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Some general RAID questions

M

MPython8118

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 25, 2004
Messages
65
I have 1 60 GB drive, and need more storage space. One option I'm considering is getting another 60 GB drive and setting up a RAID 0. However, I'm not sure if this will work or not. Since both drives need to be the same size (I think they do at least, if not, correct me please), wouldn't it cause a problem if one of them has to hold the OS? Is it possible for me to do this, or would setting up a RAID 0 in this situation require a seperate drive for the OS, with two drives to make up the actual RAID?
 
You could put the OS onto a RAID config as long as it's bootable. Problem here is that you'll have to format both drives and start over if you plan to run RAID 0.

If that's not a problem, then you're good to go. Hook up the drives to the RAID controller, enter the bios (for the RAID controller, see the manual to know what to hit on boot), configure the array, initialize them, then install your OS.

You may need the drivers for the controller to install before Windows installs. When you're doing the installation, Windows will tell you to hit X (or whatever it is, can't recall) if you need to install a 3rd party driver... depends on your setup.

Oh yeah, you don't have to have matching HDDs in a RAID config, but your array will be based off whatever the smaller drive is, so you're better off using matched drives. Also, rotational speeds should be the same or else you'll run into issues.

With your existing 60 gig, if you add an 80 gig to it, your array will still be based on the 60 gig (RAID 0 would get you 120 gigs). If you put a 40 gig drive in, you'd have an 80 gig array with RAID 0.

If losing your current HDD isn't an option, you can either buy two new drives and create the array, then move everything over or you can just buy a single new drive to connect without RAID. If you go the second route, you could pick up a drive with an 8mb cache for some performance increase. Then just ghost your existing drive onto the new one and keep the older one connected for data.

Good Luck.
 
Originally posted by animeguru
Windows will tell you to hit X (or whatever it is, can't recall)
Click to expand...

F6
it will ask if there are any additional SCSI drivers you wish to install (extra IDE controllers employ SCSI drivers, including IDE\IDE RAID PCI cards and onboard RAID chips)

and while you dont absolutely have to have matching drives its highly recommended, each HDD model employs unique algorithms to prefetch and cache reads and writes, the RAID controller will have to deal with two different schemes if they arent identical, and that typically hurts performance and in the worse case senerio can lead to corruption issues (though its now rare)

Just keep in mind that a RAID0 more than doubles your chance for data loss (failure of either HDD destroys the whole array) so its the MeanTimeBeforeFailure of the HDD model x 2 + the MTBF of the controller which could be replaced in all likelyhood, however if its "onboard" do you really want to buy a new mobo based on it have an identical RAID controller to your last mobo? And in the event that it IS onboard, add in the MTBF of the mobo itself. I wrote off a RAID 0 array just for that reason when my mobo died, that in a nutshell is the advantage of a card, you can migrate it to a new mobo ;)
 
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