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How to setup Raid0?

H

hdawg06

2[H]4U
Joined
Nov 12, 2006
Messages
2,095
I'm new to the whole RAID thing, so I need some advice. I will be building my computer in a few days(when the parts arrive), and was wondering, do I do this in the BIOS or where? I will be using the Seagate 7200.10rpm 250gb SATA hard drive x2 and the P5B Deluxe motherboard with the ICH8R South bridge. Now, does the ICH8R constitute as a RAID Controller, or do I need to order one to get this thing going? I am a complete n00b about RAID setups.

EDIT: The motherboard also said it had "SATA RAID: 0/1/5/10 Matrix RAID".
 
It might be different with every mobo, but I'll tell you the process.

First, get SATA/RAID drivers from the mobo manufacturer off their website (might also come on the utility cd). Put them on a floppy.

Next, hook it all up and boot the machine. Go into the bios, and enable your RAID controllers and enable RAID. (my last two mobos have been different). I basically enable anything that says RAID or SATA. You'll just have to look around the BIOS. Reboot

If you enabled everything correctly, after the post screen you will forever have a 5 second screen that asks you to "press a certain key to enter RAID setup". You hit whatever key it wants, and basically just wing it on the following screen. Mine has you select the drives you want in the array, and then select which RAID you want. If it doesn't outright say "RAID 0, RAID 1, etc.", just know that "striping" = RAID 0. You then also select "stripe size" in certain size increments. I don't know which is better, but I do know I noticed no difference between 64k and 128k. google for the best performing stripe size. On my old AI7, 128k was supposedly the best performing one, per an [H] review.

Next, set boot priority to CD and put in your Winders disk or whatever OS your using. (stop reading now if you use anything but windows)

As soon as your windows setup screen loads, it will say "PRESS F6 TO INSTALL BLAH BLAH DRIVERS". This is critical. If you don't hit f6, it doesn't ask for the drivers a little later, and it won't see your HD's. Hit F6, it does its usual thing, except in a couple of minutes it looks at your floppy, most of the time there are a couple options to choose from. Guessing game for me, but whatever.

1 thing to note, is if the SATA drivers you download come in a ZIP or other archived file, they must be extracted to the floppy. There is a text file in the archive that windows looks at. Also, you'll know which drivers to use from the website cause they must be small enough to fit on a floppy, obviously.

And before you even ask, yes you can partition up your array any way you want as if it were just 1 HD. Windows will see it as 1 drive, not quite the size of the 2 drives put together. my 2 80's = like 153 gigs. You can partition it up and select which partition to install on just like any other time you installed windows.

Hope this helps. No one answered my questions a long time ago and I couldn't find good answers from google so I had to wing it. You get to benefit from that. :D
 
mdameron said:
(...) just know that "striping" = RAID 0. You then also select "stripe size" in certain size increments. I don't know which is better, but I do know I noticed no difference between 64k and 128k. google for the best performing stripe size. On my old AI7, 128k was supposedly the best performing one, per an [H] review. (...)
Click to expand...

just one thing: i recomend that u install windows and do a HD Tach after each fresh install ... in some cases (depending on motherboard / chipset / windows version / your mood), it would give u more performance an 16k stripe or an 256k stripe size ... i suggest u test them all and look by yourself what stripe is the fastest for you ;)

Excellent post BTW

Greetings ;)
 
Why do you want RAID 0? Do you actually have a use for it, will the benefits outweigh the risks for your use?
 
mdameron said:
You don't understand MY post? lol, i hope that is not the case.
Click to expand...

I was referring to Unreal4u's post on HD taching.

I will be using it for the speed. If I lose a hard-drive, yipee, I have most of my important stuff on disks anyways, so I don't care if I lose games/movies that are on the computer that I will be able to put back on in a few hours.
 
hdawg06 said:
I was referring to Unreal4u's post on HD taching.

I will be using it for the speed. If I lose a hard-drive, yipee, I have most of my important stuff on disks anyways, so I don't care if I lose games/movies that are on the computer that I will be able to put back on in a few hours.
Click to expand...

The thing is that RAID 0 doesn't speed up everything. And sometimes slows things down.

So it depends on what you will be doing with the computer if RAID 0 makes sense for you.
 
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