RAID advice needed

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Building my first RAID-capable machine. Motherboard (ASUS SK8V) manual
contains instructions for both "VIA RAID Configurations" AND "Promise RAID
configurations." I assume these are two different ways of doing the same
thing? Which is preferable. I have purchased two identical 80 GB SATA hard
drives. What's the best way to set them up as a RAID 0 array? Thanks in
advance!

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

In article <WuOdnUMGH6rznjDcRVn-tQ@comcast.com>, says...
> Building my first RAID-capable machine. Motherboard (ASUS SK8V) manual
> contains instructions for both "VIA RAID Configurations" AND "Promise RAID
> configurations." I assume these are two different ways of doing the same
> thing? Which is preferable. I have purchased two identical 80 GB SATA hard
> drives. What's the best way to set them up as a RAID 0 array? Thanks in
> advance!
>
DON'T DO IT.

You have striping which gives more performance but equates to half the
reliability for twice the price.

You have mirroring which gives you a constant backup and you have a
combination of the two

BUT.....

If the RAID controller goes tits up you'll have a hell of a job getting
the RAID array back up and working. Don't believe me? Google about it.

Quite simply, a home user does not need RAID.


--
Conor

Greedo shot first. Greedo ALWAYS shot first. You did not see Solo shoot
first.
It never happened. Never, ever. Not in any version. Remember: Greedo
shot first.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

PJL wrote:
> Building my first RAID-capable machine. Motherboard (ASUS SK8V)
> manual contains instructions for both "VIA RAID Configurations" AND
> "Promise RAID configurations." I assume these are two different ways
> of doing the same thing? Which is preferable. I have purchased two
> identical 80 GB SATA hard drives. What's the best way to set them up
> as a RAID 0 array? Thanks in advance!

My last three machines have had a RAID 0 configuration. I have not lost any
data on any of them. SMART enabled drives give you plenty of warning about
potential failure, so don't let the paranoid users worry you unduly. Yes,
you need to make regular backups of your important data. But you do that
anyway, don't you? RAID 0 gives you a good performance increase.

However, to answer your question, I personally would go for the Promise
configuration. One of my RAID configurations was a Promise RAID card which
worked faultlessly while I owned it, and is still working faultlessly now it
has passed to my son!

There have been issues with VIA drivers in the past, however I have no
knowledge about VIA RAID drivers. They may well be fine too.

John.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

> Building my first RAID-capable machine. Motherboard (ASUS SK8V) manual contains
> instructions for both "VIA RAID Configurations" AND "Promise RAID configurations." I
> assume these are two different ways of doing the same thing? Which is preferable. I
> have purchased two identical 80 GB SATA hard drives. What's the best way to set them
> up as a RAID 0 array? Thanks in advance!

o Whichever you choose, do make a note which you chose
---- I would choose Promise, since that is potentially a more supported RAID format
---- thus if you change / replace the m/b you do not lose all your data
---- that assumes that all Promise implementations use the same RAID-0 format

o RAID-0 is as it suggests RAID-ZERO, ie, there is no redundancy
---- with 2 HD your risk of experiencing a single failure is slightly higher
---- with RAID-0 if *either* drive suffers a failure you lose *both* drive's data

o RAID-1 provides a mirror - but no performance benefit & half the capacity
---- if you lose a drive, however, you have an exact copy on the other drive

Note that RAID >0 (1, 5, 10, 50) is about Availability, it allows continuity in the
availability of data access & allows you to decide when to replace a failed drive.
That is not the same as a Backup - RAID also mirrors corrupt data perfectly

When implementing RAID-0:
o Remember backups of important data are required
o Consider using RAID-0 for the data-drives, and non-RAID for the system drives
---- XP will allow RAIDing of disks - turn them into dynamic disks (system can't be one)
---- onboard RAID is just a driver in the system BIOS to allow booting
o Keep drives well within their temp ratings & shock ratings re two failure modes
o Take a written note of any settings you make

Might be worth doing a Google to see if Promise RAID-0 format is common between
motherboards, and their add-on cards - just in case you ever change the motherboard,
or are forced to replace the motherboard with a different version or BIOS version etc.

