raid?

[freaksavior]

I am going to get another 300gb drive and raid the one i have with the one i'm getting, i don't know what raid to do though.......I am going to install xp pro sp2 32 bit on one and vista 64bit on the other.....so wich would be best?

[Ben Clarke]

If your going to RAID them, but install the two OS'es on separate drives in the array, you're going to have a hard time. RAID either

a) strips the data accross both disks (100KB chunks?)
b) Uses one drive as a backup so if the file on drive A is corrupted, the working backup is on drive B (detects as the size of one drive)

Basically, if you want each OS on it's own drive, don't RAID.

[t_ski]

You can create the array and then partition it, then install XP on one partition and Vista on the other.

Raid 0 is called striping, which gives boosted performance but no fault tolerance. Raid 1 is called mirroring, and give fault tolerance but no performance boost.

[Ben Clarke]

You can create the array and then partition it, then install XP on one partition and Vista on the other.


Oh yeah... lol, that's what coffee does to you when you drink at 10:30pm.

[Chewy]

I thought raid 1 gives faster read times though cause it can access the data off both drives.

What is the chance of having a fault? what exactly happens to make a fault in the raid? I been looking at getting another drive I know the chance of failure is only like 10% or something, more drives in the raid higher chance of a drive dying and you losing all your data.

[freaksavior]

Would it be better to raid it and install xp and vista on one drive?

[t_ski]

Raid 0 splits the data in half, sending half to one drive and half to the other. Since the data is read from each drive at the same time, it increases the performance. Mirroring data (Raid 1) will actually give slightly lower performance than one single drive.

To install multiple OS's you need to have different drives, partitions, or directories. You can install both on the same drive, but putting each one on a separate partition would be best to avoid each OS from reading the same default folders like "Local Settings", etc...

[freaksavior]

i'm confused.........sorry, never done this before.....so if i want multi os's then can raid be done while boosting performance?

[t_ski]

Yep, sure can. Just install XP first since it's the older OS, then install Vista. Do a clean install for each, and not an upgrade of Vista from within XP.

If you need more detailed info, LMK - right now I'm supposed to be studying...

[Ripper3]

Wouldn't RAID then partitioning defeat the purpose of RAID 0?
Better yet, use one hard drive for OS and applications, and the other hard drive for documents.
You can do whatever you like with the OS drive, and not have to worry about accidentally wiping your document drive.
Having two drives, RAID, then partitions still seems to me like it defeats the point. Performance increase is already minimal at best, and if something goes wrong, all of your documents on the RAID will likely be lost, unless you can somehow recover them, or have backed up properly.
Function > Form
Convenience > Performance

[ex_reven]

i'm confused.........sorry, never done this before.....so if i want multi os's then can raid be done while boosting performance?

Yes. Dont worry about being confused, I didnt know shit about raid last week and now I have one running :D. Its very easy.

All you need to know is that RAID = REDUNDANT array of independent/inexpensive disks.
Redundancy is when you have exactly the same data in more than one location.
While RAID 0 is not true RAID, as it does not offer redundancy (data protection is achieved through mirroring data) it still offers the performance increase that you are after.

Be aware that to setup RAID you will lose all data and will need to reinstall your OS's etc.
Once you setup the RAID your two drives will appear as ONE drive on which you can install multiple OS's. You can easily have more than one OS, but considering that the drives are now treated as one large drive you cant install on another drive as when in a RAID it ceases to exist as an available drive.
Wouldn't RAID then partitioning defeat the purpose of RAID 0?
Better yet, use one hard drive for OS and applications, and the other hard drive for documents.
You can do whatever you like with the OS drive, and not have to worry about accidentally wiping your document drive.
Having two drives, RAID, then partitions still seems to me like it defeats the point. Performance increase is already minimal at best, and if something goes wrong, all of your documents on the RAID will likely be lost, unless you can somehow recover them, or have backed up properly.
Function > Form
Convenience > Performance

I dont see how partitioning would defeat the purpose of RAID.
Performance increase isnt minimal, I saw about 50% increase in my drive speed.
RAID wont fail unless your drive physically fails, and if your drive physically fails you wouldnt be able to get the data back from it without professional help anyway.

