Help our Rys!

[Tarinder]

But you see I've run into a snag. I've now got six SATA disks and eight ports to plug them in to, but across two different disk controllers, and I'm pondering the best way to set them all up. So I thought you guys could maybe help.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6710

Can you help our Rys?

[Stoo]

Buy a tape drive, back the whole bloody lot up, configure everything how you want to, restore the data back..

/coat..

[chrestomanci]

Buy a tape drive, back the whole bloody lot up, configure everything how you want to, restore the data back..

Yes, or borrow a huge hard drive for an evening.

I have recently decided to upgrade the HD in my PVR box from the OEM 160Gb unit to a 400Gb samsung. The new drive arrives today. Before I fit it into the PVR, I will be using it to rationalise the partion layout in my Linux server, as I can easly format the drive as ext3, and then copy everything to it, re-organise partions, and then copy everything back.

In your case, perhaps there are some large drives arround the office you could borrow overnight? I seam to recal a review a few months ago that fetured several 750Gb drives in a RAID setup. Alternatively have the Thecus NAS boxes gone back yet after the revew Hexus did earler in the week?

[Gordy]

By the way the discuss in forums link doesn't link here but the forums as a whole

[DR]

By the way the discuss in forums link doesn't link here but the forums as a whole

Fixed

[cjs150]

Buy a dedicated RAID 5 card (4 or 8 port) stick it into the PCI slot. Run one raptor outside the RAID 5 and stick the rest in RAID 5. Plenty of good cards out there - I use a Broadcomm 8 port card which works a treat and can expand the RAID volume on the fly if you want to add yet more discs to it.

[kalniel]

2 x WD Raptor 150GB - SATA2 with AHCI NCQ support - nothing on them
1 x WD Raptor 74GB - SATA with TCQ - nothing on it
1 x WD Raptor 74GB - SATA with TCQ - all 74GB taken up with Ubuntu install, could be removed
1 x Maxtor DM10 300GB - SATA with NCQ - data on it that can't be lost
1 x Maxtor DM10 300GB - SATA2 with NCQ - OS install and scratch data on it that can be lost

With the uberness of the rest of the kit and the benchmark-whoring I know he'd like, I'm surprised Rys isn't considering splashing out on a decent PCI-E raid controller.

Maybe something like this:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=408085
or
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=298158

The obvious layout of discs would be RAID 0 pairs of both raptors and keep the Maxtors as single disks.

Depending how reliable you wanted the OS you could keep the OS on the current maxtor, or if you wanted maximum speed I'd put the OS on the RAID 0 74gb raptors.

Absolute top performance would probably be to have each pair have it's own controller card attached through PCIE, though knowing Rys he'd probably want to run at least two gpus in there so leaving only one free PCIE slot.

So you'd end up with:

PCIE raid contoller card
2x Raptor 74gb RAID 0 - OS(es) install here
2x Raptor 150gb RAID 0 - Games and fastest requirements here.

ICHR7
1x Maxtor 300 JBOD - Vital data
1x Maxtor 300 JBOD - Scratch space.

If you can backup the vital data then consider running a RAID 1 with the two maxtor disks and have that as your safe data storage area.

As far as I know that setup works fine regardless of OS - you end up with 4 volumes to partition as you like (3 if you RAID 1 the maxtors).

[directhex]

With the uberness of the rest of the kit and the benchmark-whoring I know he'd like, I'm surprised Rys isn't considering splashing out on a decent PCI-E raid controller.

Maybe something like this:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=408085
or
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=298158

i feel it is my duty to point & laugh at you

highpoint don't do real RAID controllers, and the products you've linked aren't even slightly better than the existing onboard driver-based (fake)raid on the system

they certainly don't do any OS-independant products, which is the main purpose of a decent controller - and a decent controller isn't about speed, it's about reliable throughput and OS independence.

on a machine which is mostly underloaded, and not mission critical (i.e. a desktop) then what would you rather have doing your raid calculations - a 300MHz RISC chip, or a several GHz x86 chip? which is faster? the downside to software RAID on modern desktop systems is the OS dependence issue, not the performance.

if you feel like recommending real hardware controllers, link to products like http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=244413

[chuckskull]

I would recommend what Kalniel said, 2 RAID 0's with the raptors. Though I'd put the OS on the 150's as they are ever so slightly faster(depending on the age of the the 74's there could be quite a difference).

The onboard Silicon image RAID controller is ok and can handle running the two RIAD 0's with no sweat. So I wouldn't bother with a PCI-E raid controller, performance wise a second graphics card is much more important. Unless you change the motherboard and get 3 PCI-e slots.

