RAID

[gamenutt]

Id like to get a raid array set up but do not know anything about raid so I have a few questions.

right now in my system I have a Maxtor 60Gb 7200 rpm ata 133 drive and a slightly older western digital 40 gb 7200 rpm drive. I also have a 30 Gb maxtor diamond max 40 7200 rpm 30 gb drive and probably will buy a serial ata 120 gb drive soon. Im not sure if the western digital drive is ata but will find out. But can I make a raid array with a bunch of drives that arent identical? like ones ata 133 ones ata 100 does that matter. Can I create an array using a drive that is not ata. How do I go about creating an array with the 2 drives that are in my computer now.

My motherboard asus p4s8x has a fasttrak controller on it. And other specs

Windows xp
P4 2.53 GHz 533 fbs
2 x 512 Mb ddr pc 2700 ram
sound blaster audigy 2 platinum
geforce 4 ti 4200 agp 8x

 

[(Shovel)]

RAID is something I'm leaning towards getting into with my next build (though that wont be for a while).

It's worth having a look on Storage Review, since they will offer some useful sources on what kind of RAID setup to get.

I found this interesting though, it points out what doesn't improve when using RAID.

Transfer raid will nearly double when it gets going on a solid hunk of data.

You will need two indentical drives, I'd recommend getting the most reliable you can grasp since if packs up then you lose it all. My tip is the Seagate Barracuda IV series. They are alse very good if you want silent operation. If not, then you can get something bigger/faster/louder

I hope that gets you started. Jonty will be along to write the book shortly.

 

[kameleon]

With those drives you can set up a striping array with the 60 and 40 gig however this will reduce your drive to 40 gb. This will allow simultaneous read/write and makes hdd operations faster.

You can run a mirror of the 60 gig but this will reduce it to a 40 gig.

You can just have all the drives lumped together. They will run at the rating of your slowest drive. This will create one large hard drive.

Bear in mind that creating an aray will result in reformatting of your drives.

 

[Jonty]

Originally posted by (Shovel)
... Jonty will be along to write the book shortly.

Pft! Nice as it is, people don't half hold me in too higher a regard You all got along just fine without me before I came to this forum

As it happens, I happen to have no experience with RAID, so I cannot really help. Fortunately, RAID has been discussed in various posts on this forum before. In addition to this, there are also plenty of tutorials to be found by searching the Internet.

Sorry I cannot be of more assistance

 

[Embattle]

Originally posted by kameleon

You can just have all the drives lumped together. They will run at the rating of your slowest drive. This will create one large hard drive.

Known as JBOD (Just A Bunch of Disks)

I've had RAID and it is good but you need to remember that you won't get double the performance, in most cases you'll get a 50% in certain areas. Again this depends on what drives you use and what controller card.

I think you won't get a lot out of using your current mixture of drives.

Bit more info on RAID levels here http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/