Help with understanding raid please

[Sav]

Hiya,


I was building my new comp, and I am wondering if raid is really worth the extra money. I will not be setting up arrays, is there a function for the raid connectors besides arrays?

- Any help would be appreciated, thanks!
- Sav

 

[j00]

you must have a mighty big problem with bugs if you need that in your computer

 

[Z80]

Yeah, increases your max IDE devices from 4 to 8. Install 7 cheap CDROM drives and go into the MP3 ripping business!

 

[Sav]

Thats cool do the raid ports work at ATA 100 or 66?


- Thanks again
- Sav

 

[konichiwa]

Yeaaah...woops.

 

[SeaHarp]

konichiwa
What is so funny that is exactly what the benefits would be. You go from 2 to 4 IDE ports thus 4 to 8 IDE devices. Remember Sav said he didnt want to run in a raid array and asked what other benefits there would be. I guess I just may have understood your response.

 

[tkdkid]

I've read some about JBOD raid (Just a Bunch Of Disks). Is it possible to create a raid array using various types of disks (not identical) and have all the space show up on a single drive letter?

 

[Tsaico]

Yes, it is possible to raid together different size drives, but you will only have twice the smallest drive in the array. For example, say you bought a 10 gig and a 15 gig, raided them together, and you would end up with a 20 gig array. The same holds true for larger arrays too, unless you are panning(sp?), which if you are, you pretty much lost the advantages of raid systems and are wasting your time.

 

[tkdkid]

well, spanning is kind of what I was going for. I don't need the speed or redudancy of a raid array. I just want to be able to add space to an existing drive letter.