noob RAID questions

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stevecamp09

Limp Gawd
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Mar 27, 2009
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I am running the system in my sig and would like to setup RAID 1 when I pick up another WD Caviar Black. My question is related to the setup of RAID and SATA modes. If I change the SATA controller mode in the mobo to be RAID, will that effectively make my boot drive (x25-m SSD) a RAID drive also (or is there a way to have different modes)? and if so, will that affect TRIM being passed to it? Or does anyone know if I can set the mode for the 2 data drives to be RAID and leave the SSD drive running as AHCI? Or am I worrying about nothing here!? Any recommendations appreciated!

Thanks

EDIT: having done more reading, should I have to enable TLER on these 2 drives or is this something you should only do if you encounter issues with the array?
 
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On my motherboard it has 4 sata connections, and the ability to set up channels A, ( A1 and A0 ) or B (B1 or B0 ) as sata raid or all 4 channels. I would assume your easiest option is to dig around your bios and see what options you have, that or someone with that same mobo could maybe straight out tell you.
 
All drives will be managed via the RAID controller but drives that aren't part of arrays will still show up as normal single drives and TRIM nor anything else should be affected.

I never bothered with TLER. Don't know if it's on, and don't care considering the array has been fine for a year. If/when something happens to it, I will run the WDTLER util.
 
Pretty sure your mb is like my p6t, AHCI is enabled by default when you switch from IDE to RAID and no, it won't affect TRIM. I wouldn't worry at all...just flip on RAID and have a nice day.
 
Thanks for all the replies. Seems like there are issues with the newer (possibly Feb 2010) manufactured Caviar Black drives having TLER locked down in the firmware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/255916-32-caviar-black-raid

Seems like unless you get lucky and get an older drive, there might be issues with enabling TLER. Apparently the Caviar RE (RAID edition??) come with TLER enabled already. I wonder if you can RAID a black and an RE version since only the firmware is different? Or chance your arm on getting a black that won't drop from the array...thoughts?
 
I'd like to know what kind of RAID array that guy was running and on what controller. RAID0 and RAID1 are so simple and basic that they work with almost any disks on almost any controller. People that get lots of failures are usually using RAID5 or other high-level RAIDs on on-board controllers, and/or are just using a bad controller. These are the problems that usually arise in RAID. If you're just setting up RAID1, and it's on an Intel RAID controller (your board is ICH10R or its X58 equivalent), and you're using WD drives, I say go for it.
 
NoForgiveness said:
I'd like to know what kind of RAID array that guy was running and on what controller. RAID0 and RAID1 are so simple and basic that they work with almost any disks on almost any controller. People that get lots of failures are usually using RAID5 or other high-level RAIDs on on-board controllers, and/or are just using a bad controller. These are the problems that usually arise in RAID. If you're just setting up RAID1, and it's on an Intel RAID controller (your board is ICH10R or its X58 equivalent), and you're using WD drives, I say go for it.
Click to expand...

Once again, appreciate your thoughts. I'm considering trying to RAID1 the black plus one of the RE editions of the WD drives, assuming that will work at all. Problem then is, assuming that TLER is most likely disabled on the black, that if I hit the issue some others have, it will drop from the array and need to be replaced. Hopefully won't suffer any data loss as a result :(
 
Raid controllers usually support different RAID groups, so you can include or exclude different drives in raid.
 
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