If anybody knows anything about raid configuration...

S

SuzukiGS750EZ

Joined
Dec 30, 2008
Messages
4,563
Can ya help me out? I'm not new to the computer scene, i do computer work for others, but as far as raid is concerned, this is a new stepping stone for me. I've always known about it, but never had somebody ask me to set one up or have another drive available for myself. Well, i may, if need be, do a clean install of windows. I have all the appropriate drivers, list of programs etc. that you need if you debug/format drives a lot. Anyways, i tried setting up RAID 1 with my stock 80gb SATA and my new (to me) 160gb SATA. Both run at 7200rpm i believe, if not then 5400 for the 80gb. I can run raid on my computer, but when i installed the raid storage manager from intel and combined the drives, it only let me install raid 1 and it's set at 76 (80) gb. Now, i don't even know if the 160 was wiped off or not, haven't checked. I was just meaning to see if raid could work, and i know you can "un"raid drives if need be. My question is, i kind of wanted raid 0. My setup is SATA 0 i believe and sata 5. 5 is the new 160 but i think the 80 is on sata0. So, help me out here! This raid configuration would be considered software since no raid controller is installed as hardware, correct? Is there a way to get "240gb" or am i stuck with the smaller drive size. I also have an 80gb SATA, but i dont know if it works or not. I got a box with 2 SATA (160 and 80) and then 5 or 6 other IDE, which i have no use for, all 80gb. Help would be greatly appreciated.
 
AFAIK you can't do what you're looking for with a RAID system. You need to configure the two drives in a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) configuration. This won't give you any performance or safety margin as other RAID systems can provide, but it will allow you to access the entire contents of both, unequally-sized drives as a single file system. It basically concatenates one drive to the other.

EDIT: I should point out that a JBOD doubles your risk of catastrophic data loss, because now you have double the chance of your file system becoming corrupt due to having two separate pieces of hardware. In other words, it only takes one drive to fail in order for you to lose the contents of both drives.
 
But raid 1 is a mirror drive, so it's backed up on both drives, so if one fails the other is safe. Raid 0 is a data loser.
 
True, but I thought you wanted to be able to use all 240GB of drive space....can't do that with a RAID and unequal drive sizes.
 
Well, I would like to run raid0, but as of right now i run raid1. If it's incorrectly configured i'd like to fix it. As far as i can tell, it doesn't ask to boot to a different operating system and i see no added files to my system, would i if the other disk wasn't empty? It didn't ask me to format the 160gb. It just started migrating files. Would i be better off to just put the 160 into master and remove the 80 next time it comes around to wipe my system?
 
It sounds like it's correctly configured as a RAID 1 to me. You would expect your drive size to be equal to the smallest of the drives in the array, which you do, 80GB. As to whether your data on the 160 is wiped, yes. Once you configured the RAID and booted up the system immediately started overwriting what was currently on the 160 with what was on the 80. If the clone of the 80 to the 160 has completed, you should be able to remove the 80 and the system SHOULD be able to boot off the 160 without any problems. It would still only show up as an 80GB drive though because it will now think that a drive has failed.
 
If you then configure your system to use the 160GB drive as a single drive, you MIGHT be able to grow the file system to utilize the entire 160GB. I've never tried this though, so I'm not too sure if it would work.
 
Well, i went to run a debug script & then format through the windows 7 cd and upon loading the windows components before installation the drive failed. But, the thing that stumps me is that i unhooked the 80gb master and ran the 160 just fine, it booted up and all. then when i went to wipe it it had issues. now i have the other 80 hooked up to it and im configuring that on a raid1. I like the idea of having two disks of the same information. any idea on the 160? it can't be a bad sector or anything because it ran fine.
 
Raid 1 is meant to use the same size hard drives. Rather than mess around with a cobbled together raid, I would install Windows 7 on the 160GB disk and use the 80GB disk as a backup device. Look into Syncback for free backup software or Acronis Trueimage for software that will let you restore your system to any point in time.
 
mikeal said:
Raid 1 is meant to use the same size hard drives. Rather than mess around with a cobbled together raid, I would install Windows 7 on the 160GB disk and use the 80GB disk as a backup device. Look into Syncback for free backup software or Acronis Trueimage for software that will let you restore your system to any point in time.
Click to expand...

The 160 kept coming up with errors, but i installed two 80s. So i have my stock 80 and then the one i just received. I kept the 160, i may mess around with that at some point and run some disk checks.
 
running the raid odd may have gimped the boot sector of the 160, so its partition table is thinking its an 80G, what did you try wiping it with? partition magic should sort it out. if it was me (and what I'll do for my next system) run the 80s as RAID1 and then use the 160 as a non-critical dump drive (media and such) although I'll probly run larger drives.
 
gadgetgeek said:
running the raid odd may have gimped the boot sector of the 160, so its partition table is thinking its an 80G, what did you try wiping it with? partition magic should sort it out. if it was me (and what I'll do for my next system) run the 80s as RAID1 and then use the 160 as a non-critical dump drive (media and such) although I'll probly run larger drives.
Click to expand...

I ran a debug script on it (ie. dos: debug FCS:200 400 0) and so on to clear CMOS and all partitions, as i always do with my disks. I even reset the drive so it was back to a slave and not on RAID. idk.
 
1] RAID should always be done with identical drives e.g. two 500 GB Seagates spinning at 7200 rpm with 32 MB cache etc. When I say identical, I mean identical in every way.

2] Software RAID sucks. Hardware RAID is the only way to go. Now you don't have to go out and buy a $700 RAID card, but you could buy a $100 dual-drive external RAID enclosure. These RAID enclosures will usually have RAID 0,1 built into the chipset.

3] RAID 0 is for striping data across two drives i.e. 50% on one 50% on another. It's great for running your OS or working with video etc. It's all about speed and nothing more. That said, you have twice the potential for drive failure. This is not for backing-up data. RAID 1 gives you a mirrored drive. If one drive fails you have another ... replace the bad drive and the whole RAID rebuilds itself.

OWC - "other world computing" has some great and well priced RAID solutions using the Oxford semiconductor chipset - reputed to be very good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top