In most instances one assumes the worst and always has a backup available
--
Dorothy Bradbury
www.dorothybradbury.co.uk for quiet Panaflo fans

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 19:55:32 GMT, "Bioboffin"
<Reply_to_Group_please@zzz.invalid> wrote:

>PJL wrote:
>> Building my first RAID-capable machine. Motherboard (ASUS SK8V)
>> manual contains instructions for both "VIA RAID Configurations" AND
>> "Promise RAID configurations." I assume these are two different ways
>> of doing the same thing? Which is preferable. I have purchased two
>> identical 80 GB SATA hard drives. What's the best way to set them up
>> as a RAID 0 array? Thanks in advance!
>
>My last three machines have had a RAID 0 configuration. I have not lost any
>data on any of them. SMART enabled drives give you plenty of warning about
>potential failure, so don't let the paranoid users worry you unduly.

No, generally you will NOT get a smart warning from drives
attrached to an onboard RAID controller. This might be read
from the management software you can run in windows but it
won't warn you unless you have specifically set it up to do
so, unlike with drive attached to motherboard standard ATA
with "smart" enabled in bios, where you would see the
warning after system POSTS and enumerates.

There is a reason for this, that the drive has not yet been
detected (by the RAID controller when it's motherboard
integral) by the time that part of the bios routine has
passed. Perhaps it is now possible with
southbridge-integral SATA, but only when the drives are
detected during initial post enumeration, not afterwards.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

kony wrote:
> On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 19:55:32 GMT, "Bioboffin"
> <Reply_to_Group_please@zzz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> PJL wrote:
>>> Building my first RAID-capable machine. Motherboard (ASUS SK8V)
>>> manual contains instructions for both "VIA RAID Configurations" AND
>>> "Promise RAID configurations." I assume these are two different
>>> ways of doing the same thing? Which is preferable. I have
>>> purchased two identical 80 GB SATA hard drives. What's the best
>>> way to set them up as a RAID 0 array? Thanks in advance!
>>
>> My last three machines have had a RAID 0 configuration. I have not
>> lost any data on any of them. SMART enabled drives give you plenty
>> of warning about potential failure, so don't let the paranoid users
>> worry you unduly.
>
> No, generally you will NOT get a smart warning from drives
> attrached to an onboard RAID controller. This might be read
> from the management software you can run in windows but it
> won't warn you unless you have specifically set it up to do
> so, unlike with drive attached to motherboard standard ATA
> with "smart" enabled in bios, where you would see the
> warning after system POSTS and enumerates.
>
> There is a reason for this, that the drive has not yet been
> detected (by the RAID controller when it's motherboard
> integral) by the time that part of the bios routine has
> passed. Perhaps it is now possible with
> southbridge-integral SATA, but only when the drives are
> detected during initial post enumeration, not afterwards.

I had a SMART failed drive on my current machine with a RAID array. Event
appeared in windows Event log. (it was a SATA drive)

However, in fifteen years of using computers, and five running a network of
50 workstations and two servers, I have only ever seen two hard drives fail.
One of those was the SMART error noted above - which involved no data loss,
although some instability in the system before it was replaced. The other
was due to mishandling by me (moving the PC while it was running!). As I
said before, not worth losing sleep about, if your backups are reasonably
regular.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 18:33:43 -0500, "PJL"
<harvard75atspamnocomcast.net> wrote:

>Building my first RAID-capable machine. Motherboard (ASUS SK8V) manual
>contains instructions for both "VIA RAID Configurations" AND "Promise RAID
>configurations." I assume these are two different ways of doing the same
>thing?

Maybe, which thing is it you want to do, exactly?

>Which is preferable.

Depends on your priorities.
Overall the Via Southbridge-integral SATA is the better
performance alternative due to being off the PCI bus. The
Promise will have better support with alternate methods of
accessing data should the motherboard die.

Likewise, the ATA133 channel available through a Promise
chip will be slower than the Via ATA133, and so generally
that Promise ATA133 should be the last of the 3 ATA133 used.


>I have purchased two identical 80 GB SATA hard
>drives. What's the best way to set them up as a RAID 0 array? Thanks in
>advance!

Putting each on the Via SATA controller, and putting any
other PATA on the Via ATA133.

Others have already mentioned issues and drawbacks, it must
be questioned whether you have a specific need for RAID 0 or
whether you're just trying to take advantage of a technology
because it exists. For many uses you'd have higher
performance with same two drives, same SATA channels, NOT
RAIDed but as source and destination volumes or to separate
OS and apps or games, whatever applies to your work.

As always I recommend having a tested backup of all data,
and pre-planning what will happen if suddenly the array
isn't working for (whatever) reason. For the OS you'd
probably be better off with an SATA WD Raptor, plus a large
~ 200+GB drive for bulk storage.