Help me please, im confused about raid

[acid16]

Well this is the 3rd time I typed this msg and im more confused than when I originally started. I need a raid setup for my new computer. I want reliabilty. With alot of options out now, im lost. I have my heart set on a Raid 5 setup. There is

SCSI
IDE
SATA

Ok, SCSI is pretty much out of my league. I could maybe afford the 10k drives, but not a raid card... and even if I could, it would be a waste to go with scsi drives if I was only gonna use them for Raid 1

Now... IDE, good, cheap drives. I could get 4 of these with 8MB cache, but the A7N8X doesn't have onboard IDE raid, so i'd have to buy a raid card. From what i've seen, Raid 5 IDE cards are like, $200 or $300 for an ok one. That right there pretty much kills me...

And SATA... I dont know much about sata. The A7N8X mobo has onboard SATA raid, what does this mean? Obviously it doesn't support Raid 5, but would it support Raid 10 (1/0) ???

and the last option is for me to buy a SATA adapter for my motherboard (A7N8X) and go with two IDE drives in Raid 1.....

.....help

 

[Pariah]

Your budget basically eliminates RAID 5 as an option. I'd dump the whole RAID idea. It's an overrated and over used feature in home use. Just get a fast smaller SCSI drive with a large ATA drive to make periodic image backups of the SCSI drive.

I dont know much about sata.

Don't worry about, you won't need to know anything about it for at least another 6 months, when we start seeing a better selection of drives.

Obviously it doesn't support Raid 5, but would it support Raid 10 (1/0) ???

No it doesn't, as you need at least 4 drives to implement RAID 10, and this board only has 2 ports. Also, the majority of cheaper ATA RAID implementations only support RAID 0+1, not RAID 10. RAID 0+1 has lower fault tolerance than RAID 10 (aka RAID 1+0).

 

[acid16]

Originally posted by: Pariah
Your budget basically eliminates RAID 5 as an option. I'd dump the whole RAID idea. It's an overrated and over used feature in home use. Just get a fast smaller SCSI drive with a large ATA drive to make periodic image backups of the SCSI drive.

I dont know much about sata.

Don't worry about, you won't need to know anything about it for at least another 6 months, when we start seeing a better selection of drives.

Obviously it doesn't support Raid 5, but would it support Raid 10 (1/0) ???

No it doesn't, as you need at least 4 drives to implement RAID 10, and this board only has 2 ports.

Thanks alot for opinions. I really do want raid as an option though. What about running two IDE drives in Raid 1. If I get the silly adapters, this would work? And is there any performance loss from using them? And also, does anyone know what type of adapters id need to use the SATA Raid as IDE Raid? (Link to newegg if possible). Getting IDE's with adapters would still be cheaper than a SCSI drive and provide more space. 36GB isn't enough room for me... especially not at $190 US just for a 10K !!! I'm curious though, how would I make image backups???

Thanks,
Acid

 

[Pariah]

What about running two IDE drives in Raid 1.

Should work fine.

If I get the silly adapters, this would work?

Should work fine, but I wouldn't recommend it. For the price of 2 adapters ($30/per adapter @ Newegg), you can get a cheap ATA RAID card that will support 4 drives. I'm also just not a fan of using adapters on my HD's.

And is there any performance loss from using them?

Shouldn't be.

I'm curious though, how would I make image backups???

Plenty of software options out there like Powerquest's Drive Image and Norton Ghost.

 

[chizow]

I'd have to agree with what Pariah said. If you want any sort of performance/redundancy based RAID array, expect to pay for it in terms of HDD cost and hardware (hardware-based RAID card for RAID 5 or 10; or a softRAID card for 0+1) If you are budget conscious, setting up a RAID array simply b/c your mobo supports it will cost more than it benefits. Now if you had 2 smaller drives and wanted redundancy or a slight performance boost, it might be a consideration, but since you seem to be starting from scratch I wouldn't bother with it.

