Setting up raid 0 on my A7v266-e anyone fone it if so help me out.

  • Thread starter Thread starter We Live For The One We Die For The One
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We Live For The One We Die For The One

Going to buy two 120 gig drives and try raid 0 out, nver done this
before but if it fails no prob just use them as two seperate drives.

Any help with the seting up would be great just HAVE NO idea of what i
would have to do, do i need software to do this or does the mobo bios
handle it all.

Thanks.
 
Going to buy two 120 gig drives and try raid 0 out, nver done this
before but if it fails no prob just use them as two seperate drives.

Any help with the seting up would be great just HAVE NO idea of what i
would have to do, do i need software to do this or does the mobo bios
handle it all.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Section 5.4 of your manual, entitled "Using the Promise Chip for
RAID 0 or 1" should help. Why not work through that section, then
if you get stuck, come back and ask a question ?

Paul
 
Dont ? me :)

Can't do that thats to logical.




Section 5.4 of your manual, entitled "Using the Promise Chip for
RAID 0 or 1" should help. Why not work through that section, then
if you get stuck, come back and ask a question ?

Paul
Click to expand...
 
Dont ? me :)

Can't do that thats to logical.
Click to expand...

On a computer group, all you get is logical answers. Would
it be reasonable for someone in here to copy the solution out
of the manual, and paste it in here ?

As for a RAID, you should be thinking about what a RAID is good
at, and what it isn't good at. A RAID mirror, gives enhanced
data security, but you should still be making backups, so there
is hardly any advantage (i.e. it justs wastes an extra disk). A
RAID stripe is faster for sustained data transfer. For example,
if you were doing uncompressed video editing of some sort or
Photoshop, there could be a higher sustained rate. But the disks
don't seek any faster, so for small files, the RAID doesn't help
you. When it comes to games loading or other programs loading,
the interval is so short, the RAID isn't really doing that much
for you. There is also the risk, with a RAID stripe, that in fact
the disk transfer is less smooth than with a single disk. For
example, some people who transfer DV from the Firewire interface
onto their hard drive, find that a single disk doesn't drop
frames, whereas the RAID does drop frames. The RAID drivers are
not always well written pieces of software.

I'm not totally against RAID. I think RAID on a server is useful,
as more of that computer's time is spent doing file transfers.
If you are using a reliable RAID (mirror, RAID5 etc) on a server,
you want the ability to rebuild the array while the computer is
still running. Sometimes the RAID included with the motherboard
cannot do that, and the computer stays stuck in the BIOS until
the rebuild is complete.

RAID seems to be more of a status symbol than anything else. It
has higher maintenance than a single disk, and when it breaks,
you are going to need help trying to recover your data. Better
to keep it simple and stick with tried and true single disks.

With the 120GB disks you've got, I would use one of them all the
time, and keep the second one stored in the computer but
unpowered and uncabled. When you want to do a backup, plug in the
second disk, and do a disk to disk transfer (with something like
Partition Magic or the like). Then, unplug the second disk again.
This way, you are ready for a calamity, if the one disk fails,
and can quickly switch over to the other one. That is what I do
on my computers here.

You could even buy a hot swap enclosure for one of the disks,
and then you can plug in the backup disk into a hole in the front
of the computer. That saves on having to fiddle with cables all
the time.

My opinions,
Paul
 
We Live For The One We Die For The One said:
Going to buy two 120 gig drives and try raid 0 out, nver done this
before but if it fails no prob just use them as two seperate drives.

Any help with the seting up would be great just HAVE NO idea of what i
would have to do, do i need software to do this or does the mobo bios
handle it all.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Switch to RAID in the BIOS, and follow the instructions on the screen. You
need to install the drivers. Check the manual.

I used the RAID0 with two 20GB drives on the A7V266-E for a while. I was
expecting great things in performance, but run into a number of other
problems. I'm not sure if I gained any speed benefit, I never tested that.
How do you? I do know that it took forever to boot ?? I don't know what that
was all about, but Win2000/XP seemed to think about it for a looooong time.
Switching back to a single drive cleared up that.

The other thing was finding drivers for the RAID. I wanted to dual boot
(several o/s') but had a hard time finding the drivers and to be honest, I
was scared to screw the RAID0. One drive goes (or gets damaged) and you lose
everything. There is no rebuild or partial data recovery with RAID0.

Don't let this scare you. I switched back to a single drive on my new K8V,
but if I hadn't tried it on my A7V I would have on this system. You have to
try it or you'll never find out eh? I use software RAID5 on my servers
(Win2000 and Linux) and probably wouldn't run a server without RAID.

RAID 0 and 1 are the extremes anyhow. RAID0 uses striping for speed, but is
the most dangerous as you have twice as many things to go wrong and the loss
is absolute - there is no partial lost. RAID1 uses mirroring for security,
but it's the most expensive as it costs you double (2n). You need two drives
to hold one drive worth of data. RAID5 is a the ultimate (dx/dy=0 for cost)
as it uses striping for speed gains and data parity for redundancy. The cost
is n/(n-1). That is you need 3 drives to hold (drive * 2) worth of data, 4
drives to hold (drive * 3) worth of data, etc. You can loose a drive and
maintain the data. The loss of two drives is fatal, but then so is it for
RAID1.

I say give it a try. What are toys for eh ?
 
I have experience with this board. I run RAID-0 with two 60GB IBM drives since Day One. It
has not given me any problems whatsoever. I don't have any of those IBM drive problems
either, although I have heard about them.

Just follow the manual. It is very simple to set up a RAID. I do a lot of large file
access, so RAID-0 is very fast. It is noticeably faster than a single drive -- I also have a
160GB Seagate drive in the system as well.

I partition the RAID into multiple logical drives: a 30GB partition for WinXP and installed
software, a small partition (750MB) for WinXP virtual memory, a small partition (2GB) for
Photoshop scratch disk, and finally a data partition. I only back up the data partition. I
have had to re-install the OS several times, but it only affected my C: drive. My other
partitions were all intact throughout.

I have heard people complain about the last driver update from the Promise website. I have
not tried that version. I am still using the same driver as the one that came with the mobo.
It works. Why fix it?

Also, there was something that needed to be done for drives that are bigger than 120GB. I
think you can get some more information from Microsoft's website regarding this.

Hope this helps.
 
Ill give it a try whats 120 times 2 ? :)


I have experience with this board. I run RAID-0 with two 60GB IBM drives since Day One. It
has not given me any problems whatsoever. I don't have any of those IBM drive problems
either, although I have heard about them.

Just follow the manual. It is very simple to set up a RAID. I do a lot of large file
access, so RAID-0 is very fast. It is noticeably faster than a single drive -- I also have a
160GB Seagate drive in the system as well.

I partition the RAID into multiple logical drives: a 30GB partition for WinXP and installed
software, a small partition (750MB) for WinXP virtual memory, a small partition (2GB) for
Photoshop scratch disk, and finally a data partition. I only back up the data partition. I
have had to re-install the OS several times, but it only affected my C: drive. My other
partitions were all intact throughout.

I have heard people complain about the last driver update from the Promise website. I have
not tried that version. I am still using the same driver as the one that came with the mobo.
It works. Why fix it?

Also, there was something that needed to be done for drives that are bigger than 120GB. I
think you can get some more information from Microsoft's website regarding this.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
 
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