SATA Raid on board

[anlashok]

I've always wanted to get a raid setup for a file server. Is it possible to setup a SATA Raid using the provided raid on the Athlon64 or AthlonXP boards? I was thinking a Raid 5 terabyte server, 5 drives for the raid plus 1 extra. this would primarily set up as a media server.
Linux or XP or 2000 server? I have a lot of OS choices available to me. Just not sure on a board, just know I didn't want to invest in SCSI.
I've been trying to find a good HOWTO using amd boards w/ raid chips but haven't found any really helpful yet with pitfalls to watch out for. If you have a good resource, please post the URL.

Thanks everyone!

 

[fishmahn]

Most, if not all RAID on onboard controllers can only do 0 or 1, some can do 0+1. Even if it could handle 5, most of the time it's only a 4 drive controller - you'd have to find one that can combine the channels from 2 controllers for your 6 drive array.

Therefore you'll need an add-on RAID board. Tom's did a review of some raid boards here: <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20040831/index.html" target="_new">Multi-channel RAID for SATA: 3Ware, Highpoint and Raidcore/Broadcom</A>

Hmmm, in my search for this, Tom reported a way to get software raid-5 (not using raid in the onboard controller) here: <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20041119/index.html" target="_new">Using WindowsXP to Make RAID 5 Happen</A>. Haven't read it so don't know if it will work/help, but here it is.

Mike.