d975xbx/2 SATA Optical Drives/2 SATA Hard Drives RAID 1

canaanskier

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Aug 30, 2006
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This board has two RAID controllers. The intel are black 0, 1, 2, 3. For the install can I put the two SATA hard drives into the 0 and 1 slots in a RAID 1 configuration and the two SATA optical drives in the 2 and 3 slots, or should I use the other RAID controller for the hard disks and keep the optical disks on a separate controller?
 

TeraMedia

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Jan 26, 2006
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I would separate your HDD and opticals. That way, if you ever want to expand to 4 disks to get RAID 5 or 10, you'll have the option. If you put them all on the same controller, you'll have to move something to be able to achieve this.

Not sure which controller is better for RAID - the Silicon Image (blue) or the native Intel. I've tried the Intel; it's decent for RAID 0, 1, or 10, and slow for writing to RAID 5.
 

cpburns

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Aug 28, 2006
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I was under the impression that the Matrix RAID system implemented back in ... i925x(?) allowed such "partitioned" arrays. I'd say give it a shot. You should be able to plug all four into 1 controller, ports 0 through 3, and then add only the two hard drives to a RAID1 array.

If you have them all on the Intel controller and you want to expand your array later, you'd have to move the opticals to the other controller. That shouldn't be a big deal really.

I can only think that putting the opticals on the same controller as the RAID array might slow down the array a little, but I wouldn't think by much.