Raid gurus please

[shaft]

I have a RAID array setup on 0/0 and 1/0, however I have some new kit coming and would like to move it to 0/0 and 0/1. Will this destroy everything on the drives or can it just be moved using fastbuild utilities?

Tis a Promise fastrack 133 on MSI KT3 Ultra ARU

[Dalehead]

It should work in theory m8, however I have had so many probs with Raid controllers i would proceed with caution.
Deffo copy all the important data back, because different RAID controllers sometimes fail to recognise valid array's, even when its just a simple drive re-assignment on the IDE bus.

Also would advise against a raid array with both discs on same controller m8, unless your interested in redundancy. Won't be very good for performance.....

[shaft]

Thx Dale, how much of a performance drop will there be, its purely for cosmetic reasons really, I have 4 drives, 2 raided 2 not but 3 rounded cables. 1 for DVD and CDRW, 1 for HDD 1+2 was gonna use other for RAID drives, best buy another cable then you think?

[Dalehead]

Huge performance m8.
The advantage of RAID 0 is that it stripes it reading and writing, and hence, significantly speeds things up.
Just run a disc benchmark in Sandra to see what i mean, mine beats a 15,000rpm scsi disc.
If you want raid... put a disc on each channel, and run everything else off the normal IDE.
Otherwise your loosing the advantage tbh m8.

[shaft]

K m8 will do, thats how they are at the mo, ill keep it that way. Thanks again.

[Dalehead]

No probs m8toire

[Troj]

RAID is like NTFS ie is it reall worth the hassle when it goes wrong?

Unless its RAID 5 of coz ;)

[-Blowe-]

Originally posted by Troj
RAID is like NTFS ie is it reall worth the hassle when it goes wrong?

Unless its RAID 5 of coz ;)



O yes Parity :)

[Dalehead]

Originally posted by Troj
RAID is like NTFS ie is it reall worth the hassle when it goes wrong?

Unless its RAID 5 of coz ;)

I think it is, caus the speed improvements are huge, and if you use your drives for working with and moving large files on a regular basis, the benefits are obvious.

If you just use it to play games and surf on, then i'd agree its prolly not worth it.

[Troj]

Huge? I thought it was more like 10%

You lose all the flexibility of swapping drives when friends come over, and if one drive fails you lose ALL your data. I'd only do plain striping if I had a good scheduled backup in place tbh...

[Dalehead]

Originally posted by Troj
Huge? I thought it was more like 10%

You lose all the flexibility of swapping drives when friends come over, and if one drive fails you lose ALL your data. I'd only do plain striping if I had a good scheduled backup in place tbh...

If you want to do drive swapping, plug it into the standard IDE channel?
One drive fails loose all data.... err yeah? unlike having one drive, it failing and loosing all data?

10% improvement is greatly understated.
My system has a significant performance gain using RAID 0 than it did previously. I will do some tests at the weekend if I remember, but the speed is greatly improved when it comes to working with large files. Raid might not be for everyone, but if you know the pro's and con's and think it will help, i'd say go for it.

My last 3 motherboards have had Highpoint RAID controllers, and I wouldn't think of building myself a new system these days that didn't have it tbh.

Excluding the Raid controller, my IT7 MAX2 mobo has connections for an addition 6 IDE devices anyway, so i guess it all depends on what board you have, and what you want to do with.

[Troj]

If you have 2 x 100 gig drives you only lose 100 gig was my point... RAID you lose the both in one fell swoop. Raid 5 or Raid 0/1 with a proper backup, I stand my ground :P

[Well Splattered]

Buy reliable hard drives tbh ;)
Hated waiting for Battlefield1942 to load so i went RAID0. Now all games are on the array.

WS

[Dilbert]

Would never use raid without parity tbh ... unless it was 2 very small disks with nowt on but an os and a game that really needed the speed.

2 drives in raid = the laws of probability work against yah, 2 drives seperate of each other and the laws of probability work in your favour.

[Well Splattered]

agree with dilbs there, Important imformation and the OS should be on a Fixed disk. Mines on its own 20gb partition.
Games however can be reinstalled ;)

[Dalehead]

All important data is stored on a fixed external disc for me, and also replicated onto my laptop.
All i stand to loose is OS, games and app installs.
I have image of my base machine, which means should the worst happen, and a drive go wrong...
I pop in a new disc...
Re-image the disc...
Hey i'm back up and running in 30 mins tops.

I can accept those risks for the extra speed that i get.
RAID 0 rocks, and don't forget it :E

I've been running on Raid for almost 2 years now, and not a single problem, however my server machine that doesn't use Raid had 2 IBM deskstar discs fail on it in the same week. This was 6 months ago in the well publicised 'Dale looses life time collection of porn' incident.

Probability is all well and good, but i'd take the raid everytime, caus you never know when the shits gonna happen, and if i lived conservatively, i'd never overclock a card, install a hacked app, download mp3's, or watch animal sex from Holland....
Ooops, maybe that last one was too much information :E