Bootable, or not for RAID0 on Asus K8N-E Deluxe

[storminnorm80]

I am setting up an Asus K8N-E Deluxe MOBO with a single SATA Western Digital Raptor 74 GB HD in RAID0, and trying to decide if I should make it non-bootable, and use a Maxtor 60 GB ATA in the Primary IDE for the OS (Windows XP). I am not familiar with this kind of set up, and would like an opinion on it. I will be using this system mainly for MSFS2004, gaming, and surfing the web. I am confused as to if I need the OS in the same HD to run the flight sim and games. Is there an advantage to having the OS in a seperate drive? The Maxtor HD is 7200 rpm, and the WD HD is 10,000 rpm, will that matter since my plan is to have only the WD in the RAID0? This is new technology to me. The last system I built was 4 years ago, and it did not have SATA, or RAID. Thanks for any info/ideas.

my system specs;

Asus K8N-E Deluxe version 1.04
AMD 64 3700+
2x Corsair CMX512 PC3200C2 XMS3200 512MB 400MHz CL2
Floppy drive
Western Digital 10,000 rpm Raptor SATA
Asus CD-ROM 52X
nVidia GeForce 6800GT AGP

optional;
Maxtor 60GB 7200 rpm ATA

 

[Scott66]

Hey There
For raid0 to work you need to have at least two drives. The main advantage is speed for large file transfers such as video files. Sata such as the Raptor is just a different way to control the drive and it's files. Sata has a greater speed capability. In my case I have my 2-37G raptors as Raid 0 and have them split into two logical partitions. The one disadvantage with Raid 0 is if one of the drives fail ( heaven forbid) the entire Array is fubared. Raid 1 is safer but requires at least 3 drives to work (possibly 2) or more. Certain mother boards support using different drives as part of their arrays. Nvidia is one of them I think with new 64 bit boards but check your manual.

 

[Scott66]

You can also make the raid your bootable drive but it is tricky if you want to start with an existing windows installation and copy it over but it can be done. There are a lot of threads in this forum detailing how to do it

 

[storminnorm80]

I've read the mobo manual, and the manual for NVIDIA RAID, and Sil3114 RAID. NVIDIA RAID manual says that with RAID0 there is a 1 HD minimum. The Sil3114 RAID manual says 2 HD's or more for RAID0. My mobo has SATA1 & SATA2 (black) connections, and then 4 RAID (red color) connections. After reading all the manuals, I believe the NVIDIA RAID is for using just the SATA1 & SATA2 connections, and the Sil3114 RAID is if I'm using both SATA1 & SATA2, AND any of the other RAID (red) connections. Since I am just using one SATA HD, the NVIDIA RAID is what I believe applies to me. The NVIDIA RAID manual also gives the option of having a bootable RAID array, or a Non-bootable RAID array using a seperate HD, not included in the RAID array, to run the OS. Hence my original question. Is there an advantage to having the OS in a seperate drive? Will it matter that the HD running the OS is running at 7200rpm, while the SATA HD is running at 10,000rpm? Is there anyone else using the same MOBO with this kind of set-up?

 

[storminnorm80]

My apologies to all. After reading the manuals again, I believe that I do not need a RAID configuration for my system. I may buy another HD in the future, and try this out. Is there anyone using the same MOBO with one HD?

 

[boomerang]

Post over in the Motherboards forum. You'll get a better response over there.