Combination of raid and non raid with gigabyte ga-ep45

[Trapped247]

I'm a novice to the raid system. I building a new gigabyte system and need to know if I can (or should), run for example a 250 gig primary drive and a set of 750 gig's set in a raid 0 configuration. the 250 would house my OS, and the pair of 750's to hold music, photos and media. is this possiable? i feel this would best cover my use and expetations. I also dont understand the Purple GSATA connections. These I assume are a secondary controller? the manual is not very specific on their use. Thanks, Novice.

 

[GhislainG]

It can definitely be done, but do it before installing the OS. The purple connectors are for the Gigabyte SATA controller. I use them for eSATA.

 

[bilbat]

Mind you - this is pretty much all a matter of opinion... Here's the difference between the two: RAID0 spreads your data across multiple drives, ONCE; it is not replicated - the advantage is that the disk controller can read and write two channels (at least) simultaneously; RAID1 duplicates your data on two drives; the controller can still read from two channels, but writes are normal speed, as it must write to both drives together... What I use it for: I keep my system (boot) partitions on a RAID0 pair (of VRs), and my swap partition on a separate RAID0 pair (of VRs); my system partitions are not changed that often, and, when I'm particularly 'happy' with a complex install, I image the boot partition(s) to a seperate T-and-a-half backup drive; then, if I lose a RAID0 pair (which is possible, though, knock on wood, I haven't done it yet), restoration is no big deal; this allows the system, loading programs, etc., to use four disk channels at the same time, which makes it 'fly'; I keep all my data (from ALL OSs) on a RAID1 pair (of RE3s), where they're automatically backed up by each other - that has been trashed (mostly by errant installs of (I think, Elbonian) software (this is a development system - I use a lot of complex tools that are prone to disasters) numerous times - what has happened is the Intel Matrix Manager has informed me that my RAID1 has a problem, and then fiddles around in the background while it rebuilds the array - placing my data at no risk...