[Frogger]

have a look at this thread http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=467848 will give you some insight on 'software' intel matrix raid ... you can also read http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/index.htm
and lastly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks
good luck

[Ripper3]

Well, for some, partitioning may not defeat the purpose, but I guess it's dependant on point of view. I'd rather have OS and documents on seperate drives, than just simply on a RAID with seperate partitions. Making one big logical drive to then break it down into smaller logical partitions, seems a little pointless. Although it could be seen as pointless to buy one large hard drive, instead of buying multiple smaller hard drives for various jobs (i.e. a 120GB for OS and games, an 80GB for documents, etc. could be seen as more useful to some)

Performance depends on setup, but I've seen people getting maybe less than 5% extra performance. Although, for example, my motherboard sucks for RAID. From reviews, I gather that SATA performance is slightly lowered, it has no SATA2, and CPU usage is higher, so I'd see a possible minimal benefit.

And yeah, the whole drive failing, needing professional help doesn't do it for me. Although the same would be necesarry for a single HDD, non-RAID if it failed, I'm guessing paying someone to piece together data from both hard drives could possibly come out a little more expensive than recovering from one disk alone. Although I've never looked around for pricing, so *shoulder shrug*

[ex_reven]

Well, for some, partitioning may not defeat the purpose, but I guess it's dependant on point of view. I'd rather have OS and documents on seperate drives, than just simply on a RAID with seperate partitions. Making one big logical drive to then break it down into smaller logical partitions, seems a little pointless. Although it could be seen as pointless to buy one large hard drive, instead of buying multiple smaller hard drives for various jobs (i.e. a 120GB for OS and games, an 80GB for documents, etc. could be seen as more useful to some)

Hmm I dont know if the performance depends on the partitioning or whatnot. I was under the impression that It didnt matter anyway. Ive seen no change in performance following a dual boot to XP 32 and Xp 64 bit Windows. However your idea of smaller multiple drives would be alot safer than a RAID (unless you buy multiple drives of the same size and did a RAID type that has both performance and redundancy).


Performance depends on setup, but I've seen people getting maybe less than 5% extra performance. Although, for example, my motherboard sucks for RAID. From reviews, I gather that SATA performance is slightly lowered, it has no SATA2, and CPU usage is higher, so I'd see a possible minimal benefit.

I suppose that the setup is very oriented on the controller, the hard drives and such yes. My controller seems to be very good for onboard. I did notice a HUGE difference between Sata 1 and Sata 2. According to HDTach after I removed the jumper (the jumper made my hard drive Sata 1 compatible) that I got about 30mb/s faster on sequential access speed.


And yeah, the whole drive failing, needing professional help doesn't do it for me. Although the same would be necesarry for a single HDD, non-RAID if it failed, I'm guessing paying someone to piece together data from both hard drives could possibly come out a little more expensive than recovering from one disk alone. Although I've never looked around for pricing, so *shoulder shrug*

True. If you were working with some very precious data its generally wise to invest in either a better RAID setup (with mirroring/parity disks) or some form of backup. Backing up to dvds can be a pain in the ass sometimes though, which makes me wish I had another 3 or 4 drives just for fun lol...it would be interesting to have. I wouldnt use them though lol.

[Chewy]

I dont see how partitioning would defeat the purpose of RAID.
Performance increase isnt minimal, I saw about 50% increase in my drive speed.
RAID wont fail unless your drive physically fails, and if your drive physically fails you wouldnt be able to get the data back from it without professional help anyway.

GG not worried about my raid failing now :) I remember how the chance of failing works now, it increases with the more drives you ahve because that makes a > chance of one failing.. though if a drive is going to fail it will fail within 3 months of purchase after that your good for years (normally).

