2x80 GB Raid Setup

M

maxamillion

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 27, 2005
Messages
162
Greetings,

I'm currently searching online for tutorials on how-to setup raid during windows installation as I'm starting a completely new setup and have never installed or used raid in my life.

If anyone can provide a straight forward raid setup tutorial or just a step by step tutorial, that would be much appreciated.

BTW, this will be a 2x80 SATA 150 setup. These are both WD drives.

Kind Regards,
Max
 
First place I'd look is in the manual :)

You should be able to enter the raid bios of either your onboard or pci card with a crtl+something after the board posts. From there you create the array. With 2 drives you can either go level 0 or level 1.

0 (striped) combines the capacity of both drives and gives you higher sustained transfer rates at the cost of seek time. It's sometimes referred to as a suicide raid because when one drive fails the data from all members of the array is gone.

1 (mirrored) gives you the capacity of 1 drive however it mirrors the contents of one drive onto the other allowing you to sustain a drive failure. basically data security is the name of the game here.

after deciding which route you want to go, you add the drives and build the array.
finally after the array is built it is, for all intents and purposes, a single drive. you can format and partition it just like it is a standalone drive and windows setup will see it as such.

Again you should eyeball the manual because controller bios' vary in terminology. Dont be afraid to jump in and try different things. :) You cant hurt anything.

Possibly see the faq in my sig also.
 
DirtyDR,

Thank you for your informative response and I'm very much appreciated.

You my friend are the coolest :cool:

Kind Regards,
Max
 
As for the Windows installation, it's actually very simple. After you have the RAID configured via it's controller's bios, you proceed to install Windows normally with the exception of needing a driver diskette and hitting F6 when it displays "Hit F6 to use a 3rd party SCSI or RAID driver" (something similar to that). It'll bring you to a screen where you'll hit S (specify driver), enter (once the floppy is in), and then a menu to select the driver off the disk. After you're finished with that, it's a normal Windows install from then on.
 
What if I don't have a floppy drive? I'm sure the mobo or windows should auto detect the setup?
 
95% chance that you'll need a driver disk...aka floppy. Window's probably won't pick up the RAID array as a logical disk if you don't have the drivers.
 
No problem ;)

Beg borrow or steal one. Of course im j/k on the latter but the setup may or may not see the controller. Best not to chance it.

What kind of controller are you using and what version of windows will you be installing?
 
Indeed. The only other option is to slipstream the drivers on to the windows cd. Great way to do it if you feel comfortable going that route otherwise there is nothing wrong with using the good old floppy method.

Just make sure you use a decent (new) floppy disk especially if you have no backup machine to work with while doing the installation.
 
This is the one they have for that board. If for some reason you are denied on the link, click here then click on download, then drivers tab.

<edit>

As volkum said the one you want is "Silicon Image 3114 SATA RAID driver V1.1.9.9 for Windows XP(WHQL)/2K/2003."
 
DirtyDr,

Thank you so much for guiding me through this process and to Volkum's useful input. I will begin the process starting tomorrow and will update you guys on the process when my new pc is setup &#61514;

Again, I really appreciate your guidance and your patience in dealing with me.

Kind Regards,
Max
 
glad to help. one other thing before tearing into this just in case you didnt know. you have to extract the downloaded zip file and copy the contents of the 'disk' folder on to the floppy (dont drag the whole folder) or use the makedisk.exe to create the floppy for you.
 
DirtyDr,

I have everything installed in terms of hardware and built the raid 0 array with the chunk size of 128k.

Another question would be, I've enter the silicon raid configuration utility but there is also a option in the manual for Nvidia's raid configuration. Both are included in the manual but I'm just trying to figure out which is the best option in terms of performance and reliability or it doesn't matter?

Btw, I'm on my laptop :)

Kind Regards,
Max
 
maxamillion said:
DirtyDr,

I have everything installed in terms of hardware and built the raid 0 array with the chunk size of 128k.

Another question would be, I've enter the silicon raid configuration utility but there is also a option in the manual for Nvidia's raid configuration. Both are included in the manual but I'm just trying to figure out which is the best option in terms of performance and reliability or it doesn't matter?

Btw, I'm on my laptop :)

Kind Regards,
Max
Click to expand...

Nvidia's RAID supports SATA2/3g/300 (whatever you want to call it) and 0/1/0+1, whereas the SIL3114 chip supports SATA150 and 0/1/5(software)/0+1.

If you're using SATA 150 drives, I'd recommend using the Silicon Image chip over the NVRaid chip.
 
Good, glad to hear you got it going :)

I have never used the nv raid. I seem to recall reading that people are having problems getting windows installed going that route. Personally, I'd just stick to the silicon image controller. No performance or reliability difference.

