Raid 0 & some who knows something about it...

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huntrik

n00b
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May 8, 2008
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Hey guys,

I just bought 2 Velocirapors 300g drives and currently have a WD 640g drive with really nothing on it. My question is: What is the best way to set this puppy up? I want to do Raid 0 on the two raptors but I don't know where to start. Do I want to wipe Vista x64 off the 640g drive and install it on one of the raptors? Do I have to reinstall the OS on 1 of the drives before I can set raid? I will be using the s/w raid that came with the mobo. I'm not concerned about losing data if a drive fails, this is purely about speed. Here is what I'm working with:

Abit IP35 Pro
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813127030
Tagan 900w PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817814013
(2) WD Velociraptors 300g
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136260
(1) WD 640g 7200 SATA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218
G.Skill DDR2 1000 (4x2g)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231145
E8400 oc'd 3.25ghz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037
MSI NX8800GTS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127325

Thanks in advance for your advice!!

Hunt
 
From personal experience, i formatted my 2 drives and then set up the RAID array in BIOS. That allows the windows installer to read it as a single drive.
 
You will need to install both of the new drives. You will go into the BIOS and set up RAID 0. It will prompt you for the drives you wish to use and the stripe size. Default is usually 128 kb, 64 will work well also. This is the size at which it will split the files. With 128 kb, any file under that size goes on 1 drive. a 150 kb file will have 128 go on one drive, the rest on the other. As files get larger, it will alternately split them between the drives. A smaller stripe size is potentially faster, but has more processing overhead. You may also need to set the array as bootable. After you have set your BIOS options, you will install your OS. XP most likely requires pressing F6 on install and loading drivers from a floppy. Vista does not. Create a partition and format and install as normal. It will appear as 1 drive to the OS. Be careful of updating drivers for the array if not necessary, it may break the stripe. Also do not change BIOS settings on the array after you have set it up, it will break the stripe, and you will be left with 2 separate halves of your data, pretty much unusable and unrecoverable.
 
How do you know if the stripe has been broken? Will it show up as 2 seperate drives again?


Huntrik
 
when a stripe is broken, all the data on it is lost..... so if you used to boot from it, then it wont boot at all.
 
Correct, it will just give an invalid boot device at the BIOS screen. It will never try to load anything, it won't be able to read any complete files. It is pretty rare though. The last time I saw it was many years ago on a machine where they updated the RAID BIOS as part of a Motherboard BIOS update, and they warned it could happen with that particular revision. You should not worry too much about it happening, but be prepared that it could. Run backups with RAID 0 and know the risks. I have been doing it for 7 years though, and the only failure I've ever had was a pair of IBM 60GXP drives, and I think those had a 100% failure rate anyway.
 
How should I proceed? My IP35 Pro matched with my E8400 shows a core temp of 1-3c. Abit is aware of this and for me to fix it I need to flash the bios and clear the cmos. What should I do? Take the game and other files I want to keep and move them to my 640g drive in case my stripe breaks? What would you do here?

Hunt
 
ask them if the flash has been known to destroy the raid.
ask in the mobo forums for people with the same setup.
someone with that chipset and a similar setup had to have flashed the mobo, so they will be able to answer.
as a general rule, always back up before doing anything that *might* cause data loss.

Heres an idea
1) Create Raid 0 for 200GB (100+100 off each VRaptor)
2) Create Raid 1 for 200GB with the rest of the space.
3) Use Acronis or something simlar to back the Raid 1 the acronis back up partition and make regular backups to it (once a week?)

its a fake Raid 01 using only 2 drives, the only real problem is if a drive dies, you need to do 2 restores. first restore the raid 1, then from the raid 1 restore the raid 0

This is only possible with Matrix raid.
Also, by not using the Raid 1 all the time, you keep your Raid 0 at peak performance. with a hit only when a backup is being done.
 
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