If you want to use the onboard controller you'll need Serial ATA to Parallel ATA adapters. They go anywhere from $20 to $30, and form all indications don't hinder drive performance. The downside other than the added $50-$60 is that they don't draw enough power from the IDE ribbon and therefore require a floppy power connection (usually isn't a problem, but it might pose an issue on heavily loaded, underpowered PSUs). The thing with RAID 1 is that your array will only be as big as your smallest drive and there would only be a slight performance increase in reads. Unless you are running a server or have a lot of irreplaceable data files on one disk, you might be better off using 2 smaller drives and using one as a scratch disk/backup and one as an OS/app drive. Any critical files should be offloaded to CD or other permanent media.

There's 2 places I know of that sell the adapters for less than $30: SVC @ ~$20 for generic and ExcaliberPC for Abit Serillel brand for ~$22. Prices don't include shipping. Personally I'd get a cheap PCI RAID card over adapters though, as they'll provide legacy support for your IDE devices as mobos begin to migrate towards onboard SATA.

Chiz[

 

[acid16]

Thanks guys. I think that is very good advice. I am thinking that I may like to go with Raid 0 now perhaps..... I can pick up a Raid 0/1 card pretty cheap (like $70). The reason I like Raid 0, is cause I saw the becnhmarks, and man, Raid 0 kicks major ass, almost doubling Raid 5 in performance in some cases. So what I am thinking.....

4 x 40GB Drives in Raid 0
1 x 160GB Drive to do image backups..... thats perfect too, since my case has 5 internal 3.5" slots

Will this work though? Can I easily make a single image from 4 40GB drives in Raid 0 onto a single 160GB drive? Im not familiar with that proceedure of backup at all. And, say I wanted to backup every week... would I need to format the 160GB drive, or does the software do that for me? (Would be a hassle if I had to reformat the drive every week).

Thanks,
Acid16

 

[Pariah]

The reason I like Raid 0, is cause I saw the becnhmarks, and man, Raid 0 kicks major ass, almost doubling Raid 5 in performance in some cases.

That's because RAID 5, especially ATA RAID 5, is not a performance driven RAID level though its read performance is pretty good, its write performance is very poor, well below that of a single drive. I would still recommend against RAID, and refer you to a post on the front page of StorageReview:

Third post down

"The SR Office, High-End, and Gaming DriveMarks, however, all climb by less than 10%. Also consider the fact that the RAID array boasts double the capacity of the single drive: as a result, some of that performance increase we see between the single drive and the RAID array simply comes from the larger capacity and resultant shorter actuator travel distances. Is this worth twice the cost plus the cost of the controller?"

By comparison, the Atlas 10K IV beats the same Maxtor drive above by 30%, 20%, and 25% respectively in the 3 mentioned tests, and the 10k IV is only the second fastest SCSI drive, though it is quite a beat cheaper on a $/GB scale compared to the Cheetah 15k.3.

I'm not showing you that to recommend SCSI, since it doesn't make sense based on your budget, but to demonstrate how little performance increase you should expect from RAID 0 in standard user scenarios.

Can I easily make a single image from 4 40GB drives in Raid 0 onto a single 160GB drive? Im not familiar with that proceedure of backup at all.

There may be some issues there as most if not all imaging programs run in DOS, so you would need to be able to access your array from DOS. Someone else with more experience with ATA RAID in DOS may want to chime in on this one.

would I need to format the 160GB drive, or does the software do that for me?

The software should do it all for you.

I think the easiest and cheapest solution is to buy 2 160GB drives and use one to backup the other. Using WD drives based on Newegg pricing, the 2 drive solution is about $150 cheaper than 5 drives and a RAID card.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Pariah

I think the easiest and cheapest solution is to buy 2 160GB drives and use one to backup the other. Using WD drives based on Newegg pricing, the 2 drive solution is about $150 cheaper than 5 drives and a RAID card.

eh, if you're gonna get two drives and just have one be an image of another why not just RAID 1 them?

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Pariah

I think the easiest and cheapest solution is to buy 2 160GB drives and use one to backup the other. Using WD drives based on Newegg pricing, the 2 drive solution is about $150 cheaper than 5 drives and a RAID card.

eh, if you're gonna get two drives and just have one be an image of another why not just RAID 1 them?