I believe the big deal with the nvraid, when it works, is the ability create an array from multiple busses (IDE & SATA). If im mistaken someone will surely correct the statement :D
 
I don't imagine you can RAID SATA and PATA drives in the same array, but I think it does support separate SATA and PATA arrays. I'm using the NV Raid so I could take advantage of my WD2500KS's SATA 3g abilty and haven't had any problems yet.
 
I see claims being made that you can span sata & pata in a single array but have zero experience with nvraid... could be paper features or bs marketing. It seems somewhat of a pointless feature in cases such as your's though.

There would have to be a large performance hit adding ata-100 drives in a 3g array. I guess if someone had comparably sized 1st gen sata & pata drives laying around it would be better than going software if it works.

Thats another problem, usually when someone is on a board seeking advice its because they are having a problem. You rarely if ever see the title "My <insert hardware here> is performing flawlessly" :)

So is that array pretty snappy volkum?
 
*Updates*

Installed the raid drivers from floppy and now windows is formatting. I'll keep you two updated and when this whole process is completed, I'll give both of you a HUGE virtual hug!

Hugs and Kisses,
Max
 
*updates*

Windows currently being installed.

*question*

Is the raid setup suppose to add both the hard drives capacity which is 80+80 = 160 or did I do something wrong? Because I thought raid was suppose to combine them together and leave the same space as the drive itself which is 80gb?

I have mine on raid 0 with SATA 150 using SILICON and disabled nvidia raid.

Kind Regards,
Max
 
Level 0 is 80+80=160. Level 1 would be 80GB constantly being 'copied' to the other drive.
 
*updates*

Window XP Pro installed within 10 minutes *WOW* and now in the processing of installing drivers and updating windows!

Everything looks like a smooth ride from now on!

THANK YOU BOTH WHO HELP ME THROUGH THE WAY!
 
If it hasnt been mentioned already DO NOT keep anything on the RAID array that is important to you.....
Back up all important data to a seperate hard drive, or burn it to a CD/DVD .....
 
I dont want to say its unreliable......I will say that if you do have a failure, your DATA is gone.Period. The End!!


I had 2 arrays go south on me in 6 months, 1 from a drive failure (36 GIG Raptor) and 1 from SATA corruption from an overclock attempt gone bad :) ....

Since then, I run my drives standalone......I got rid of the 36's and got 2 74's.....I see no need to RAID them, they are plenty fast by themselves....
 
I see... Hopefully my quiet WD 80 GB will not go south on me or else I'll burst in tears again but yes I'm prepared and have a 250 GB external hd on order :)

Better to be safe than sorry :D
 
Just my luck, everything installed nicely except that the graphic card might be defective because whenever I install the driver, it will show disoriented images and freeze when I move or click on something.

This is another reason why I always hestiated to buy parts online......
 
Sounds like at least the windows install was smooth :) .As crosshairs mentioned (and in my 1st post) a drive failure means your data is indeed gone. That is a part of the raw transfer rate vs data security equation that needs to be weighed. A backup solution is, imo a must reguardless of the disk subsystem... a level 0 makes it even more important.

Keep in mind it is only a matter of time before the array breaks. It could chug along for years without any problems, but it could also fail tomorrow. I'd venture to say, based on nothing more than personal experience, most people who have run a level 0 for an extended period of time have lost the array at an inopportune time. But that is what backups are for. Not a bad idea to keep a similar sized spare drive laying around too.
 
I'll probably quit the whole raid thing or just go with raid 1. It seems like a safer option.

Now, another week of waiting for this rma........................................................................................dot dot dot etc....

P.S. Is performance decreased if I go on SATA 1?
 
yea i have those harddrives and been running windows xp for like 4 days and it crashed on me today now i have to reformat because of the stupid verifying DMI pool data invalid system Disk
 
dirtydr said:
I see claims being made that you can span sata & pata in a single array but have zero experience with nvraid... could be paper features or bs marketing. It seems somewhat of a pointless feature in cases such as your's though.

There would have to be a large performance hit adding ata-100 drives in a 3g array. I guess if someone had comparably sized 1st gen sata & pata drives laying around it would be better than going software if it works.

Thats another problem, usually when someone is on a board seeking advice its because they are having a problem. You rarely if ever see the title "My <insert hardware here> is performing flawlessly" :)

So is that array pretty snappy volkum?
Click to expand...

JBOD/spanning isn't really an array, but you're probably right. My stripe works pretty well. BF2 is definitely faster loading since I set up the array, but I don't really notice anything else being faster than before.
 
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