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RAID5 problem

P

plaus

n00b
Joined
Mar 11, 2008
Messages
20
Last week I've bought 3 HDD's of 1TB and I wanted to put those in RAID5 with my onboard Intel ICH9R Southbridge RAID controller.
I selected the 3 terabyte disks and made a RAID5 array out of it but afterwards my Vista couldn't boot anymore. The OS is installed on a 500gb boot disk that's not in any raid setup but is also connected to the raid controller (as it's the only way to connect sata to my motherboard without adding an extra controller). A dvd player is also connected to the controller (works fine).
For now I have switched RAID back to IDE in my bios so my os can boot. I'm still not using those HDDs.

What is it that makes it impossible for my OS to boot when the 3 other disks are in RAID5? Is this completely impossible or did I forget something simple?
Is it possible that I'd have to buy an extra controller just for the os so that it can boot (with the 3 hdd's in raid5 onthe other controller)

I really want to start using the RAID5 array asap so I'll be more than grateful if you could help me out :)
Btw, what is the stripe size you advise? (4-128kb / standard 64kb)

And is that onboard raid controller decent? someone told me that your cpu still has to do most of the calculations so that I'd better buy a standalone RAID controller.
Which controller do you guys advise (if this would be necessary)? If I am to buy one I'm gonna buy one with at least 6 SATAII ports.
I'll mainly be using these disks for storing data..HD content etc :)

btw I might wanna expand my array later on to eventually have like 6*1TB in a RAID5 array..so I might wanna buy a controller which supports this option (if this is possible but I think I've read it somewhere)
 
OK well the reason you can boot is because when you turn your onboard raid on it takes the sata ports out of IDE mode as you stated....Well when you installed vista you installed it in IDE mode so there arent any drivers for raid for AHCI installed. If you want to use the onbrad raid you will probably have to reinstall the OS. You may be able to get it to work without but you could probably do a fresh install and reinstall your apps faster than it will take you to tinker with vista to get it to load with raid.

64 or 128 stripe size should be fine.

If you want to do RAID5 I would get a controller but they can be expensive. The onboard controller is going to use the CPU for the parity calculation. You could go the cheap route and get a Dell Perc5/i for around $120 but if you want something else you will probably spend upwards of $300.
 
Well I think I'm gonna order a 300$ raid controller then..I really wanna expand my raid5 array later on without having to format everything so I need a good controller.
What controller do you advise? Gonna google a bit
 
how many ports?
do you want to be able to control SAS devices?
how much do you want to spend?
 
Adaptec 5405 is a high performance SAS controller at a decent price. It uses a PCIe X8 slot and has a ton of features plus 1.2GB/s bandwidth.
 
If you don't mind buying used hardware, you could buy a Dell Perc 5/i card off eBay for ~$125 or so plus two of these SFF-8484 to 4 x SATA Cables for ~$25. Thus, you get 8 ports and a true hardware RAID controller for around ~$150 or so. Add a battery backup unit for ~$50 and you're set in case of power outages. Not a bad deal considering that a new true PCI-E hardware RAID controller is around $300 (Areca ARC-1210) for 4 ports. But those Dell Perc 5/i cards are a bit finicky about motherboards. It will take up PCI-E x16 slot if you don't have a PCI-E x8 slot.

Read these threads for more info:
Finally went to a Hardware Raid5 controller...
Dell Perc 5/i - Mainboard Compatibility List
Solution for Dell Perc 5/i for Intel Chipsets
 
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