First time tring raid and I have questions?

[moose64]

I have one 150G raptor and when I install all my software on it, it fills up fast and I was just wondering if I got a 2nd 150 raptor and set it up in a 0 raid would it split the data in half putting half on 1 and the other half on the 2nd drive and does this mean that it will hold twice as much data?

 

[chookman]

yes it would be twice the size, however, to my knowledge all info would still be on first drive. Otherwise the controller would have to buildfrom scratch.

 

[cyberjock]

To Chookman:

It will be twice the size, but RAID 0 is striped,which means that the data is broken up by the block size specificed in the array and distributed evenly between the 2 disks. If you fill the first 10% of your RAID 0 with data, 10% of each of your 2 disks will be full. Disk 1 will not store all of the data. This is why RAID-0 is better for performance. Your reading all of your data from both drives at any time. The scenario where you have a RAID but all of your data is stored on the first disk before the second disk is used is called JBOD(Just a Bunch Of Disks).

To Moose64:

RAID isn't something that I recommend people think about 'after the fact'. Because as a matter of fact, when you set up the array, it will blow away all of your data on the hard drives. So make sure you do a ghost image or backup of your hard drive before setting up the array. If your looking for more storage space, why not buy a 500GB for $110 or so instead of a 150GB for almost twice as much. Also, RAID-0 is less reliable because a failure of 1 disk results in a loss of all of the data on the array.

 

[Vorador2]

Well, RAID 0 is a performance solution where you use both HDDs to store the same data striped between the two drives. The performance gain is impressive, but if one of the drives goes down, the data is completely lost in both drives... technicaly isn't even RAID, since it doesn't provide any redundancy.

I do not recomend RAID on home, since the benefits aren't that great for home use. It's more useful to make a backup of your data from time to time and much less costly. If you want more storage, buy a new drive and that's it.

cyberjock: most semi-pro and pro RAID controllers allow you to create, recreate or modify (in a limited fashion, like migrating RAID 0 to 10 or something like that) RAID stripes without losing data. But i don't think he will be willing to spend minimun 500$ for a controller board.

 

[apache_lives]

Ok buddy what you will see is half the forum say to you "not worth it" or "your risking your data!" etc and "twice the risk" - this is where you have to decide over the two halves of the forum wether its worth it etc.

Raid 0 - you will most likely have to start fresh and have your current drive wiped as Raid 0 is striped or splits the data bit by bit between the two drives, and it does offer performance (two drives, two areas to read from etc) at the cost of seek times - it has to take more time to look at/for data, hence why its more 'recommended' for video editing etc, and as for this "twice the risk/failure rate" or unreliable, put it this way, if you loose a drive in a raid 0 array, you will loose ALL your data - BUT, on the other hand if you have one drive and it dies you loose it all ANYHOW.

Personally, i have a server using a raid1 (mirror) array to store all my important data and all my main pcs (3) for the past 4 years have been using raid0 without issue - so whatever people are saying, iv had no issues with raid0.

 

[moose64]

Ok thats what I needed know, I do what the performance from a 0 raid and I do have a 250G harddrive for my music and pictures and downloads.So my next thing I need to know is do I have to reinstall the OS on to both drives or do I just install the second hard drive and make the 0 raid that way? I never done this before and I have the time to try it now.

 

[rwpritchett]

When you setup the RAID0, all data on both drives will be lost. Your two drives will appear to the system as one single drive with the combined capacity of the two drives (300GB in your case). You will need to reinstall the OS after you setup your RAID0. If you're running WinXP, you'll need a floppy drive to install on the RAID so you can 'F6' the drivers. For Vista, you can get away with built in RAID drivers or use a USB flash drive to 'F6' drivers during install.

 

[moose64]

ok ,thanks I try this this week.

 

[moose64]

OK got the raid 0 installed with the vista installed but when I reboot the computer it goes thur the post test then the press F10 for raid window then stops at a black screen and won't boot into windows but if I leave the windows disk in the dvd drive it goes to press any key to boot from cd window and if I do nothing it give me a choice between two vista systems one will boot the 2nd one will not and vista runs with no problems.

system spec:
Asus P5N32-SLI 680i
4G G.Skill ram (but only have 2G in now)
2x 150G raptors
1 250G storage Driver SATAII
8800GTX
C2D 6700 cpu
650watt Muskin PS
Vista 64bit OS.

 

[rwpritchett]

Did you set the RAID as the first boot device in the BIOS?

 

[moose64]

Did you set the RAID as the first boot device in the BIOS?

Yes, I setup the raid in bios and made the raid the first boot devise, I'am going to try to delete the raid then make it again and just use the drivers in the vista cd to install it to see if works.

 

[double_helix]

Think of RAID 0 as two drives zipped together like a physical coat zipper. The teeth on the left side are one drive and the teeth on the right side are the other drive. The slider part of the zipper could be considered the RAID Controller.

Best analogy I can give ya'. If you go RAID 0 usually requires a rebuild and the data on the drive wiped.

 

[jitpublisher]

ok ,thanks I try this this week.

It sounds to me like you did not create the RAID array correctly, and merely installed a second version of Windows on the second drive. To make a RAID array, you have to go into the RAID bios and build a "Striped Array" using the 2 drives. After enabling RAID support in the regular bios, an option will appear to enter the "RAID" bios during post, that is where you build the array, from within the RAID bios. You must load the RAID driver for your controller onto a floppy, and when you first boot to install Windows fromthe Windows CD, hit "F6" and let Windows load the driver for your RAID controller. Then Windows install will detect your RAID array as a single SCSI or RAID drive with 300 meg of space.
(or actually around 270meg, you will lose some)

 

[moose64]

Think of RAID 0 as two drives zipped together like a physical coat zipper. The teeth on the left side are one drive and the teeth on the right side are the other drive. The slider part of the zipper could be considered the RAID Controller.

Best analogy I can give ya'. If you go RAID 0 usually requires a rebuild and the data on the drive wiped.

What would be the best way to wipe the data of the hard drives because I reinstall vista now it saids I have three OS installed.

 

[moose64]

To jitpublisher: I have the raid setup right and it first boot device it said it in bios BOOT-Yes / Status- Healthy / Vendor- NVidia / Array Modal Name- Stripe 279.47G's

 

[moose64]

Some how I got 3 boot files on my computer and I need to wipe it clean to start over.

 

[GuyAmI]

If you have another system you can try hooking the drives up to them and wiping them that way. Then you can reattach them to the system that'll have the RAID and have another go at it.

 

[moose64]

Ok got my drive wipe clean and set backup the raid0 installed vista 64bit I used the drivers for the raid that where on the install disk and it worked I got it installed and updated and it running fine.
Thank you for your help.

 

[GuyAmI]

I'm sure I speak for everybody when I say glad we could help.

As a side note here, you may want to consider not keeping anything critically important on the RAIDed drives. Things like family photos, banking records, personal correspondence, or anything of similar imprtance to you since if either one of those drives dies, then you're screwed because anything on the RAID will die with it. This is just some advice though.

 

[moose64]

I'm sure I speak for everybody when I say glad we could help.

As a side note here, you may want to consider not keeping anything critically important on the RAIDed drives. Things like family photos, banking records, personal correspondence, or anything of similar imprtance to you since if either one of those drives dies, then you're screwed because anything on the RAID will die with it. This is just some advice though.

Yea I know I have a 250G storage drive for them.

 

[GuyAmI]

Then I wish you well with your new RAID. Cheers.