Raid questions

[Guest]

I've noticed that some motherboards with raid only have 2 IDE ports, so my question is, if you use raid, do you use both ports or is one hard drive the slave and one the master?

My parents warned me to wear earplugs when shooting a rifle, but never using my computer.

 

[Scout]

If a RAID board only has two IDE ports, it's got the new Serial ATA RAID.

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

 

[feedben]

Scout
How can you come to that conclusion!!
I don't want to be rude but you are just plain WRONG!!
It is STUPID and misleading to suggest that if a RAID implementation only has two connectors then it supports Serial IDE!!

Anyway his question was not about RAID boards it was about motherboards that have RAID.

 

[halkebul]

feedben, I suggest you tone it down a bit or you won't be here very long. You have much knowledge but please distribute it in a more polite manner. Good day, Sir.

<i>It's your world kid!!!</i>

 

[feedben]

To Fullofquestions.
Not all RAID implementations are the same so check with the mobo manufacturer before doing anything.

Commonly the two IDE connectors will support two drives on each connector (just like the regular ones) One drive is the Master the other the Slave. Four drives total.

Normally you can turn the RAID off this allows the two connectors to be used like two regular IDE connectors.
If you choose RAID then you can set up differnt types of RAID arrays. for example RAID 0,or 1, sometimes 0 and 1 together - sometimes RAID 5 etc The types of RAID available is a defined by the mobo implementation and the chip used (eg Promise).
There are lots of great articles out there on the different types of RAID and their strengths and weaknesses.

 

[feedben]

Halkebul

Did not mean to come over so strong -- Appologies to all.
I honestly thought I was gentle - then I read it again and I can see what you all mean. won't happen again...
feedben

 

[Scout]

I see your apology... accepted.

What I believed the person was asking was about a motherboard that only had two IDE connectors, yet was billed as a RAID board. Then it must have the smaller S-ATA RAID. You agree? I think you took my comment to mean there were two RAID connectors, and I don't think that's what the original poster was asking.

At any rate, the RAID configurations are of basically three varieties.
1) you have 4 IDE connectors - 2 standard and 2 for the RAID
2) you have 3 IDE connectors - 2 standard and 1 for the RAID
3) you have only 2 IDE connectors - both standard and the RAID is the smaller S-ATA RAID... which is what I thought the poster was referring to.

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

 

[JAGedlion]

There are boards that only have RAID for SATA? I didn't know that.
Also, alot of these answers seem to be beating around the bush.
fullofquestions is wondering merely how to set his drives in a RAID array. He has 2 connectors and is wondering if he can attatch 2 hd's to one and have RAID or must he connect one hd to each.
I have no experience in this so i don't know the answer. I just thought that someone needed to get everyone back on track.

 

[Scout]

The Asus A7N8X for example only has Serial ATA RAID.

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by scout on 12/21/02 10:24 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[arDAWG]

I wuz actually wondering about that myself. On the new boards w/ SATA, many have the one IDE port on the raid controller---how the heck does this work. I, personally, have an ABit AT7 that has 4 ide ports on the Highpoint controller, so it's just to satisfy my curiosity. I know w/ past raid arrays I have set up 1 drive had to be on each channel as master for Raid to work or u could have (w/ the HP controller) a master & slave on each channel & set up raid 0 that way. How can u set up raid on one ide channel?? Or is raid 0 reserved for the SATA controllers??

 

[Scout]

I haven't ever set one up on the single RAID connector, but I believe you put both drives on a single cable. I've only used the two RAID connector version as you have.

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

 

[arDAWG]

I know the ABIT Max 2 boards(AT7/ IT7)have 1 converter(sata/ide) so u can use the SATA controller w/ current ide drives. It looks like all manufactuers would ship the SATA raid boards w/ 2 of these (considering the premium price for the "Max" boards), since the SATA drives are no where to be found, as of yet.