Partitioning wont defeat the raid because it still splits the data between he 2 drives not put one partitioning on one drive and another on the other. it splits kb's of data not a whole partition. If your a gammer go with smaller stripe size 32 if you only care to use bigger files go with a bigger size, they say to take your avg file size and use that.

Make sure you make 2+ partitions man maybe one more for data, though 2 will have to be special partitions you can install a OS onto, when creating the partition it will ask you what type of partition you want to make for me I made one that can boot a OS and 2 others for games and data storage so if I had to format I still have my games and data.

well off to bed very soon.

[Ripper3]

First paragraph, RAID 5 takes care of that, needs a minimum of 3 drives, dunno the rest of the details, but one drive is for backup.

Yeah, I read your posts with HDTach performance, made me jealous, my crappy IDE drive gets like 60Mbps sustained! I swear this POS is meant to be on Ultra DMA 133...
Aw, no matter, I'll be running a SATA drive sooner or later.

And yeah, backing up onto DVD is bitch. I was looking at my documents and deciding what I should just delete. I couldn't be bothered to backup all of the crap. Especially because dual-layer DVDs are more expensive than their usefulness... because using most compression software, you can compress and divide the files, making backups a lot easier than tryng to store one large file on one piece of media...
Although instead, I just grabbed two old 20GB hard drives, connected them to an IDE-USB drive and saved myself some DVDs :D

[ex_reven]

First paragraph, RAID 5 takes care of that, needs a minimum of 3 drives, dunno the rest of the details, but one drive is for backup.

Yeah, I read your posts with HDTach performance, made me jealous, my crappy IDE drive gets like 60Mbps sustained! I swear this POS is meant to be on Ultra DMA 133...
Aw, no matter, I'll be running a SATA drive sooner or later.

And yeah, backing up onto DVD is bitch. I was looking at my documents and deciding what I should just delete. I couldn't be bothered to backup all of the crap. Especially because dual-layer DVDs are more expensive than their usefulness... because using most compression software, you can compress and divide the files, making backups a lot easier than tryng to store one large file on one piece of media...
Although instead, I just grabbed two old 20GB hard drives, connected them to an IDE-USB drive and saved myself some DVDs :D

Yeah RAID 5 has two striped drives and the extra drive is either a parity or a mirror. I think it was a parity drive IIRC.

With regards to my HDTach, before I made that thread, my drives were going like 5mb/s...I was like wtf :roll:

@freaksavior - If you can get the similar drives I highly reccommend a RAID. What do you have to lose :D! With good planning you should be able to pull it off now, and be prepared to redo it in the future because you'll have the experience as well as the hardware available to you.
Also, its a good excuse to backup all your data :). Ive found that spending a few hours backing up saves days of redownloading, and screwing around later when you could easily say "fuck it, this OS is a messy POS, Im gonna format it." Its also handy when you accidently delete stuff...and for installing your antivirus/anti spyware/anti malware programs as soon as you enter windows for the first time.

[freaksavior]

I'm going to buy the exact same drive as i have now.

so i should run raid 0 even though it's not "true raid"? then partition it off for documents, games,os's??

Edit: i have 2 spare 40gb drives so i'm going to use them as my back up drives.....i'm glad i have them now :D

[Chewy]

yeah run raid0 it'll give you the most from your drives speed wise.

what I did was 1st partition /OS, second/Games, third/Storage.

If you need to format you can format your OS without affecting the other partitions I believe. I sent Ex a pm saying that already.

[freaksavior]

ok, cool, well sometime in the next week or so i will probably get the drive, and when/if i run into trouble i'll get back to y'all........i think i got what i need to know atm.......so thanks for the help!

