Help with Hard Drive/IDE Setup and Configuartion

[reicherb]

I'd like some advice on how to setup all of my IDE devices. I have an Abit K7T-RAID with the current setup.

Primary Master: CDRW
Primary Slave: None
Secondary Master: CDROM
Secondary Slave: None

RAID Controller:
Primary Master: IBM 75GXP 45GB (RAID0)
Primary Slave: None
Secondary Master: IBM 75GXP 45GB (RAID0)
Secondary Slave: None

I have the drives partitioned as follows:
C: 12GB for windows and Apps
D: 10GB for VMware files
E: 65GB for Data


I have started to do quite a bit of video edition and purchased an 80GB WD Caviar 7200RPM drive (Circuit City deal this week).

Here is how I'm thinking I'll set it up:

Primary Master: CDRW
Primary Slave: None
Secondary Master: CDROM
Secondary Slave: None

RAID Controller:
Primary Master: IBM 75GXP 45GB (RAID0)
Primary Slave: IBM 75GXP 45GB (RAID0)
Secondary Master: WD 80GB
Secondary Slave: None

I would partition the drives as follows:

80GB WD
C: 15GB for windows and Apps
D: 15GB for VMware files
E: 50GB for Data

IBM RAID0
F: 90GB for video editing and video storage (will Windows handle a 90GB Partition ok?)


What do you guys think? Will this give me the best performance? Should I connect the drives differently or partition them differently?
Thanks for any suggestions.


edit: Oh, to be able to spell. How great that would be.

 

[reicherb]

bump.

Wow this place moves fast.

 

[reicherb]

bump.

 

[reicherb]

bump.

 

[ThatDumbGuy]

I don't know enough about raid to really answer your question. I would want to say to put your 80gb as your primary master, cd-rom as secondary master, cd-rw as secondary slave... thats just me, someone help him out!

 

[Davegod]

i dunno much about RAID either but i agree, shift CDROM to slave. if you have both the other HDD on the same cable raid isnt goign to be making it any faster (as far as i guess) since its sharing same cable. lot slower if thats the 'mirroring' type of raid.

also i have no idea about max partition size these days, but have fun with 90gig defrag.

 

[reicherb]

Thanks guys.

Anybody else?

 

[Jiggz]

Your original configuration is correct and the best. With the addition of the new WD hdd, your best config is to slave it either eith the Primary or Seconday RAID hdd's. RAID to be effective has to have each hdd on a different channel. Since the new hdd is nothing but a storage it'll not have any effect on your existing setup if you just slave it on either of the RAID drives. Another option is to slave it with the CD-Rom or even make it a master with the CDRom.

 

[reicherb]

Is there a reason that putting with Raid0 drives on the same channel is bad?

Thanks.

 

[reicherb]

bump

 

[homaryu]

Same channel=reduced performance, do what Jiggz said ea. Raid drive on separate channels.

 

[Davegod]

the stripping raid increases performance because two HDD's can work at the same time, shuting the data down two diff cables and thus be in theory up to twice as fast (not that much in reality, but still faster than without raid). By putting them on the same cable however, theyre competing for the cable bandwidth and you might as well not have RAID.

for mirroring raid, performance is not lost as everything can occur for both drives at the same time, so no performace loss. by putting on same cable however, theyre competing for the cable bandwidth and hence you lose performance (if one HDD could use the full bandwidth you'd cut HDD performance in half, though in reality they cant use full bandwidth, but you still get performance hit).

putting two drives on the same cable will only not affect performance at all if you will never be using both drives at the same time. With RAID, you will always be using both drives at the same time, and hence give each half of a raid configuration its own cable