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raid or not to raid?

pigseye2

Senior member
I'm trying to decide between 2 motherboards for an Athlon XP processor. Not sure which one yet.

The EPoX 8KHA+ or the Biostar M7MIA-R.

The Biostar has raid of course but uses the older chipset and I can get this for a pretty good price locally. The Epox is newer but does not have raid. I'll have to mailorder this one.

Is raid worth the it? I'm willing to purchase the right hard drives for the best performance.
Or am I better with a more modern chipset?

I like to do some video editing and am looking for the best performance for that task.

You insight is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Pigseye
 
well I just recently purchased a motherboard. I decided on the msi board but wasn't sure if to get the raid version or not. What it basically came down to was a. was I going to use it ?

I have the abit kt7-raid right now and used it only once. I had 2 WD 18GB drives that I had purchased at teh same time. I was running a raid 0 and 1 fail on me causing me to lose everything. But since then I really haven't had a use for it. And for me the extra money was worth it.

I think raid becomes extremely useful when you do stripping/appending? with mirroring. I think thats a 0+1, not positive.

I think for everyday use, you want see much of a difference.
 
thanks guys.

I wasn't sure if the investment was worth it. SOunds like for video editing it can be an advantage. Now to get another 40Gb 7200rpm Maxtor. 🙂 Nice to have an excuse to purchase more hardware.

Another question, If I set up 2 drives in RAID mode and dedicate those to video editing, can I have another drive (or more) for the OS and other programs?


Thanks Again,
pigseye
 
Yes you can, get a third HD and put it on the regular IDE. You can have as many as 8 IDE drives.
I have the KT7-RAID running dual IBM's in RAID0 no problems, you will notice the difference when video editing.
 
Hi Goog,
Thanks for your insight. I think that's what I'm going to do when I upgrade my PC. Running a celeron now.

anyway, I'm still confused on which motherboard to get.

I'm now looking at the MSI K7T266 Pro2 RU or the K7V Dragon Plus.

These are more expensive but use the KT266A Chipset. Even though they cost more I'm hoping I get a better bang for the buck in the long run.

your thoughts?

Thanks,
Pigseye


 
Of those 2 I'd likely get the Soyo, though the MSI has gotten pretty cheap.
I'm waiting to see how the new Epox 8kha2 fairs similar to the 8kha+ version out now, but with RAID and USB 2. Should be out early in the new year.
Also Abit and Asus have KT266a RAID boards out, pricey but good.

I'm also considering the Iwill XP333-R, sounds good and is less expensive, but not sure yet; it has the new ALi chipset.

My current top contenders are in order:
Iwill XP333-R
Epox 8kha2
Soyo K7V Dragon Plus

or
something cheap w/o raid based on the new SIS745 chipset.


 
thanks Goog, I wasn't aware of the new Epox board coming out next year. I think I'll just wait a bit.

If you don't mind, let me know via PM what you decide to get.

Thanks,
Pigseye
 


<< I have the abit kt7-raid right now and used it only once. I had 2 WD 18GB drives that I had purchased at teh same time. I was running a raid 0 and 1 fail on me causing me to lose everything. >>



I thought the purpose of Raid was to NOT loose everything. Am I wrong in this. I know it can increase performance some (on IDE on everday tasks it should not be much), but I was thinking of using raid only to have a mirror image so I wouldn't loose any data if one of hte drives crashed. I am doind quite a bit of digital photography now, and I'll soon be doing some video editing.
 


<<

<< I have the abit kt7-raid right now and used it only once. I had 2 WD 18GB drives that I had purchased at teh same time. I was running a raid 0 and 1 fail on me causing me to lose everything. >>



I thought the purpose of Raid was to NOT loose everything. Am I wrong in this. I know it can increase performance some (on IDE on everday tasks it should not be much), but I was thinking of using raid only to have a mirror image so I wouldn't loose any data if one of hte drives crashed. I am doind quite a bit of digital photography now, and I'll soon be doing some video editing.
>>



Depends on the RAID setup.
RAID0 is striping; benefit is speed, neagtive is 1 drive fails you lose the data across both drives.
RAID1 is mirroring (and what you're thinking of); this gives you redundancy as you discuss, but zero speed increase.
Some mobos support RAID 0+1 striping and mirroring which gives you the best of both worlds, but requires 4 hd minimum.

go to storagereview.com and search for RAID.
 
The Soyo Dragon Plus uses the promise ATA100 controller and is capable of RAID0 and RAID1, you choose which you want to use during setup.
 
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