[kwchang007]

ok since you have 2 extra hdd's for backing up go with raid 0 it gives you better speeds. you want to do what people have said, raid the drives, install xp, then install windows, and make sure you have a third partition for you data. with raid 0 you're going to want some way to make sure all your data is protected (maybe a raid 5 set up with the two extra drives as the redundancy, if they're sata). i think part of a raid 0 failing is that it can go berserk if like the controller dies, or messes up. backups are your friend

[Chewy]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ true.. I'll eventualy be getting a backup HD jsut dont want to dish out the $130 for a 500gb seagate... think I'll get an extrenal one nexted time it goes on sale though :D I r a pirata, well for personal use xD

[ex_reven]

Also, dont forget to make a RAID Driver disk!
You get your Mobo CD (provided that your using your motherboards onboard RAID) and you look through the CD for your chipsets raid driver. There should be a little program in the chipset folder called make disk.

You click it, put in a floppy disk and it puts the drivers onto the floppy for you so that while installing windows you can install the RAID drivers.

[freaksavior]

there ide, although i should, or could get ide to sata converters....but i think i'm just going to have the 2 x 40gbs with my info on them and once a month back up what i need some if something happens i can restore my data easily


edit: i don't have the raid setup stuff, hopefully i can get it off asus website

@ ex-reven me and you have the same mobo so if necessary would you be willing to copy the files to a rar and upload them?

[ex_reven]

@ ex-reven me and you have the same mobo so if necessary would you be willing to copy the files to a rar and upload them?

il try *chucks disk in*

[Chewy]

dont use a usb flash for your riad drivers Vista is seposed to be ale to use flash for that stuff but it dont work right, I had to use a cd.

[ex_reven]

here im pretty sure its all there...
all i did was archive the disk i used to do my raid. So it should be good to go.

hmm it wont let me upload a RAR file to TPU.
il email them if you give me ur addy.

@chewy - I had to use a floppy

[Pinchy]

With the dual boot - Be careful with Vista, it doenst like dual boots for some crappy reason. My whole RAID array died once I tried to install Vista as a secondary OS, lucky everything was backed up.

With failure, hard drives dont die that often. Besides user damage, im pretty sure hard drives have had the least amount of failure for me. (Besides the case of course :D).

When installing Vista, you dont need a floppy disk...you can install the driver off whatever you want. XP needs a floppy, although there are ways of "emulating" a USB stick to act as a floppy.

Last thing, partitioning does not reduce speed in any way. Each partition is still a mix of both HDD's, so there is still no speed loss. If you want to partition, leave it to doing in windows. XP you got partition magic, Vista you got acronis.

Now when its all set up, make sure to show us some HDTach results! :toast:.

[Wile E]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ true.. I'll eventualy be getting a backup HD jsut dont want to dish out the $130 for a 500gb seagate... think I'll get an extrenal one nexted time it goes on sale though :D I r a pirata, well for personal use xDBlank DVD's are your friend. Cheap and easy back-up of important stuff. It's what I do. I gave up on the External HD for a back-up device. I had one die in the middle of a restore, and lost 300GB of data.

I use Roxio 9, because it has automatic disk spanning for larger back-ups. IE: If the stuff you want to back-up is more than 4.7GB, it will automatically split the data to multiple discs. It also burns the restore program right on the discs. You can't use it to restore an OS, but you can use to restore data.

When you want to restore, all you do is pop one of the discs in, start the Roxio Retrieve program on the disc, select the file(s) you want to restore, then it tells you which disc to throw in from the set and restores it. Don't even have to have Roxio installed to do it.


EDIT: For your RAID drivers, you can build custom install discs using nLite for XP and vLite for Vista, and integrate the RAID drivers right on the disc.

[kwchang007]

Blank DVD's are your friend. Cheap and easy back-up of important stuff. It's what I do. I gave up on the External HD for a back-up device. I had one die in the middle of a restore, and lost 300GB of data.

I use Roxio 9, because it has automatic disk spanning for larger back-ups. IE: If the stuff you want to back-up is more than 4.7GB, it will automatically split the data to multiple discs. It also burns the restore program right on the discs. You can't use it to restore an OS, but you can use to restore data.

