Raid question

[HoosierDadE]

Hi, I have a Koutech I/O Future PIR133 Ultra ATA/133 RAID PCI Card that I want to use with a WinXP system. But I'll pass if it means I can't back up my volumes with DriveImage or Ghost (or some freeware) AND restore single files from the backups. I can't get a straight answer from the manufacturer or retailer.

My impression is that I can't back up a system volume except from DOS and that the DOS drivers for the card do not provide RAID support. So..... does that mean any Ghost/DriveImage backup from DOS will be only of a single stripe and hence useless for Ghost explorer or the DriveImage equivalent?

TIA

 

[Lord Evermore]

The drivers don't have to "support" RAID specifically, because the drivers never see what configuration the drives are in.

A standard MSDOS boot disk is able to use most RAID or regular IDE controllers without any drivers being installed. Because of that, DOS can view any array that exists exactly the way the array is intended, because it only sees what the controller reports. If you have two drives in a RAID 0 array, DOS only sees one drive of the total size. Because of that, if DOS can see the drive, then software like Ghost should be able to make copies of it. Symantec doesn't officially support RAID arrays because it would mean higher costs for them due to the many variations of controllers, OS and array configurations people have.

The Koutech seems to use a Silicon Image chip, probably the Sil680, which is a rebadged CMD680 that is used by other brands as well.

Older versions of software did, for some reason, sometimes have problems with RAID arrays. Partition Magic I know for one did. PowerQuest's site search is coming up with the wrong pages for information, but it sounds like they don't support RAID10 but do support RAID0. I really don't know how the software can have any idea what combination of drives is in use.

 

[HoosierDadE]

Thanks Evermore.