Combination of RAID with Non RAID SATA drive with Gigabyte GA-EG45M DS2S

[aoc]

I'm setting up a new PC and the last time I have done this has been 5years ago I'm thinking of using a Non RAID SATA HDD for the OS and a pair of SATA HDD running RAID 1 (mirror). I keep all my important data, e.g. music, photo etc there. In my older PC, I run the OS on PATA and the the RAID 1 pair on SATA.
In the new PC I would like to run the OS on SATA instead of PATA.

Has anyone done what I proposed and could share some experience how do I do it?

Thanks!
Alex

 

[GhislainG]

Configure the ICH10R for RAID. Don't make the OS disk a member of a RAID. Set the other two drives in RAID1. If you're installing Vista, once the installation is comple, download and install the latest Intel Matrix RAID drivers.

 

[bilbat]

Pretty much any combination will work; I use two pairs of 150 Gb Velociraptor RAID0's for my OSs and swapfiles, a pair of WD-RE3 RAID1's for data, along with a single 1.5 Gb Seagate for image backups of my OS partitions, and they all get along just fine! I would recommend keeping the RAIDs on the Intel SATA - it's somewheres between 10-15% faster than the GB/jMicron port...

 

[gogzhad]

I have a very similar question - I want to have a RAID5 array for data, but put the O/S on a single, faster drive, using a Gigabyte MoBo (GA-EP45-UD3P). My questions are:
-I think only the 1CH10R will do RAID5 - is that what the other poster meant by "the Intel SATA" ?
-In reading the MoBo manual, the sequence of installing the O/S and the RAID drivers seems unclear; If I am installing the O/S on a non-raid drive, and the RAID on the others, should I do the O/S install first before the RAID configuration?
-If I wanted to set up a RAID1 array for the O/S, do the RAID drivers need to be installed before the O/S?

thanks in advance

 

[bilbat]

1 - For RAID5, you have no choice; you must use the ICH, as you need at least three drives, and the GSATA/jMicron only supports two;
2 - Do the RAIDBIOS config first, then install the 'pre-load' drivers at OS install - the actual volumes the OS install will 'see' will depend on the RAID being configured and having proper drivers in...
3 - same as above, RAIDBIOS config first, then 'pro-loads', then OS install...

I usually recommend that everyone load both (Intel and jMicron) 'pre-load' drivers when installing the OS (any OS - Xp, Vista, 7) as then they're, well, there - and your options are open; if the drivers are in, and you aren't using RAID, there simply will be no RAID volumes, and it won't hurt anything; if you change your mind (or your budget) later, they're a real PITA to try to get loaded 'on top' of the OS

BTW - I also highly recommend using RAID0's for the OS; I keep My OS and swaps on opposing pairs - get, roughly, 400M/S throughput for program/system loading/virtual memory management out of the set - on a nearly 4GHz system, the performance is eye-popping, especially in Win7-64!

 

[moose123]

I have a similar question. I have a 1TB drive and two raptor 10,000 rpm drives that I want to use for video editing. How do I setup the 1 TB drive as a SATA non-raid drive and the other two as raid 0? Which should I put the Vista 64 ultimate OS on?

Thanks,

Randy