raid guide for dummies... please?

[kietsmark1975]

I purchased a motherboard that has a very good feature on raids (as they said), i dont know anything about raid, how to make them, the advantages of having, so on and so on...
when i am browsing the manual of my gigabyte motherboard GA-965P-DQ6 i am excited to use those raid features that comes in with the board.

is it very useful for me to have RAID if i intend to use my desktop computer at home only?

Can somebody give me simple guides in laymans term about RAID?

tnx and cheers!

[alsenior]

i have one coming hopefully later today. that you might be able to use

[kietsmark1975]

hey there alsenior! can't wait to see what you prepare for us beginners on raid...
tnx for the effort... keep it up!

[ikonia]

if you don't know much about raid - your probably not going to use it or make use of it.

[peterb]

Google is your friend - there is LOTS of info about RAID out there...

[kietsmark1975]

nice reply ikonia lol that's why they say life is a learning process! never stops on something you know! explore and always try new things! hahaha anyhow don't bother to give me a tip or anything... i can sense you are not that kind of person who wants to share the knowledge that you have... hahaha
keep it to yourself! lol

[ikonia]

Not at all, search my posts, I'm happy to share any knowledge I have.

If you believe life is a learning experience, then why have you not read the basics from the many sites google offer as an introduction to raid.

however you've bought a mother board based on a technology you know nothing about and asking what do I do with raid to get the most out of it.

Well, if you've no idea what raid is your probably not at the level where you are using applications/computers to get much use out of raid.

There ar a few basic types of raid

Raid 0 - multiple disks striped to make one "virtual" disk. This is the most common raid used on home users mothers boards as people believe it gives them a performance advantage. This is a high risk raid as if one of your disks has any type of failure your whole system is messed up to the point of recovering from a backup or re-installing (most commonly).

Raid 1 this is the mirroring of disks so if you have 2 disks you use a "virtual" disk and data is written to both disks. There is a small perfomance over head on this, however its used for critical data or high availability systems.

Raid 5 like raid one but with a parity stripe for ressilience where multiple disks are made in to one larger disk.

thats the basics of it (skipping raid 1+0, 6 and 10)

but if you don't know this sort of thing, your probably not using your PC at a level where this will become relevant.

[kietsmark1975]

hey there ikonia! tnx anyway... lol

i reli prefer to ask on forums like these because this is were experience people reli gives answers to the questions... web sites are kind of boring... no interaction at all as for my opinion... lol

yup, i may not know these for now but would you be happy if i make a post someday showing my gratitude coz u helped me? and i learnt from you?... lol

what is very confusing for me is... what it is reli? RAID is for safe keeping of files? or does it contribute to a system performance boost? i mean does it make the CPU more faster?

how was it compare to the express recovery most of the motherboards offer? or norton goback?

[alsenior]

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...62#post1145162

[ikonia]

I think you need to read up on basic raid theory from the web or the url alsenior suggested as its clear you've not grasped anything I've said to you.

spelling mistakes are easy to make, god knows I make enough of them, but try to make your posts legiable so that they can at least be followed. Your last post is really hard to get the point you want.

[Agent]

Well, if you've no idea what raid is your probably not at the level where you are using applications/computers to get much use out of raid.

kietsmark1975, buddy, listen to this man. He may come across as a bit forward sometimes, but he has it bang on
If you dont know what RAID is, its almost certain that you would gain no advantage from using it

*if* you did go with RAID, i'd only recommend RAID 1 (which is a fail-safe against a drive dieing) and not RAID 0, which should only be used by a few people that *really* know they need it

[kietsmark1975]

i guess i get ur point ikonia and agent... correct me if i am mistaken... the use of RAID will depend on what application u r using? and for what purpose ur computer will be use for? how about cga?
if it s then... can you give me examples of profession or nature of work that might require RAID? or use of computer that will require RAID aside from server...

anyhow... i give thanks to alsenior for being patient on people like me... there are no mistakes on learning something you don't know... cheers! if you can't dig it! dig it again! lol thanks again alsenior! i'll let u know when i make progress! chow... lol

[peterb]

If you bother to do a google search (try raid arrays) you will find lots of basic i nformation about types and uses or raid arrays - which then then give ypu the knowledge to ask specific implementation questions about your specific situation, should you require it.

[b0redom]

Basically as Ikonia said:

RAID-0 - slightly faster than a single disk - but if one disk fails you're stuffed
RAID-1 - mirrors a single disk so that if one fails you're still safe - but you need 2 disks and loose the capacity of 1
RAID-5 - similar to RAID-1 in that if a disk dies you don't loose the data, but given x disks, you will get (x-1) capacity

All of these have CPU performance overheads, so you're unlikely to get a benefit at the level you're at - they only really give you an advantage if you're using a dedicated RAID controller and you know what you're doing.

Please refrain from using 'txt spk' and punctuating every paragraph with 'lol' as it makes you sound like an idiot.

[mycarsavw]

It's all been covered already but;

Start with the Wiki article here then follow the links in the "External links" section at the foot of the page.

Plenty of information there.