I need some advice with RAID and the Badaxe2

[Jerry944T]

I am going to build a new computer using Intel's BadAxe2 board which is RAID capable. I would like the security of mirroring two drives in a Raid 1 configuration.

The question being do these drives have to be identical and if not what are the pitfalls?

Also when paging through the manual there seems to be an option of configuring the bios for future Raid use. Does this mean that I can add a drive latter and have the first drive write the contents of the first drive to the second?

Also why are their two RAID software disks included, One seems to be Intel and the other seems to be Marvel. Which should be used or are both installed. This is unclear to me.

Any help or education would be appreciated

TIA,

Jerry

 

[Jerry944T]

Nobody feels like helping?

 

[reddog024]

The drives don't have to be identical, but you could run into issues if they aren't. And if they aren't the same size, the smaller of the 2 drives determines the size of the array. I've run a few raid settups and have always used identical drives to minamize problems.

 

[onioneater36]

You may want to consider drives that have features that make them better for RAIDing (like the WD1600YS series). I have 2 in RAID0 and they work great. Love the performance.

 

[cleanerPA]

Originally posted by: Jerry944T
I am going to build a new computer using Intel's BadAxe2 board which is RAID capable. I would like the security of mirroring two drives in a Raid 1 configuration.

The question being do these drives have to be identical and if not what are the pitfalls?

Also when paging through the manual there seems to be an option of configuring the bios for future Raid use. Does this mean that I can add a drive latter and have the first drive write the contents of the first drive to the second?

Also why are their two RAID software disks included, One seems to be Intel and the other seems to be Marvel. Which should be used or are both installed. This is unclear to me.

Any help or education would be appreciated

TIA,

Jerry

You should get identical drives for RAID 1 or RAID 0. Before you do RAID, I hope you did some research on the topic, as it definitely adds a level of complexity to your system.

BadAxe2 has two SATA controllers- the Intel and the Marvell. IIRC, the Intel is the black connectors and the Marvell is the blue. That's why you have two disks. You don't need to enable both, but you can. I have both enabled although I don't use either for RAID and only have one drive running off the Intel controller (my main OS drive).

 

[craftech]

Originally posted by: cleanerPA

Originally posted by: Jerry944T
I am going to build a new computer using Intel's BadAxe2 board which is RAID capable. I would like the security of mirroring two drives in a Raid 1 configuration.

The question being do these drives have to be identical and if not what are the pitfalls?

Also when paging through the manual there seems to be an option of configuring the bios for future Raid use. Does this mean that I can add a drive latter and have the first drive write the contents of the first drive to the second?

Also why are their two RAID software disks included, One seems to be Intel and the other seems to be Marvel. Which should be used or are both installed. This is unclear to me.

Any help or education would be appreciated

TIA,

Jerry

You should get identical drives for RAID 1 or RAID 0. Before you do RAID, I hope you did some research on the topic, as it definitely adds a level of complexity to your system.

BadAxe2 has two SATA controllers- the Intel and the Marvell. IIRC, the Intel is the black connectors and the Marvell is the blue. That's why you have two disks. You don't need to enable both, but you can. I have both enabled although I don't use either for RAID and only have one drive running off the Intel controller (my main OS drive).

Do the disks need to be installed to enable the SATA connectors on this motherboard?

John

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: craftech

Originally posted by: cleanerPA

Originally posted by: Jerry944T
I am going to build a new computer using Intel's BadAxe2 board which is RAID capable. I would like the security of mirroring two drives in a Raid 1 configuration.

The question being do these drives have to be identical and if not what are the pitfalls?

Also when paging through the manual there seems to be an option of configuring the bios for future Raid use. Does this mean that I can add a drive latter and have the first drive write the contents of the first drive to the second?

Also why are their two RAID software disks included, One seems to be Intel and the other seems to be Marvel. Which should be used or are both installed. This is unclear to me.

Any help or education would be appreciated

TIA,

Jerry

You should get identical drives for RAID 1 or RAID 0. Before you do RAID, I hope you did some research on the topic, as it definitely adds a level of complexity to your system.

BadAxe2 has two SATA controllers- the Intel and the Marvell. IIRC, the Intel is the black connectors and the Marvell is the blue. That's why you have two disks. You don't need to enable both, but you can. I have both enabled although I don't use either for RAID and only have one drive running off the Intel controller (my main OS drive).

Do the disks need to be installed to enable the SATA connectors on this motherboard?

John

No. You just have to go into the BIOS and enable them. No disks have to be connected to do so.

 

[craftech]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo

Originally posted by: craftech

Originally posted by: cleanerPA

Originally posted by: Jerry944T
I am going to build a new computer using Intel's BadAxe2 board which is RAID capable. I would like the security of mirroring two drives in a Raid 1 configuration.

The question being do these drives have to be identical and if not what are the pitfalls?

Also when paging through the manual there seems to be an option of configuring the bios for future Raid use. Does this mean that I can add a drive latter and have the first drive write the contents of the first drive to the second?

Also why are their two RAID software disks included, One seems to be Intel and the other seems to be Marvel. Which should be used or are both installed. This is unclear to me.

Any help or education would be appreciated

TIA,

Jerry

You should get identical drives for RAID 1 or RAID 0. Before you do RAID, I hope you did some research on the topic, as it definitely adds a level of complexity to your system.

BadAxe2 has two SATA controllers- the Intel and the Marvell. IIRC, the Intel is the black connectors and the Marvell is the blue. That's why you have two disks. You don't need to enable both, but you can. I have both enabled although I don't use either for RAID and only have one drive running off the Intel controller (my main OS drive).

Do the disks need to be installed to enable the SATA connectors on this motherboard?

John

No. You just have to go into the BIOS and enable them. No disks have to be connected to do so.

Thanks,

John

 

[Jerry944T]

Thanks for all the input. Please feel free to further educate me.

Jerry

 

[khodgson]

Like you I have the BadAxe2 mainboard and have also chosen RAID. I purchased the board in the last three weeks and have since configured a RAID 0 and RAID 1 array using 4 WD Raptor 74 GB drives. As previously mentioned, the black connectors on the mainboard are the Intel Matrix RAID controllers and the Blue connectors are the Marvel SATA RAID controllers. The single RED connector is to control eSATA. Intel color coded the disk to coincide with the color of the SATA connectors. The disk that is colored blue matches the Marvel Raid and you must have Secondary Sata enabled in the CMOS to support it. The Black Connectors are enabled under Peripheral Configuration and you must enable RAID instead of IDE or AHCI. If you already have installed your primary drive under IDE mode, you will need to reformat and re-install since the RAID configuration requires the drivers to be installed prior to formatting. To install RAID, boot from a good XP disk and during the text install screen (after it prompts to boot to cd) a message stating Press F6 to load RAID drivers will appear for a few seconds. If you miss this, you will need to reboot. If you caught it in time, a few seconds later, a message asking you to press S to load drivers will appear. At this time, you will be prompted to enter your RAID disk. Place the correct disk in the drive as determined by your SATA connections. If everything functions normally, you should have no problems completing the XP installation. After XP installation completes, be sure to install the INF chipset driver and the Matrix Storage RAID driver to gain full access to your drives in the Disk Manager.