When you want to restore, all you do is pop one of the discs in, start the Roxio Retrieve program on the disc, select the file(s) you want to restore, then it tells you which disc to throw in from the set and restores it. Don't even have to have Roxio installed to do it.


EDIT: For your RAID drivers, you can build custom install discs using nLite for XP and vLite for Vista, and integrate the RAID drivers right on the disc.

can roxio do incremental backups? i used to use the backup utility from xp for that, but now vista's will only backup the whole disk so i use an external maxtor hdd that came with software for incremental.

[Wile E]

No, it won't do incremental. But the proggy I used to use with my hard drive did. Acronis True Image. The best full fledged back-up program I've ever found.

[kwchang007]

No, it won't do incremental. But the proggy I used to use with my hard drive did. Acronis True Image. The best full fledged back-up program I've ever found.

darn it....no fun, i'll google that program you used with your hdd (i hate maxtor stuff, it's horrible) ahh shoot acronis you need to pay :(

[ex_reven]

With the dual boot - Be careful with Vista, it doenst like dual boots for some crappy reason. My whole RAID array died once I tried to install Vista as a secondary OS, lucky everything was backed up.

Thats due to Vista and XP using different boot managers.
XP has the .ini and vista has .mbr (master boot record).

The XP .ini file always seems to get owned, because the vista .mbr tries to do both OS's.
There is a way of dual booting, i saw it on the MS site and they did mention the problem with dual booting the two OS's. Theres a specific way to do it correctly.

[freaksavior]

@ ex-reven e-mail is in my profile

i dual booted xp and vista and never had a problem so idk what your talking about there being an issue

[ex_reven]

email dispatched

[Pinchy]

i dual booted xp and vista and never had a problem so idk what your talking about there being an issue

It worked fine with my single HDD, it just stuffed up my raid array :shadedshu.

[t_ski]

Looks like you guys have been busy. Just one comment to add ATM, Raid 5 actually spreads the data amoung all three disks, as well as some extra information that can be used to replicate any of the missing data if one drive fails. (when that drive is gone from the array the controller has to work overtime to account for the missing disk, so performance drops way down.) It's not like two drives are raid 0 and the third is raid 1. That's more like raid 0+1, and usually involves four identical disks.

[Wile E]

Looks like you guys have been busy. Just one comment to add ATM, Raid 5 actually spreads the data amoung all three disks, as well as some extra information that can be used to replicate any of the missing data if one drive fails. (when that drive is gone from the array the controller has to work overtime to account for the missing disk, so performance drops way down.) It's not like two drives are raid 0 and the third is raid 1. That's more like raid 0+1, and usually involves four identical disks.
Yep. That info that it stores on all the drives for recovery purposes is called parity data. Just a little fyi.

[t_ski]

Thanks. I kept thinking hamming data, which IIRC was for a different raid. Man I need sleep... lol

[freaksavior]

In the frys sale paper there is a seagate hdd

Seasgate (http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4795199;jsessionid=SLvfLYVNGKYp1GLHVlD68Q**.node2? site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG)

This is what i have
Maxtor (http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4987891?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG)

in hdtach is shows my drive as a STM3300620AS-RK
and the frys website says ST3300622AS-RK

I'm thinking there the same drive just a different name printed on it

would it be ok to raid those together? I'm kinda anxious to get another drive and raid/reformat my drive so what do you think?

[Frogger]

prob same drive with diff firmware afterall they both come from the same company .... I would buy it & run the raid ...If the "older' maxtor give you prob then RMA it & your replacement drive will most likely have the updated firmware .... most likely all will be good !

[t_ski]

Well, there is the possibility that they are the same brand of drive underneath, although the numbers are off slightly. Could be something as little as firmware or something big like a new style controller. They will probably work together OK, but if one of the drives is a lower performaer than the other it will only low the faster one down. That's the case with any mismatched pair of drives.

