GA-8KNXP & SATA RAID Setup

[Guest]

To the Gigabyte GA-8KNXP owners:
Does anyone know whether this board will accept 2 RAID 0 arrays with 4 SATA drives? From what I read about the specs I think it should. I want to use 4 of the WD Raptors as my C: and D: drives, and then a large 200GB drive (E, as an EIDE storage drive. This setup is for Photoshop use.

Rest of the setup:
Intel P4-3.2GHz
3GB of OCZ PC3200 RAM - matched sticks
Vantec 520 PS

Already have the following:
MSI FX5600 VTDR128 video card
Monitors (2): Mitsubishi DP2060u with Spectraview system.
Still can't decide on a case!!
-- any suggestions or criticisms?

Paul Prachun

 

[scottkli]

RAID Chips for GA-8KNXP:
[1] IDE Raid from Gigaraid IT8212F chip

[2] SATA Raid Bridge A/II ICH5R Southbridge Chip -
(2 connectors SATA0_SII & SATA1_SII on left side of mainboard facing PCI)

[3] SATA Raid Bridge B Sil3112 chip
(2 connectors SATA0_SB & SATA1_SB facing right side of main board)

So yes you could have 1 Raid 0 array on each SATA chip.
4 drives would work. Make sure to backup your 2 arrays often. I had a simular set up and it failed and I lost the info that I didnt get backed up. Your 200gb will be the OS/Boot disk I would assume.

Good Luck

 

[Guest]

Scott:
Thanks muchly for replying. My research into the double SATA RAID setup with 4 SATA drives would agree with your findings, but it's always good to get a second opinion -- or a third. Of course, if the setup doesn't work we'll just end up proving the adage, "Fools seldom differ."

I'm interested in knowing why you are assuming that the 200GB drive would be the boot drive?
I was planning on using one of the 2 SATA RAIDs as the boot drive (fast) with the OS (WindowsXPPro), on it; the second SATA RAID as the Photoshop scratch disk (also fast), and the 200 EIDE (slow), as the data storage for my data/photos.

Thanks for the warning about the back-ups. I have 3, yes that's three, external Firewire or USB drives for backup function -- oh yea, a fourth is in the bank vault; man, talk about being anal-retentive!!

Paul Prachun