RAID on board Motherboard

[pjkent]

Hi All,

Couple of questions (well, maybe three) before I spend my hard earned cash...

- Are there any recommended ATX motherboards that support RAID 1?

- Can you install an already used hard disk into a RAID configuartion as the primary and a blank drive as the secondary, so that the secondary will build a mirror of whats already on the primary, or can you only start with two blank disks?

- If you take an existing drive with Windows on it, how will it react to a new motherboard (and CPU / RAM) - will it ask you to activate Windows again as there's been a mass hardware change?

Thanks for any help :-)

PJ

[GoNz0]

intel over nvidia for raid

i think the initial drive has to be raid 1 already

yeh u will have to activate again with something as major as a motherboard, and quite possible a repair install will be needed as your changing chipsets.

best bets backup and start agian or you will never see the benefits of raid.

[BUFF]

- Are there any recommended ATX motherboards that support RAID 1?

loads.
if you are looking at an Intel CPU mobo & don't require SLI for gfx then get something with an Intel chipset & an ICH9R southbridge e.g. abit IP35.

[DDY]

The data on all hard drives will be erased if you attempt to RAID them (at least on ICH9R), back up the contents of the hard drives before setting up RAID.

There will be a right mess if you keep an existing installation of windows and change the motherboard, the amount of 'mess' will depend on how different the hardware is. Personally I never bother with windows repair when changing motherboards, it takes just as long as a fresh install and there is a chance that windows will bork after doing it. Either way you should back up your data, regardless.

As already mentioned there are loads of motherboards that support RAID1. P35, X38 and X48 boards usually come with ICH9R southbridges which are great for RAID1, make sure it's the ICH9R though.