So, how do you actually bulid a raid array in mobos with built-in raid controller?

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sram

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I read my p35-dq6 manual, and the way I understands it is that you hook the two drives(say i'm doing RAID0) to sata ports with the same controller. And then you go to ur BIOS setup I think and you enable raid and then sometine during POST you hit some keys to go into RAID configuration utility......there your drives will be detected and you can set them up as RAID0 for example.......

is this almost right?

And what is software RAID as opposed to hardware RAID ? is it the same issue with software/hardware modems ?? with the hardware option being the better one of course? and that's because you have a hardware that is dedicated to control the array instead of taking some cpu power to simulate the function of the controller?

Can any system run RAID by downloading a peice of software, no right?
 
Well, "software RAID" in the Windows world is something of a misnomer, as there is a hardware aspect to it. A Linux machine can run full software RAID (and probably Windows boxes too, though I suspect the array would not be bootable) but it is slower than having a dedicated controller, even a partial software RAID controller on your motherboard.

Yes, hardware RAID is always better, because the dedicated processors on hardware RAID cards are better suited to handling the work load, and it doesn't require waiting for cycles from the CPU, along with other potential issues like bus width and speed. Having a 300Mhz processor on the RAID card itself is quicker than stealing a few cycles from a chip on the motherboard and the CPU both for rather obvious reasons.


As for array setup with software RAID, yep, you seem to have it sorted out for the most part. Everything else is board/BIOS specific.
 
Hmmm, you are implying that I'll be using software RAID? So there isn't a real hardware RAID controller in my GA-P35-DQ6?


Thanks.
 
sram said:
Hmmm, you are implying that I'll be using software RAID? So there isn't a real hardware RAID controller in my GA-P35-DQ6?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Correct, your mobo has what most call software RAID.

There are basically 3 different basic implementations in the software vs. hardware question.

One, is completely done by the OS on any IDE/sata controller. Windows calls it Dynamic Disks.

Second, is the raid controller you have on your motherboard ICH8R/9R, jmicron, highpoint, low end promise controllers. They use a hardware controller to setup the raid and control some functions so that it looks like one SCSI device drive to the OS, but all (or most) of the calculations are done by the CPU. This is usually the preferable method as there is a very good cost/performance ratio sinec many motherboards come with this. It's very fast for RAID0 and RAID1. If you were to run RAID5, where every read or write required a lot of parity calculations, you would suffer some performance degradation because your main CPU would have to handle this.

Full hardware raid, $300+ controller cards, handle all those parity calculations themselves, like a hardware accelerated video/sound card.

As you can imagine, the average enthusiast is served quite well by the raid controllers that relay on the system's CPU.

But yes, you got the first part right. With my old ABIT board, I had to hit CTRL+H just after the regular bios to enter the Highpoint RAID bios. I don't know what it is with intel boards, I haven't done it in a long time, but if you have your SATA ports in bios set to RAID and not to IDE Emulation then you should see a screen just after bios that will tell you what keys to press.
 
Yea, that was a good analogy, it is REAL RAID that is on your motherboard. Think of it like old Quake2. You had software rendering mode that was all done on the CPU and you had hardware accerlerated by video card OpenGL mode. Both were real Quake, one just ran much faster.

The difference for RAID0 and RAID1 is usually very minimal. I don't think you start to see the benefits of a full hardware controller until you start doing RAID5 party stuff and on up.
 
If you set up RAID in BIOS then it is hardware RAID. If not, then it is software RAID. I suggest freenas for an easy to use software RAID solution.
 
Also, if you want to boot Windows from the RAID drive you setup in the RAID bios, you will need to have a floppy disk with the drivers ready during the install phase when it asks you to hit F6 to install 3rd party drivers.

Don
 
DonDon said:
Also, if you want to boot Windows from the RAID drive you setup in the RAID bios, you will need to have a floppy disk with the drivers ready during the install phase when it asks you to hit F6 to install 3rd party drivers.

Don
Click to expand...
This is also true if you run your sata ports in AHCI mode to get all the extra protocal benefits from the SATA interface. But also you only need to deal with antiquated floppy discs/drives if your using an oudated OS like WinXP.

Vista you can load from optical drive or USB mass storage device. There's also a good chance Vista wont even need that much, Vista had my ICH8R drivers built in so I didn't have to deal with that. I don't know if it's the same for ICH9R, but I'd say it's likely.
 
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