a drive in
Windows, at least not one you're actually using for the OS, you can't
really support it, unless you can get a DOS disk with drivers that lets
you some how see the R/0 array from a bootable diskette/cd.
 
Leythos said:
Depending on the drivers used for the RAID controller, you can use an
Image to restore to a non-raid or other RAID array.

If your RAID is hardware based and you have a bootable disk/cd with
drivers that support it, then you can restore any image made by Ghost to
it - and it doesn't matter if it was RAID-0/1/5.

If you did a soft-RAID (using the OS), since you can't image a drive in
Windows, at least not one you're actually using for the OS, you can't
really support it, unless you can get a DOS disk with drivers that lets
you some how see the R/0 array from a bootable diskette/cd.
Click to expand...

Ghost 9/Drive Image 7 can image everything within Windows, including the
system partition. It can also restore everything *but* the system
partition within Windows - but that's still not a problem as the
restoration environment is built on WinPE, so you have the opportunity
to load RAID drivers during boot if required.

Sunny
 
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