Thanks Tom, that sounds perfect for me. My system isn't a real time deal, in fact if I suspected a hardware problem I'd want to shut it down right away. So I take that if one of the mirrored pair of RAID drives fails, I could shut down, replace that drive, power back up, and the RAID software would "re-mirror" the surviving good drive on the new drive?

This is a great site, keep up the good work.

Jim

No problem Jim. Yea, if a mirror fails, you just shutdown, replace the drive, power back and use the software to rebuild the drive. The documentation that comes with the RAID controller should explain thoroughly how to do this. The promise fastrack66 card I reviewed awhile back came with a pretty extensive manual. If you have any more specific questions post them here or just email me. Glad you enjoyed the article

Tom

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SystemLogic.net - Hardware Editor

"Such is life..."

GRAT ARTICEL!!!

im a casual computer enthusiast and a hardcore gamer and my old ATA33 based harddrive considerably hinders my computers performace in games!!

I was thinking on buying a new ATA100 and now i read about great preformace incresses using RAID now I vould like to know if there are any performance incresses when using a ATA100 raid conntroller in comparison to a regular ATA100 contoler card when I use for example 1 IBM DeskstarXL60 dirve or do i need two of the drives to see preformace increses with RAID!!!

Please help!!

well if you want to use RAID, you always need at least 2 hard drives. They should be identical in size and speed to maximize the performance gain.

ATA100 is just a hard drive interface that RAID uses. You can also have ATA66 RAID controllers or SCSI RAID controllers. SCSI is of course higher performance but more expensive.

Using 2 drives in RAID 0 will roughly double your performance compared to 1 hard drive alone.

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SystemLogic.net - Editor

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"No more yankie my wankie. The Donger need food!"

More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

Well, it'll double streaming large files, but it doesn't help latency out at all....

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paul@pleaseohpleasedontspamme.slcentral.com
A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems -- P. Erdos

roughly double performance... roughly... it's definitely better than 1 drive alone...

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SystemLogic.net - Editor

2 Pentium III 1 Ghz 2 Alpha HeatSinks with 38 CFM Delta Fan | Abit VP6 | 512 MB PC-166 | Antec SX1030B with 4 High Output 80mm Sunon Fans | 2 30 GB IBm 75 Drives in RAID 0 | Plextor PlexWriter 16/10/40A | Mitsumi 40x CD-ROM | Generic 3.5" Floppy Drive | VisionTek Geforce 2 GTS 32 MB | Sound Blaster Live! Value | 3com NIC | Diamond Supra Modem | 19" Sony Monitor | Klipsch Promedia V.2-400 Speakers | PcMods.com Sound Sensitive Blue

"No more yankie my wankie. The Donger need food!"

More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

This RAID article is excellent and easy to grasp the concepts behind them.
I am a gamer and was going to use RAID with my new mobo and cpu. (Iwill KK266plus) I intend on purchasing a Fast Trak 100 TX2 and 2 Seagate or IBM 30gb or 40gb HDs. I will strip these. (RAID 0) What I would also like to do is purchase another 60gb or 80gb HD and use it for saving my systems integrity in case of a HD crash. Is this possible? Any advantages/disadvantages? Or should I just run RAID 0 and back up my system with a zip drive? ( RAID 1+0 or vice versa maybe??) TIA
ASP^

BOSE GESCHWADER 26
GRUPPE I

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V E N I , V I D I , V E C I ! ! ! 8)

Supurb!
Thinking about getting Raid today but decided to learn a bit more about it as all I knew was that striping improved perfomance and it devides the bytes up and gives an equal amount to each hard drive and that mirroring was just for safety.

But now reading the article I have all I need to know,
Well writtern and the understanding was indepth.

I now know alot more about RAID and I think im going to go for it,

Heres a interesting vote though that I have been wondering:

My friend has DDR memory and it flys. His computer at 1.2 mhz and 256 mb of DDR RAM loads a Red Alert Game faster than my 1.4mhx with 768 mb of SDR PC 133 Grade A Branded RAM.
Now I pursume that is because of the DDR memory,

So what do you think improved the performance of a computer :
DDR Ram
Or
RAID

????

Answers on a post card to...
:0)

Once again thanks for the great article,

Chris

Ok, nice article. But still didn't answer my question.
i am about to build a new PC with a motherboard that has onboard raid controller. I want to configure my system as raid 0. I bought two similar IBM75Gb hard drives. I want to have two partition on the system C: and D: ; each partition on a seperate drive. I basically want to have my document and operating system on C: and all my games and larges files on D:. How do go in doing this?
The way I understand it is that raid 0 uses stripping and copy on both drive at the same time. Would I still be able to use the full capacity of the drive i.e:150Gb? What would happen if my drive D: becomes full? would I still be able to use the raid functions?

What's the point in using RAID if you want your partitions on different drives, and want separate data on each partition? I've never done any RAID before, but it sounds like you are trying to do something that contradicts the intent.

Read page six again, it explains what RAID 0 is (http://www.slcentral.com/articles/01/1/raid/page6.php).



RAID 0 (according to the article) does exactly as you say....and as I said above, I'm confused as to how you would store half the information on each drive, AND keep the partitions on seperate drives. They're contradictory, AFAIK (maybe I'm wrong, and if so, please explain why so I learn something ).

In order to use teh full capacity in RAID 0, you have to have exact same size-drives. As for the raid functions....er....it doesn't sound like you have any if you set up one partition on each...

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paul@pleaseohpleasedontspamme.slcentral.com
A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems -- P. Erdos

Ok, I am getting confused now. So, how do I make two differents partitions C: and D: with 75GB each?
Is the Bios going to see one 150GB HD. That means if I create two partitions, then both drives will be partion the same way with both C: and D:?

By default, with nothing specially setup, you'll get a c drive, and a d drive. Each will be independant of the other. It's the same way it works with a hard drive and a cd-rom drive (well, except for the writing part).

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paul@pleaseohpleasedontspamme.slcentral.com
A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems -- P. Erdos

Hi Dave,

I was asked to hand in information on RAID for school, so i searched the web and came across your article.

I would just like to say that i think it is a very good one and taught me alot. The way you explained step by step on each of the features really helped simplify it.
So keep up the good work and thanks for the great article.

Tal Segev, Israel

On an Abit KT7A-RAID, I have 4 IDE connections... I want to utilize my RAID, so, should I put my hard drives on IDE 1 and 2 on separate cables? Or, should i put them on 1 cable on IDE 1? With the hdd cable placement jumper specified of course..

IDE 1 AND 2 ARE BLUE IN COLOR,
IDE 3 AND 4 ARE ORANGE IN COLOR
I have dl'd the latest BIOS and raid controller and flashed the mobo.

Also, should I use identical hdd's, or does it not matter...

Thanks in advance for your help..

__________________
"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time."

Put one hard drive on IDE 3 and one hard drive on IDE 4, those are the two RAID headers. If you want the best bang for your buck, you should use identical hard drives.

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Aaron Dahlen - Gaming Editor
aaron@slcentral.com
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