2 SATA Raid 0 + 2 SATA Raid 0 + 2 SATA DVD

[alkolkin]

I have an ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard.
It has the capability of connecting 4 SATA drives via the Southbridge chipset and connecting 4 SATA drives via the Silicon Image controller.

I have two 74Gb Raptor drives that I want to configure as Raid 0 and I have two 34 GB Raptor drives that I also want to configure as Raid 0.

I have two Plextor SATA double layer DVD drives that I want to install, not as Raid of course.


Questions:
------------------
Which drive should be the boot drive, the 34GB or the 74GB?
To which controller should the boot drive be connected?
To which controller should the other drive be connected?
To which controller or controllers should the two DVD drives be connected?
Which will be Master drives and which slaves?

Assumptions:
---------------------
34GB Raid 0 as boot drive located on Southbridge
74 GB Raid 0 on Silicon Image
Each DVD on different controller
There is no such thing as Master/Slave with SATA

Your help would be appreciated!

[Localan]

Assumptions:
---------------------
34GB Raid 0 as boot drive located on Southbridge
74 GB Raid 0 on Silicon Image
Each DVD on different controller
There is no such thing as Master/Slave with SATA

Your help would be appreciated!

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

That is how I personally would set them up. Though the SATA DVD drives I would just put on the remaining two Southbridge ports. It would definitely work the way yuo have listed though.

http://www.mentallyretired.com/h3/index.cfm/u_45193 (http://www.mentallyretired.com/h3/index.cfm?a=doMyStats&u_id=45193) <------ Thanks xENo!!

[alkolkin]

Still one question. If both the DVD drives were on the same controller, wouldn't there be a performance hit if I was copying one to the other? Or is the Southbridge so much faster that it would compensate?

I really appreciate your help. I am building my Dream Machine and I want it perfect!

[feigned]

Still one question. If both the DVD drives were on the same controller, wouldn't there be a performance hit if I was copying one to the other? Or is the Southbridge so much faster that it would compensate?

I really appreciate your help. I am building my Dream Machine and I want it perfect!

What's the read speed of a 16x dvd-rom? Something like 20MB/s? That's not even ATA-33 speeds, so you shouldn't have any worries about reading and writing to those drives affecting each other.

And there is no master/slave configuration with SATA.

Also, a dream machine should be fast, but have a recovery system in place. So tell me you have a method of backing all 200GB of your suicide raid somehow. I'm assuming those burners, but I could be wrong.

[Kil4Thril]

I believe one of the advantages to SATA is such that you wouldn't take a performance hit by placing your Plextors on the southbridge- or so I've been told. Unfortunately, I haven't built my system yet, so I don't yet know :(

[alkolkin]

My backup system cost almost half of the price of my system!
It is a SCSI-II DAT drive that backsup 80GB of data compressed. Not the entire 200 GB, but that will not be necessary. I also use Retrospect so that I can create a restore disk.

I am prepared and paranoid. I have a hardware and software firewall, Norton AntiVirus, and Spysweeper.

[defakto]

I'd boot off the 74 gig raptors, they are significantly faster than the 36 gig variants.

[alkolkin]

I'd boot off the 74 gig raptors, they are significantly faster than the 36 gig variants.

I thought that I had read that somewhere, but no one in all the tech forums have mentioned that. What about the issue of splitting the two Raid configurations onto two controllers versus placing them both on the same one? Should they both be on the Southbridge?

[defakto]

[Total personal opinion] I'd put them on seperate controllers is possible but as long as the bandwidth is there...eh...{end opinion]