RAID question

I

Ikrit

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Jan 3, 2005
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Can anyone help clarify the different types of raid, and what they do? Will my motherboard come with raid drivers?
 
Did you read the manual first? Because that will have a step by step process pretty much of what you need to do.
 
I would read the manual for further information and how to set up your RAID array...

But here's some basics:

That DFI Lanparty UT NF4 Ultra-D board has 2 different controllers... IDE and SATA. Both support RAID 0 and 1.

RAID 0 is striping. (Stripes data across multiple drives. Requires a minimum of 2 drives)
Very fast, but no redundancy at all. If one drive fails, you lose all data.


RAID 1 is mirroring. (Copies same data across multiple drives. Requires a minimum of 2 drives)
Not nearly as fast as RAID 0, BUT you have redundancy. If one drive fails, you have an exact copy of the data on the other drive(s). From there, you can replace the bad drive and repair the array to have full data once again on all drive(s).
 
For that motherboard you have 2 options RAID 1 or RAID 0.

RAID 0 is stripping.
You need 2 hdd's and a portion of data is writen to both. RAID 0 has no redundancy, so if 1 hdd fails you lose everything.Example: If you have 2 80Gb hdd's you'll get a 160Gb in RAID 0.

RAID 1 is mirroring.
You need 2 hdd's, the data is written to both drives. RAID 1 is redundant so if 1 hdd fails you can run off of the other and rebuild the array with no data loss. Example: If you have 2 80Gb hdd's you'll get a 80Gb in RAID 1.


As far as setting up RAID on that mother board, you'll need to read the manual. Setup varies slightly on most motherboards.

EDIT: Here's a link that explains all of the raid types and what is required to run each. It also touches on performnce. Good read:
http://www.bytepile.com/raid_class.php

EDIT2: LMAO! Beat to the punch....

DS
 
[KFKAS]Death-Speak said:
EDIT2: LMAO! Beat to the punch....
Click to expand...


Ah.. yes.. I did beat you. :D

But you gave some example setups which help explain things as well. :)
 
thanks for the help- I didn't read the manual because I don't have the board or second drive yet, I was checking before I bought any of it. I think I'm going to do RAID 0, as both of my 80s are new.
 
Can I have the two drives on the same IDE channel?

I looked in my motherboard's manual, but it the only time it mentions RAID is in the features list, under "Onboard RAID contoller!"
Supremely unhelpful.

Sorry for all the questions.
 
Ikrit said:
Can I have the two drives on the same IDE channel?

I looked in my motherboard's manual, but it the only time it mentions RAID is in the features list, under "Onboard RAID contoller!"
Supremely unhelpful.

Sorry for all the questions.
Click to expand...

You will most likely need the driver on floppy to install the raid drivers when first installing Windows.

As far as onboard raid, I'm not sure... I believe you can, due to the fact that there is only 1 IDE raid controller on that board. It will be slower than regular RAID 0 due to the fact that it is using the same channel to support 2 drives writing continuous versus using 1 channel per drive. I myself prefer a standalone RAID solution as it tends to be a lot quicker and smoother than onboard.
 
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