Leave the two maxtors without RAID. Use for backups, movies, playing with linux partitions or whatever else.

[kalniel]

i feel it is my duty to point & laugh at you

highpoint don't do real RAID controllers, and the products you've linked aren't even slightly better than the existing onboard driver-based (fake)raid on the system

Duly noted The intention was correct, I just know nothing about raid controllers hence the 'maybe' in my post

[kalniel]

I would recommend what Kalniel said, 2 RAID 0's with the raptors. Though I'd put the OS on the 150's as they are ever so slightly faster(depending on the age of the the 74's there could be quite a difference).

The fact the 150s are faster is why I didn't put the OS on them - I'm probably wrong, but I assumed the largest amount of sequential reading + writing is more likely to be done with your data than with your OS.

The onboard Silicon image RAID controller is ok and can handle running the two RIAD 0's with no sweat. So I wouldn't bother with a PCI-E raid controller, performance wise a second graphics card is much more important. Unless you change the motherboard and get 3 PCI-e slots.

I thought his motherboard does have 3 pcie slots.

[chuckskull]

The fact the 150s are faster is why I didn't put the OS on them - I'm probably wrong, but I assumed the largest amount of sequential reading + writing is more likely to be done with your data than with your OS.

I thought his motherboard does have 3 pcie slots.

Ah you're right it does have 3, I was thinking of the wrong intel mobo.

As for where to put the OS, it's only goign to make a minute difference. I'd just have it on the newer disks personally. Either will be lighting fast, everytime I load a game I miss my Raptor RAID 0

[rjpearce]

Raid contoller 1
2x Raptor 150gb RAID 0 - OS + Games, Quick stuff etc. (300gb to play with)

ICHR7
2x Maxtor 300 JBOD - RAID 1 (All your data safe as houses, backup for raptors)

eBay:
2 x Raptor 74gb

[Nox]

if it were me:

i'd mirror the 300GB maxtors, back it up somewhere first tho.

Stripe the raptor 150's, bung windows on here, i would probably matrix them, with something around a 40/110 split, but this will depend on what you want to do really, and how you work, and will let you switch between a mirrored secondary or striped, depending how you feeling.

Have the two 74gb raptors as single disks - leave ubuntu on one, then you have the other for another os, scratch, whatever, kinda floating, probably fat32 for ease of data xfer between ubuntu and Windows, favorite mp3s etc.

Nox

[LockUp]

NOTE: Raptors are connected on the SI controller, the Maxtors connected to ICH7R.

Step 1: Stripe the two 150GB Raptors in RAID-0, referred to as 'RAID-A', on the SI controller, channels 1 and 2.

Step 2: Stripe the two 74GB Raptors in RAID-0, referred to as 'RAID-B', on the SI controller, channels 3 and 4.

Step 3: On RAID-B, install a temporary OS with a partition copying utilility which you're familiar with.

Step 4: Onto RAID-A, copy the 3 OS partitions from the first Maxtor drive. Copy the DATA2 partition from the second Maxtor drive to be the fourth partition. Copy the data inside the UTIL partition to the empty second partition on RAID-A.

Step 5: Boot into OS's on RAID-A (to make sure they work), then copy the DATA partition from the first Maxtor disk to RAID-B (overwriting the temp OS).

Step 6: Validate that all essential data is intact, then mirror the two Maxtor drives in RAID-1, referred to as 'RAID-C', on the ICH7R controller.

Step 7: Recreate the original second Maxtor disk, ie empty 30GB partition, 10GB UTIL partition (copy data back from the second partition of RAID-A), 150GB DATA partition (partition copy), 90GB DATA2 partition (partition copy). Validate copied data.

Step 8: Format the second partition on RAID-A, ready for you to install XP 64bit; delete the fourth partition on RAID-A and create your SCRATCH partition. Delete partition on RAID-B.

RAID-A (300GB in RAID-0) runs your Microsoft OS's and scratch data. RAID-B (150GB in RAID-0) can be used for your Linux OS and associated partitions, etc. RAID-C (300GB in RAID-1) is for your essential data. For future expansion, you can add another two large disks that are SATA2 to the unused channels of the ICH7R, either mirrored, striped or whatever.

[badass]

Hmmm data you cant lose.

Back it up before doing anything then!
In fact is it backed up already? It should be!
And why didn't you stretch out that little but further and get some Quad core goodness rather than the mundane () Extreme Dualie.
With quad core goodness, the fake RAID will have so much less of an impact on your system.