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Question about RAID

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stopthe_bomb   11-13-2009 at 04:14:30 AM

Ok, so I plan on running a 128 GB Corsair SSD as primary drive (OS, games, Apps) and 2 WD caviar black 640 GB in RAID 0.

I heard on this board, if you want to RAID, all your drives have to be same exact thing because you have to RAID, all your harddrives have to RAID. You can't have the SSD not RAID, and the WD caviars RAID.

Also, for this board and those drives, do I have to buy a RAID controller, or does my board have one.


Oh yes I forgot to add, I have a 750 GB external USB hardrive I use to store TV shows and movies, wondering if all this is compatible/good idea


Message edited by stopthe_bomb on 11-13-2009 at 04:16:18 AM
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saint19   11-13-2009 at 06:24:13 AM

and the mobo is?

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Bronze Storage badge sub mesa   11-13-2009 at 01:27:49 PM

If your onboard chipset-powered RAID controller does not allow non-RAID disks you can always use single-disk JBOD arrays to use them as single disks. Some BIOS allow setting RAID mode per SATA port.

Also, if you haven't yet bought the SSD, can i suggest you take Intel X25-M 80GB G2 instead? Its really the fastest SSD at this moment and unsurpassed in performance.

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Bronze Storage badge Paperdoc   11-13-2009 at 04:20:52 PM

Whether or not your mobo has RAID control built into its chipset should be clear from the mobo's manual or the manufacturer's webite. If you have this feature, look around and make sure you have the full manual for RAID setup and use (often a separate document, not in the main mobo manual). Most built-in RAID systems I've seen have four steps to setting up a RAID array. First, in BIOS Setup you select a mode for how the SATA port is operated, and one option is RAID. Then when you boot, one screen offers the option to enter the RAID Setup utility. Within that, you specify which disk units are to be used in the RAID array. Any you do NOT specify will NOT be part of any RAID array. Note that ONLY the disks you specify for the RAID array need to be matched; the others not in RAID can be anything. Third step is actually to create the RAID array from the devices you specified, then exit out. Last step will be to install the necessary RAID drivers in Windows.

Sounds like you are building a rig. When and how to install RAID drivers in Windows depends on how you will use the RAID array. If it will be your "boot drive" (C: ), you must install the drivers as part of the Windows Install process. If the array will be used only for data storage, you can Install Windows to a non-RAID drive and, after it is running, install the RAID drivers to enable use of this type of "Disk". All the details are in the RAID manual or mobo manual, so make sure you get both and read them.

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