[Frogger]

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/product_finder/
compare MDL#s on this page
looks like 1's a 7200.10 and the other 7200.9

[freaksavior]

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/product_finder/
compare MDL#s on this page
looks like 1's a 7200.10 and the other 7200.9

i don't find either of the drives on that.

edit: whats the difference between diamondmax 20 and 21?

[Wile E]

i don't find either of the drives on that.
I found it, it's a few pages in. (Why the hell wouldn't they have a search function?)

http://img.techpowerup.org/070713/Capture008.png

[freaksavior]

soo, i might or will have a issue with performance?

Edit #1: whats the difference between 7200.10 and 7200.9?
Edit #2: It appears there is almost no performance increase from .9 to .10

[Wile E]

soo, i might or will have a issue with performance?

whats the difference between 7200.10 and 7200.9?7200.10 is the better drive. Should be perpendicular, iirc. Well, my 7200.10 is. Try to find another of yours.

[freaksavior]

so it would be better to get the same drive or at least a Seagate thats 7200.10?

[Wile E]

so it would be better to get the same drive or at least a Seagate thats 7200.10?Yeah, without a doubt.

[freaksavior]

ok, so i was wrong about the maxtor drive........it's a STM303004N1AAAS-RK

edit: if anybody can find any info on the drive please let me know as i can not find anything

[Pinchy]

My RAID is between a Seagate an a Maxtor. All i checked was that they both had the same cache and both were the same size. Havent had any problems besides that dual boot :p.

Then again, I didnt check the whole 7200.10 and 7200.9.

[Frogger]

ok, so i was wrong about the maxtor drive........it's a STM303004N1AAAS-RK

edit: if anybody can find any info on the drive please let me know as i can not find anything

http://www.maxstore.com/product.asp?sku=3338653
tommorrow

[freaksavior]

http://www.maxstore.com/product.asp?sku=3338653
tommorrow

Tomorrow?

http://www.maxstore.com/product.asp?sku=3338653
tommorrow



could you run hdtach and get the models and run a benchmark for me?

[Dippyskoodlez]

My RAID is between a Seagate an a Maxtor. All i checked was that they both had the same cache and both were the same size. Havent had any problems besides that dual boot :p.

Then again, I didnt check the whole 7200.10 and 7200.9.

yeah, people put too much emphasis on "matching" these days.. like matched memory- you can use any 2, as long as they're the same specs.

Just match rpm, cache, and capacity and you shouldn't have a problem.

Raid 0: 2x drives. Disk 1 has half the data, disk 2 has half the data. This is but is NOT technically raid. (It goes by the raid name because the method is similar to what raid does) capacity: Drive size*2

Raid 1: 2x drives... disk 1 is identical to disk 2. total capacity: drive size/2 = 1 drive.

With a raid 0 setup, the OS should think its a single hard drive, and dual booting should be completely transparent to the OS about how data's stored (aside from maybe a driver or two).


The simple solution to setting up a raid is just to understand why its used/how it works.. Doing such should answer all the littler questions :)

[Pinchy]

yeah, people put too much emphasis on "matching" these days.. like matched memory- you can use any 2, as long as they're the same specs.

Totally agree! Perfect analogy :).

With memory, you can use different speeds, you will just be clocked down to the slower speed. Latency...you can put anything together, it will just be clocked to the one with looser timings. (RAID, you can use different storage capacity, you will just be downgraded to the one with less).

[freaksavior]

so it's kinda like going sli or xfire, you don't need 2 identical cards to run it..........this is correct?

[Dippyskoodlez]

so it's kinda like going sli or xfire, you don't need 2 identical cards to run it..........this is correct?

eh, ish.

Its more closely related to Dual channel memory.. SLI/Xfire have so many variables :shadedshu

But essentially, if you ignore fine technical detail differences, YES :)


Specs are specs for a reason. They give you a standard of which to compare things. Make use of them :)

[Pinchy]

It is like SLi/Xfire. You DO need two identical cards (cant Xfire an X800 with an X1950, for example), but they dont need the EXACT same specs.

