RAID-0 Drives on Same channel??

[redefine]

I'm going to try out my nVidia raid with my 2 WD 40GB's. I also have a backup drive to be connected and a DVDRW.

Does it matter if my 2 drives I want for a RAID-0 stripe are on the same channel?

Primary: 2xWD 40GB
Secondary: IBM Deskstar, NEC3500AG

Should I change this configuration to suit RAID?

 

[imported_Kensai]

I'd suggest changing configurations as your system can only access one item per channel at once.

 

[AristoV300]

In a RAID configuration you can only have 1 drive per channel, not master/slave.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Yeah Aristo is correct, you won't be able to run raid with your current setup.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: AristoV300
In a RAID configuration you can only have 1 drive per channel, not master/slave.

That's not true. It depends on the controller. Most onboard RAID controllers allow 2 drives per channel. Higher end cards like 3Ware, and Promise's higher end only allow one drive per channel.

Those WD drives look pretty old, so you're unlikely to lose much performance putting them on the same channel. Splitting them up would result in a negligible speed gain.

 

[cryogenic666]

Well, running RAID on a single channel isn't going to net any performance increase.. it'll just allow him to use both drives as one big drive. No better performance than using JBOD. Raid 1 would be feasible on a single channel, I suppose.

 

[AristoV300]

You can run more than one drive on a channel on a RAID controller, as long as you are not running it as RAID 0 or 1.

Yeah you are not going to see any performance gains in running RAID 0.

 

[ribbon13]

As per SATA spec, can't you run more than 1 device per channel?

But this is IDE... why RAID IDEs?

You can pick up Syba SATA adapters

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: cryogenic666
Well, running RAID on a single channel isn't going to net any performance increase.. it'll just allow him to use both drives as one big drive. No better performance than using JBOD. Raid 1 would be feasible on a single channel, I suppose.

No, that's a myth. You absolutely will see a performance increase running 2 drives in RAID 0 on the same channel. Just because only one drive can be accessed per channel at a time does not mean that when one drive is reading at 50MB/s that the channel is locked the entire time. You can get 85-90MB/s or so out of an ATA100 channel running 2 drives in RAID 0. That's not as fast as the potential 100-120MB/s 2 ATA drives are capable of, but certainly better than the 50-60MB/s a typical drive is capable of.

 

[redefine]

Well, I got bored last night, so I backed up some stuff cause I've been dying to try RAID for once, and so, yeah, lol, somehow, I don't know how, but I have Both Western Digital's on the primary channel in a RAID-o stripe and it works perfect. I'm not gonna say there's a crazy performance increase and I'm not gonna say there's not. I'm definately noticing a slight difference in load times which is pretty cool.

If I put the drives on separate channels do you think the speeds will get any better? Cause I'm also wondering if my 3rd Backup Hard Drive will or DVDRW(especially) will dogg down the channel if I do end up separating the drives?

I'll try some hard drive benchmarks and be back, thanks for all your input, I'm really curious about this.