RAID 0 Set-Up Query

[RavenNight]

I want to set-up a RAID 0 with two Hitachi Deskstar SATA-II 80GB drives. I'm using an Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe mobo. I want to do it right from the start so the OS is striped, how do I do it?

[Shmee150]

I failed to do almost exactly that using the Nvidia RAID drivers, and used the Silicon Image ones instead, which are very easy. Make sure the drives are plugged into the correct headers on the mobo!

Take the cd that came with the mobo and find the button to create driver disk.

When turning on the computer, the SI RAID thing pops up briefly after the ai proactive display, press the button, then get the settings right as you want them.

Then comes installing windows, it just needs the driver by pressing F6 when the installation starts.

It's that easy

ShMeE

[GuruJockStrap]

If you don't need Raid 0 then don't bother with it.

For just over a year, I've been running 2x80GB Hitachi 7K250's in a Raid 0 arrary (128k stripe size) and have just recently replaced it with a 250GB Maxtor MaxLine III 16MB Cache drive and can't even tell the difference.

OS loads up the same time (actually quicker now), apps and games take the same time to load and the OS feels responsive just as before.

The only time I notice the difference is when transfering a big file (500MB+) but unless your doing this on a daily basis, its not a problem.

[herulach]

Shmee has it on the nose, but i too would reccomend against it, simply on data integrity grounds, youve prob never had a catastrophic filure, but youll do yourself a huge favour if you just use 2 disks, one for os and one for data, that way you can back up (a bit) and you really wont notice the performance difference

[aidanjt]

I have 2 raptors stripped, and belive me.. there's a difference, not just a tiny one either.. theres even a huge difference in performance depending on what controller I use as well.

[kempez]

I have 2 raptors stripped, and belive me.. there's a difference, not just a tiny one either.. theres even a huge difference in performance depending on what controller I use as well.

With my deskstars in RAID 0 there is a big difference in performance and loading times. Having said that: for an OS I would use RAID 1 for data integrity reasons.

[streetster]

If you don't need Raid 0 then don't bother with it.

For just over a year, I've been running 2x80GB Hitachi 7K250's in a Raid 0 arrary (128k stripe size) and have just recently replaced it with a 250GB Maxtor MaxLine III 16MB Cache drive and can't even tell the difference.

OS loads up the same time (actually quicker now), apps and games take the same time to load and the OS feels responsive just as before.

The only time I notice the difference is when transfering a big file (500MB+) but unless your doing this on a daily basis, its not a problem.

Possibly because windows had become 'clogged' up like it always does? and so a fresh install would appear to make everything more responsive/load quicker?

[herulach]

Possibly because windows had become 'clogged' up like it always does? and so a fresh install would appear to make everything more responsive/load quicker?

No, its almost certainly because a maxline 3 is faster than most raid 0 arrays.

[kalniel]

A 16mb cache will produce the same increase as a raid 0 pretty much. But it's not cheap.

As long as you don't have critical data on your PC, then raid 0 is fine - you basically double the chances of hard drive failure affecting your data, as failure on one drive kills the data on both with raid 0. But if you don't mind reinstalling anyway and backup important stuff it's not too bad.

As stated above, you basically need the drivers on a floppy (created with the CD if not provided) and hit the magical F6 when installing windows.

[kempez]

And obviously enabling RAID in the BIOS and going into the RAID BIOS and setting up a RAID 0 (stripe)

[GuruJockStrap]

Possibly because windows had become 'clogged' up like it always does? and so a fresh install would appear to make everything more responsive/load quicker?

Nope, I simply created an image of my Raid 0 array with Acronis onto my external USB drive and then restored it onto the Maxtor.

So its still the clogged Windows installation

Got the 250GB Maxtor Maxline III from Scan for £85 (free delivery) and selling my 2 Hitachi's to a mate for £50, so for an extra £35 I get a larger capacity drive and something that feels more faster and responsive that my previous setup.