RAID

Can I configure the BIOS in 'ASUS P6T Deluxe V2' MB to work simutaneously with one HDD in SATA mode (as system disk) and other two HDDs in RAID 0 (for video storage)? Any ideas? Thanks a lot!... Allan

Thank you so much for your quick and professional response, saint19!! You removed a stone from the top of my heart...

As a future owner of an ASUS P6T motherboard, I was just worried by a remark I found at:

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/V [...] dfda0.aspx

where a certain "videoguy" wrote: "We found we could not use the on board RAID controller because it would not allow us to have a non-Raid boot drive and a RAID for storage." (but it was for ASUS P5Q3 MB, it's true). So for video storage they recommended either a SOFTWARE RAID 0, or a dedicated HARDWARE 'G-Tech G-SPEED eS' storage solution with PCIe card (external controller with 4 drives in a box), both of which I want to avoid!... I just need to use the SATA RAID built-in capabilities of the MB, not a slowed down soft solution or an extra $1000 piece of hardware.

So, did you effectively use this 1+2 configuration with the ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard own controller ? Or is it going to be a WINDOWS controlled RAID 0 array? I will appreciate any feedback... Cheers, saint19, and have a good day!

Allan

Saint19, thank you again for your time and kind attention!

It looks that the 'G-Tech G-SPEED eS' external controller was proposed as RAID 0 only for higher data safety, higher transfer speed (4 drives!), better cooling, and data availability among computers... and NOT because it would be really impossible to have a double type of controll over the HDD data stream with the same MB!

Personally I feel that 2 drives are enough for my RAID 0. As you suggested, I will try this on "ASUS P6T Deluxe V2" using the MB's own RAID controller for video storage ONLY: SATA OS single drive and SATA RAID 0 double disk video storage (and spare that extra $800...$1000 cost of G-SPEED!! Grrr!).

I appreciate your concern, saint19! Cheers!

Allan

An external Raid controller is generally bad because its bus doesn't have the necessary bandwidth.

Typical 7200rpm disks have a measured throughput of 120MB/s, so already 2 disks don't fit on a single PciE bus with a theoretical bandwidth of 250MB/s.

Worse, an added raid controller adds its own firmware delay when booting the computer, often something like 10s - though some of them can be adjusted.

To my eyes, these are excellent reasons to use only the chipset to build a Raid, unless you can use a wide PciE (like 8x) for the added card or chip.