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IDE raid

A

Aeridyne

Senior member
Alright, I have a lot of drives in my systems and i would like to make them faster.
I would like to take 2 drives and make them a raid 0.

I just bought an EVGA 650i motherboard off newegg and I have a pci ide controller card, I have also been looking at a few other dedicated raid cards for IDE, but i only know of 2 // Promise SuperTRAK100 and ADAPTEC AAA-UDMA.... Are there any others like those that are cheaper or cheaper and better?

I don't know which solution would be best, onboard raid, little pci ide controller raid, or a dedicated ide raid card. Obviously the dedicated card is probably the best, but cost is a HUGE factor, anything over 20 dollars puts a hurtin on me.

Finally, whichever solution you guys tell me is best, how should I use it? I think i know the basics; boot up, build a container, partition it and install windows and partition more for my other stuff? Or am i missing something?

Or would software raid be better?
How does software raid work? Do you install windows first and then try to add disks? That sounds funky so I'm probably missing something there too...
 
Just buy a 74GB Raptor for your OS and 500GB drives for storage. You don't want to be the author of another "my RAID-0 failed, how do I get my data back", do you?
 
Well, i plan on backup the data on the RAID up to another drive anyway, so im not worried about losing the data, I want to use a 2 drive raid with the drives i already have, i have a bunch of 160s and 200s already, I don't want to buy new drives.

btw i use acronis to make my backups...

oh, also, a 74 wouldnt be big enough. I plan on putting multiple OS on that raid 0 and all of my program files and games so those load faster, and my dvd rip and downloads partition, so that dvd encodes aren't limited by drive speed too.
 
Ok, I have had a difficult time finding a nice IDE RAID controller, but i have found a few that look pretty good.

I already have a sabrent sbt-rdit (20 bucks on newegg)
I am looking at an LSI MegaRaid i4 // an Adaptec 2400A IDE RAID // Highpoint RocketRaid 454

however i do not know which one is better than the other....

Also i need it to be able to run in windows vista....
 
I've used the HighPoint RocketRAID 133 IDE cards ($60-$70) on several PCs and servers with success. There are Vista drivers, but I haven't tried them.
 
Originally posted by: RebateMonger
I've used the HighPoint RocketRAID 133 IDE cards ($60-$70) on several PCs and servers with success. There are Vista drivers, but I haven't tried them.
Click to expand...

Quick question, do you need the drivers to install an OS, or do you install them later just to add functionality in windows?
 
Originally posted by: Aeridyne
Originally posted by: RebateMonger
I've used the HighPoint RocketRAID 133 IDE cards ($60-$70) on several PCs and servers with success. There are Vista drivers, but I haven't tried them.
Click to expand...

Quick question, do you need the drivers to install an OS, or do you install them later just to add functionality in windows?
Click to expand...

Kinda depends.
-If you'll be using a RAID array for the OS, then the Windows install will need the drivers.
-If you'll be installing the RAID controller after Windows install, then you won't need them for the Windows install.

that make any sense? lol
 
Originally posted by: Roguestar
Just buy a 74GB Raptor for your OS and 500GB drives for storage. You don't want to be the author of another "my RAID-0 failed, how do I get my data back", do you?
Click to expand...

Uh....no......

The 500GB sata's are on par speed wise with the 10k RPM 150GB drives. So it's certainly going to be faster than the 74GB model. Ditch the 10k RPM drive and just get a normal 7200RPM 500GB drive.
 
I was actually thinking about doing just that... I saw a deal at frys for 500 gb maxtor sata II drives... but unfortunately it is over so I'm probably going to use the 2 ide 200 gb drives i have....

so that leaves me back at my original position, don't want to spend a lot, need something good, fast, and compatible...
 
Originally posted by: Aeridyne
Well, i plan on backup the data on the RAID up to another drive anyway, so im not worried about losing the data, I want to use a 2 drive raid with the drives i already have, i have a bunch of 160s and 200s already, I don't want to buy new drives.

btw i use acronis to make my backups...

oh, also, a 74 wouldnt be big enough. I plan on putting multiple OS on that raid 0 and all of my program files and games so those load faster, and my dvd rip and downloads partition, so that dvd encodes aren't limited by drive speed too.
Click to expand...

you can't have more to many on any drive (at least with my understanding of windows) because the post only checks a part of the drive for startup code I think when i used partition magic before I could only have like 3 windows OSs...
 
I bit the bullet and decided to go for sata raid...
Not because i thought it was best, but i couldn't really get a whole lot of help for IDE and its kinda dying anyway

Oh well, atleast I will have some slightly faster drives, thanks for your help everyone.
 
Ok, i have a new question, someone told me that the theoretical limit on the pci bus is around 100 mb/s

What does a normal drive pull by itself?

It doesn't really seem like that would be true, otherwise when someone hooks in a nice scsi controller with 2 15k cheetahs that they would pull much over 100 mb/s.... so what is the real deal with all of that?
 
Originally posted by: Aeridyne
Ok, i have a new question, someone told me that the theoretical limit on the pci bus is around 100 mb/s

What does a normal drive pull by itself?
Click to expand...

You will typically max out around 100-120MB/sec on the PCI bus. For a single drive on its own bus, this is not a problem. A somewhat new 7200RPM SATA drive will usually reach between 65-75MB/sec. Note that these are under ideal conditions - sequential access, large block sizes with outstanding I/O, single user environment, raw device.

On desktop motherboards, most boards have only 1 or 2 buses that all slots share. So most of your devices operate on the PCI bus. The problem is that with a lot going on, your PCI bus becomes a bottleneck for all of your components. 2 disks or a single gigabit ethernet controller should theoretically be able to max out your bus, and that's only one device. For these reasons, the PCI-X bus was created.

PCI-X usually runs at 66/100/133Mhz. A lot of workstation/server motherboards that utilize this bus will come with 2 or more buses. You're still sharing bandwidth, just not between as many devices. You also have a lot more of it, as PCI-X 133 has around 1GB/sec of bandwidth.

PCI-E has dedicated (not shared) bandwidth to each slot. Bandwidth is determined by the number of lanes going to the slot, the size of the slot, and the size of the card. Each lane is roughly about 200MB/sec of bandwidth.
 
Originally posted by: Roguestar
Just buy a 74GB Raptor for your OS and 500GB drives for storage. You don't want to be the author of another "my RAID-0 failed, how do I get my data back", do you?
Click to expand...

lol, that's a good point.

man, just go to compuvest.com and find yourself a cheap IDE RAID controller if you wanna do something with your drives.

otherwise, sell all your crappy IDE drives 'cuz most motherboards nowdays are only coming out with 1 IDE slot that supports only 2 drives connected to it.. which sucks. sell your stuff and get the raptor and a big SATA II hard drive.

 
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