Gradually building up Intel Matrix RAID

Netscorer

Member
Jan 27, 2002
83
0
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Hi,

I am planning to gradually build a 4-drive RAID5 array on Intel Matrix RAID chipset available on P5B-E m/b. By 'gradually' I mean buying one HD at a time until I hit a limit of 4HDs. I already purchased first HD (a WD 500GB model WD5000AAKS) and plan on buying ~ one per month.
The manual is very vague about the ability of this specific chipset to build up RAID without losing any data already stored on HDs.

I would like to get opinions of users who have this (or similar) m/b and already created their RAID5 arrays on what their experience was in doing so.

- First of all, do I need to declare my first HD as RAID right away or keep it as IDE until I get a second HD?
- Can I change from IDE to RAID without losing data already on disk?
- Once I get a second HD, can I already set a RAID5 or is it only available with 3+ drives?
- Can I add new drive to already existing array?

Cheers,

netscorer.
 

classy

Lifer
Oct 12, 1999
15,219
1
81
You need 3 drives for raid 5. I would suggest you configure the array first, then install fresh.
 

Netscorer

Member
Jan 27, 2002
83
0
0
Thanks Classy,

so you're saying that Intel does not allow to build up the array one piece at a time, like X-Raid does in Infrant, for instance?

Can I at least add new drive to array later, or am I stuck at 3 drives if I install it that way initially?