new to RAID setup

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Endymion

Platinum Member
Oct 9, 1999
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okay, yeah, that is what i meant, 2 ide, 2 raid, so i can put up to 4 drives on each pair, which brings us back to the question

can i use 3 drives in the raid setup?

what i want is, a drive for the os and programs, and then a raid setup of either 3 or 4 identical drives...
 

Endymion

Platinum Member
Oct 9, 1999
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okay, if it a case of performance, then i will just go with 4 drives

4 drives on the raid controller, the os drive and dvd drive on the ide channels

i think i got it...
 

QuestionsandAnsweres

Golden Member
Jun 27, 2001
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ugh.thats a waste

4 drives on 2 ide channels is just a waste..

3 drives on 2 ide channels i just a tad of a waste

2 drives on 2 ide channels is not a waste


4 drives on 2ide channels will perform really close to 3 drives on 2 ide channels. and u have more heat to deal with. more money to spend. and more likeliness of a hard drive dieing. :p

but its your money
 

Endymion

Platinum Member
Oct 9, 1999
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my brain hurts....

so you think that instead of 3 or 4 40-60GB drives, that i should perhaps get 2 x 80GB drives and give them their own channel on the riad controller, ie they are each a master on their channel?
 

rommel

Banned
Jan 23, 2001
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Q&A is saying that it will not give you teh optimal performance that a 4 channel controller would give you and he is right....but if you have a two channel onboard controller and 4 drives setting it up as two pairs master adn slave will be perfectly fine...and should atleast equal if hnot be slightly better in perfromance then two drives each on their own channel....as for putting the OS on its own drive that is not nessesary but probably a bit safer
 

Endymion

Platinum Member
Oct 9, 1999
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my choices

1) stick with abit th7 II with it's 2 channel raid controller and
(A) use 2 drives, each on their own channel
(B) use 4 drives, on 2 channels

2) get another mobo, without an onboard raid controller, that has 4 channels
(A) put 2 drives on 2 channels
(B) put 4 drives on 4 channels


 

QuestionsandAnsweres

Golden Member
Jun 27, 2001
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yes rommel thats what im saying

btw. if u are going to keep the onboard raid and use that. dont do 4 drives do 3 hard rdives

difference between 4 hd on 2 channels and 3hd on 2 channels isnt worth the money for the hard drive :p

(now unless u need the hrad drive space then thats upt o ya. if u need the hard drive space then get 4)

but check your PM again i sent ya sometihng again
 

Jfrag Teh Foul

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2001
3,146
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Safety was not the issue with my sys... its purely for gaming anyway. With the config that I set up I was after sheer performance with the equipment I had. Since I only had 2 20 GB Cudas then I was against the wall as far as my OS was concerned... At that point it seemed either I go with running just two IDE drives seperately or at least make a moderate jump with going with the bootable Raid array. I took the lesser of two evils.
 

rommel

Banned
Jan 23, 2001
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just use what you have.....it will be fine....most importantly is to match in speed and type the drives on the raid configuration...so set it up with this in mind...if you only have two drives that are identical then make that your deciding factor
 

rommel

Banned
Jan 23, 2001
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well what exactly do you have already...that you want to use..... and what is the primary sue of the system you'll be building
 

Endymion

Platinum Member
Oct 9, 1999
2,167
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video editing, and all i have so far is a list of parts and a credit card number

P4 1.7GHz
Abit TH7 II
256MB RDRAM

that is the 'guts' of it
or will be anyway....
 

rommel

Banned
Jan 23, 2001
1,579
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well have you thought about scsi?...what kind of money constraints do you have....let me put it like this...one of my scsi x15 cheetah drives is faster then a raid 0 array using two ide ata100 7200 drives....now if you dont want to get into the whole scsi thing then i think i would get a mobo without onboard raid...go with the 3ware 4 channel controller...that is the fastest thing out for ide raid i think....then 4 drives...seagates new ata100 drives would be good i think...i like ibm's but they have been trouble to alot here i think...i have never had a problem with them though
 

rommel

Banned
Jan 23, 2001
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lol....ok then stick to two hard drives but get a promise tx4 controller incase you want to change to 4 drives ata later date....atleast check the cost...3ware is good but i think the cost is significantly greater....onboard raid is ok too...but you would have the two channel limitation....i think though that just having a raid 0 configuration using two new ata100 drives would be fine....you can go crazy with this stuff ....but the performance increases become less and less significate for the money spent...its kinda like a farrari against a corvette....what is three tenths of a second faster really worth...its totally subjective....my advice is start simple...get what you ahd originally stated...but limit it to just two drives of a size you need for your storage requirements