So if you got two X1950's, but one is clocked higher...they can Xfire normally, yet the faster one will be clocked down.

[freaksavior]

It is like SLi/Xfire. You DO need two identical cards (cant Xfire an X800 with an X1950, for example), but they dont need the EXACT same specs.

So if you got two X1950's, but one is clocked higher...they can Xfire normally, yet the faster one will be clocked down.

pinchy i :slap: you.

No offense here but most people know you can't xfire a x800 and a x1950. I meant like a gecube x1950 and a sapphire x1950 as i am thinking seagate and maxtor

edit:

The specs are 8.5ms seek time on the maxtor and 11 on the seagate. but there both 16mb, 7200rpm, 300gb so as you said there close and it won't hurt

[Pinchy]

pinchy i :slap: you.

No offense here but most people know you can't xfire a x800 and a x1950. I meant like a gecube x1950 and a sapphire x1950 as i am thinking seagate and maxtor

None taken :). LOL you would be so suprised. Ive answered at least three threads on this forum alone asking about that whole CF thing :p. Not to mention the countless friends that have asked me :rolleyes:.

Not that I thought you were one of them, but it did seem like you were talking about totally different cards. (To me anyways, I might just need sleep :D).

[Dippyskoodlez]

The specs are 8.5ms seek time on the maxtor and 11 on the seagate. but there both 16mb, 7200rpm, 300gb so as you said there close and it won't hurt

Seek time is one of the specs thats redundant and a waste of time to compare.. why?

Because seek times aren't always the same ;)

With a spinning platter, access times will vary from drive to drive and it isn't changing any time soon.

Different locations read/write at different speeds, where you're coming to and from when reading/writing will effect speeds as well.

the "standard" specs of Capacity, Speed, Cache should all that will make important impacts on things.

Minute differences like seek time will never be matched, nor matched perfectly, of which is compensated for via driver/raid controller :)

[freaksavior]

ok cool, well i think i'm going to get it then, and i just reformatted :( oh well it's always fun to play with something new

[Frogger]

prob same drive with diff firmware .... I would buy it & run the raid ...If the "older' maxtor give you prob then RMA it & your replacement drive will most likely have the updated firmware .... most likely all will be good !
:pimp: Like I said :D

[freaksavior]

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l294/freaksavior/untitled-6.jpg

new drive......specs are almost identical there both perpendicular drives so tomorrow is raid time :)

p.s

sry for the MASSIVE image

[freaksavior]

i'm getting ready to reformat (again) and set up the raid array, but what strip size?

4kb
64kb
128kb?

I don't game much, have maybe 5 games (cnc3, half life 2, episode 1, oblivion, cs:S) i listen to music a lot, but mainly i just want fast boot up and i play around in cs3 some.

so what would be best?

[DRDNA]

i'm getting ready to reformat (again) and set up the raid array, but what strip size?

4kb
64kb
128kb?

I don't game much, have maybe 5 games (cnc3, half life 2, episode 1, oblivion, cs:S) i listen to music a lot, but mainly i just want fast boot up and i play around in cs3 some.

so what would be best?


Sounds to me like the default will be fine for you >>64kb

[t_ski]

Are those the only options? Probably anything between 16k and 64k.

[freaksavior]

no, it's between
4,8,16,32,64,128kb i chose 64 but i can redo it as i have no idea what the best would be

[DRDNA]

no, it's between
4,8,16,32,64,128kb i chose 64 but i can redo it as i have no idea what the best would be

64 sounds like the best choice to me.

[t_ski]

64k should work fine for you. Don't sweat it too much. Post up an HDTach screenshot when you get a chance.