You can. Win2K Pro, and WinXP Pro both have the functionality built in for free. If he had onboard P-ATA RAID I would recommend it, but I don't really see the point in spending $70 for it since he doesn't. A software solution is more flexible since it isn't tied to any one system, the backups you make will work in any system, unlike RAID which can be a pain to transfer to another system. Also RAID'd drives are stuck as RAID drives, you can't just take one out and put it in another system without backing up the RAID array and then reformatting the drives. The software solution is also cheaper, especially if you get bundled with other hardware.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Pariah

I think the easiest and cheapest solution is to buy 2 160GB drives and use one to backup the other. Using WD drives based on Newegg pricing, the 2 drive solution is about $150 cheaper than 5 drives and a RAID card.

eh, if you're gonna get two drives and just have one be an image of another why not just RAID 1 them?

You can. Win2K Pro, and WinXP Pro both have the functionality built in for free. If he had onboard P-ATA RAID I would recommend it, but I don't really see the point in spending $70 for it since he doesn't. A software solution is more flexible since it isn't tied to any one system, the backups you make will work in any system, unlike RAID which can be a pain to transfer to another system. Also RAID'd drives are stuck as RAID drives, you can't just take one out and put it in another system without backing up the RAID array and then reformatting the drives. The software solution is also cheaper, especially if you get bundled with other hardware.

i thought the software solution would be the more klutzy thing... now someone has to tell me

ah well, only $43 for the card

 

[Pariah]

It should also be noted that RAID 1 only protects your data against hardware failures. If you corrupt your data, the corruption gets copied to the mirror and all you end up with is 2 copies of useless data. By using a software solution, if you install a bad driver, acquire a virus, install a flaky piece of software or simply corrupt you data among other data mishaps, you can go back to the backup you made before the mess up and have a working system again.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Pariah
It should also be noted that RAID 1 only protects your data against hardware failures. If you corrupt your data, the corruption gets copied to the mirror and all you end up with is 2 copies of useless data. By using a software solution, if you install a bad driver, acquire a virus, install a flaky piece of software or simply corrupt you data among other data mishaps, you can go back to the backup you made before the mess up and have a working system again.

you mean images?

most of what i've had are just bad sectors on disks and the last HDD rma sounded like the head was beating itself against the side of the housing. and i'd never be able to keep up with the imaging. i wonder how long it takes to image 80 gb anyway?

 

[Pariah]

Yes, I mean imaging.

i wonder how long it takes to image 80 gb anyway?

Depends on the speed of the drives and how much data needs to be copied. Maybe an hour and a half tops, about twice as long if you choose to verify the copy. Shouldn't really be an issue, once a week of whenever you have something important to backup, you run the program before you go to bed, it will be long done by the time you wake up.

 

[chizow]

A PCI RAID card actually offers the greatest flexibility if you want to move the array between machines or platform upgrades. The array remains intact and since it has its own BIOS and controller from which the array is created, you have a fully functional standalone array that can transferred seamlessly. The problems occur when you have an onboard solution, where you'll need to try to find a board with the same controller, or in some cases find a board with an upgraded controller from the same mfg (most controller chipsets support legacy versions of the chipset). The problems with RAIDing through Windows is that the array is tied to Windows.

If you get a PCI RAID card, you should be able to use Ghost or your backup utility of choice. I didn't go that route, as I only backup certain folders where I store irreplaceable data. Also, when backing up or writing to a non-RAIDed drive, don't expect to see much benefit from the RAID 0 array, as performance will be bottlenecked by the standalone drive. I used a few RAID cards, and found that the Koutech PIR IOFLEX offered the best bang for the buck at only $29 at Newegg. Its based on the Sil680 chipset, and performed very similarly to the best softwareRAID card out there, the HighPoint RocketRAID 133 ($80). The only negative was the LED header didn't work; I tried 2 different cards and now I'm pretty sure its just a feature it lacks.

Chiz