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Re-arranging storage - What is best?

Tags:
  • Windows Explorer
  • Windows
  • Storage
  • Hard Drives
Last response: in Storage
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July 28, 2014 10:53:31 AM

I'm going to re-install Windows soon, mainly because it's getting corrupt. Windows Explorer crashes regularly and it's become slow overall. In the meantime I have acquired new disks and want to know what my best options are to re-arrange these.

Currently my SATA-Controller is set to AHCI and I've configured some mirrored disks through Windows Disk Manager.

First, let me explain my current disk setup

1 x 240GB SSD (Boot drive)
2 x 1TB HDD (Mirrored - Important data)
2 x 3TB HDD (Spanned volume - Media files, movies, series, etc. - Also shared in network)
1 x 500GB HDD (Simple back-ups and temporary files)

I have an Asus Sabertooth Z77 as motherboard, which has 4 SATA-II ports and 2 SATA-III ports on the Intel chipset and 2 SATA-III ports on the ASmedia controller. I'm not entirely sure how this works, but I guess I am able to use ports of both controllers, supporting up to 8 HDD's
(Don't worry, my PSU will be able to manage it)

I recently got a bunch of 2TB HDD's to use or sell. So I can use my current disks + as much 2TB disks I can hold in my system.
Which would lead to get me this setup:

- Set SATA-Controller to RAID

1 x 240GB SSD (Boot drive)
2 x 2TB HDD (Mirrored/RAID1 - important data)
2 x 3TB HDD + 3 x 2TB HDD (Spanned volume/JBOD as 1 volume - Media files - Shared)

Now the question part:

- Can I configure different RAID volumes (RAID1 + JBOD volumes) on 1 controller when set to RAID?

- Can I actually use all ports, even if it's a different controller (Intel Z77 and ASmedia)?

- What is the best work-order if I want to keep my current media files (4TB) and my important data (530GB)? My boot-drive doesn't contain important data.

Thanks for reading, I'm curious what you guys can make from this :) 

More about : arranging storage

a c 943 G Storage
July 28, 2014 7:34:30 PM

The sata ports of the ASMedia controller will not be available for use in the Intel Raids, and vice-versa.

Also, the ASMedia ports are not raid-able. ie - single drives only. You may wish to move the SSD there and test their speed there.

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July 29, 2014 1:45:15 AM

So if I put my SSD on ASmedia, and set Intel-controller to RAID, the 6 Intel ports would be used for RAID setup, while the SSD is my Boot Drive on ASmedia controller?

In other words, I would be using 6/6 Intel ports and 1/2 ASmedia ports.
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