[freaksavior]

ok, my computer is being a gay ass fag and it keeps telling me

Setup cannot copy the files: iaStor.sys

I have setup the raid array as raid 0 and it's 558.9gb i have it connected to the red sata plugs. What do the black ones mean anyway?

anyway, what do i do? i'm stumped and i have NO idea what to do. I have searched through googe for an hour or so and no answer to my problem. I've made a new raid disk from asus and the one ex-reven sent me.

edit: if possible add me to aim, msn, or yahoo. i need this to get up and running......damn my curiosity and new toys

[t_ski]

I assume from my own Asus board that the different coloered plugs either mean nothing or they are on different controllers. Are you installing WinXP or Vista when you get the error? If it's XP, then are you providing the drivers for it (press F6 during the start of the installation)? Not sure if you have to for Vista, but you may as well.

[freaksavior]

I'm trying to install xp. I am hitting f6 when prompted and i load the intel ich8 raid drivers and then it starts to load the drivers to install xp and you get Setup cannot copy the files: iaStor.sys

edit: I put it on the black sata ports and no dice, still does the same.

[t_ski]

Is ther more than one driver that needs to be installed? I know for my NF4 board there are two drivers that need to be installed for it to work correctly.

[t_ski]

Check these out:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=install+raid+on+P5B+Deluxe

[freaksavior]

honestly i don't know....first time i used the asus rad setup utility for windows to create a raid floppy disk. Second time i used the file ex-reven sent me

[t_ski]

Check these out:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=install+raid+on+P5B+Deluxe

:)

[freaksavior]

everyone is saying they create the raid array from the raid bios meneu (ctr+I)
did that created a 558.9gb raid array.

next boot of xp disc, hit f6 install the ich8 raid drivers.
did that
format it with the xp and let it instal.
gets stuck.

edit: one person said update your bios.........i have done that it's latest bios was released last week

edit#2: this is what i've been selecting

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l294/freaksavior/CIMG2285.jpg

[t_ski]

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=26399

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Setup+cannot+copy+the+files%3A+iaStor.sys+

[Frogger]

are you leaving the floppy in the drive?? ...setup needs it to get the drivers

[freaksavior]

http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/utils/imsm_makedisk_6001022.zip
^^
thats where i've been getting my drivers.

absolutly nothing has worked for me. I have followed several other threads and non have worked. why won't this work? i'm about ready to give up, but from what i keep reading it speeds booting and almost everthing else up a good bit so thats about the only thing keeping me going.

btw thanks everyone who keeps helping me :) i apreciate it

@ frogger, Yes, i leave it in the whole time.

[Frogger]

let me take a look at the Mb manual... be back!

[Frogger]

manual =no help basic sh*t I'v had this prob with many rigs the old mind just can't pull up the info ...right now ...but I know it's REAL simple ...

[freaksavior]

damn i hate windows soo much

i used my origianl xp sp1a disc and it worked but with sp2 slipstream disc no dice.

well, if i need more help, i'll be back........thanks again.....for now :)

[t_ski]

I read that in the MSFN link I gave you. Some people were having trouble with slipstreamed disks. So it's working now with SP1a?

[Frogger]

damn i hate windows soo much

i used my origianl xp sp1a disc and it worked but with sp2 slipstream disc no dice.

well, if i need more help, i'll be back........thanks again.....for now :)

:slap::banghead: :shadedshu

[freaksavior]

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l294/freaksavior/untitled-7.jpg


there it is, raided.........is it good?

[t_ski]

Yep, that looks great. :toast:

[kwchang007]

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l294/freaksavior/untitled-7.jpg


there it is, raided.........is it good?

very nice :toast::rockout:

[Frogger]

:toast: :rockout:and you were ready to toss in the towel:laugh:
ENJOY!!;)

rebuild your slipstream disk with the raid drivers on it

[freaksavior]

cool, i was thinking it wasn't that great..........just out of curiosity how do some people get 3200mb/s?

[Wile E]

134 MB/s is OUTSTANDING for 2 drives. Congrats. :toast:

[t_ski]

cool, i was thinking it wasn't that great..........just out of curiosity how do some people get 3200mb/s?

I've seen burst speeds only get that high, but I think it's a fluke. Besides, burst speeds are only supposed to be inside the HDD itself.