Adding identical hard drive for RAID

[PeteRoy]

If I buy an identical hard drive to what I have right now to make it work as RAID, will I have to reformat my existing operating system?

Also, will I have to buy a cable or does the hard drive come with a cable?

Will RAID work with Intel D865PERL? on that pages it says it supports RAID but im not sure.

And finally, is it really worth getting RAID? Will I notice the difference in speed?

Thank you.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: PeteRoy
If I buy an identical hard drive to what I have right now to make it work as RAID, will I have to reformat my existing operating system?

With RAID1, usually no (but it won't get you any extra space, just more survivability). With RAID0, usually yes.

Also, will I have to buy a cable or does the hard drive come with a cable?

Hard drives don't usually include them. Didn't your motherboard come with some?

Will RAID work with Intel D865PERL? on that pages it says it supports RAID but im not sure.

Two Serial ATA interfaces with RAID 0 and RAID 1 support

Yes, at least on the SATA interface.

And finally, is it really worth getting RAID? Will I notice the difference in speed?

Depends what you are doing. But if you have to ask, then probably not.

 

[PeteRoy]

Will it improve loading times in games like battlefield 2? I already have 2 gig of ram.

 

[foodfightr]

Yes, if you don't care about risking your data it will speed up load times of big files.

 

[the Chase]

Im actually trying to do this now with 2 identical PATA drives. Do you have to install a Nvidia raid driver before loading windows?( =Windows XP Home SP2) I think I set the bios up correctly for it but windows is partitioning both drives seperately instead of as 1 big drive? Can I load raid drivers after windows install since these are not sata drives??

 

[cheetoden]

I just did my first ide raid setup and I had to install a raid driver during the beginning of Win XP installation. The NVraid guide was most helpful.