Setting up RAID 0 on new system 2

[skurpyun]

OK, i believe this is the right forum. First off, this is my very first time putting my own pc together (normally i'd just give dell a call and 1 week later....shazaamm...dude i got a dell!). So forgive my lack of knowledge in this area.

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Issue: I want to set up RAID 0 on my new system. I've got 2 200GB Maxtor HDs on a Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO NForce 3 250. This motherboard comes with RAID 0/1. My question is, when installing the HDs, do i set the jumpers for both HDs to be masters? Or do i do the standard 1 HD is the master, the other the slave? I have not been able to find an answer to this question online.
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Again, i'm a newbie at this RAID stuff, so any help/info is highly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[franklin97355]

What does the manual say? I would think if they are on the same IDE cable one must be slave but I don't have IDE raid on any of my boxes.

 

[skurpyun]

Manual? What manual? LOL
Just kidding. The manual talks about how to set up the HD jumpers in a non-RAID configuration. But for a RAID configuration, it says nothing about how to configure the jumpers!

I was actually just reading an article about setting up RAID using 2HDs and the author set up their 2 HDs both as masters (one primary, one secondary). I will try this later this afternoon. If all goes well, and noone posts the 'definitive' way of setting jumpers for a 2HD RAID 0 configuration, i'll come back and posts my success (or failure as the case may be...yikes!!).

thanks for your response franklin97355.

- sk

 

[Bozz]

I'd use cable select. You have got to be using the 80 wire cables for new moainboards and they are designed to work with cable select, the masters being the devices on the end. I'm not sure, but if you set the drive as master then use it on the middle connector it may not work.

Ian Boys
DTE Systems Ltd

 

[net4ward]

Bozz, (Ian Boys)

How does one get in touch with you?

I saw your posting on Comp.Lang.Clipper in reference to a security system for a Clipper app. I am in the same boat right now and I want to know how you made out in your research.

 

[ajroxit]

raid is simple to work out. hook the drives to the IDE connectors on the RAID controller, jump them like you would any other hard drive {master and slave on each channel}, enable the raid controller in the BIOS {if its onboard}, reboot and when the RAID configuration screen comes up hit the key combination it asks you to to enter the configuration utility {just after the POST}, when the configuration utility comes up follow the onscreen instructions to build the RAID set you want and pick the drives you want to use in the RAID set. heres a little info on RAID as some mfg's use the number nominclature:
RAID 0 :
stripe set {fastest but you really should use the same size and type of hard drives}
spanned volume {normal speed but any size drives can be used to ether with no size loss}
RAID 1 :
mirroring { only works with 2 drives and is the slowest in some cases, data written to drive1 is rewritten to drive2, drives are on the same controller which can be a problem if the controller/channel dies}
duplexing (same as mirroring but on different controllers}
RAID 5 :
striping with parity {allows the functionality of a stripe set and the redundancy of mirroring so it's the second fastest as you need a minimum of 3 drives, 2 for the stripe set and 1 for the parity}
heres a couple tips:
RAID 0 {striping} tends to work faster on separate IDE channels as the controller doesnt have to wait on the slave and can send a burst rate on each channel to its full potential. where 2 drives on the same channel {master and a slave} you divide the burst rate in two.
so pick the master off of IDE3 and the master off of IDE4 for a bit more performance.
good luck
AJ

 

[Bozz]

Net4ward

The security system is going well and almost finished. I decided to do a stand alone programme that loads other programmes rather than build it into my main app. I ended up using the Six RDD which has a native database encryption function and encrypted the keys themselves to keep the indexes private.

You can get me on ian at dtesystems dot fsnet dot co dot uk



Ian Boys
DTE Systems Ltd

 

[skurpyun]

ajroxit,franklin97355,Bozz,

thank you all for the response. I have been incredibly busy the past week, hence the lag in time with my response.

The result, I set up one HD as master, and the other as slave, and all seems to be working fine as the RAID controller recognized both HDs and created the array. I will be using a striped array (RAID 0) for now, and in a few months a may go to RAID 0+1.

So thank you all for the response and the info.
- sk