RAID setup on ABIT KR7A-R/133

[Hawkes]

I just got a new Abit KR7AR-133 to use as a server, with a pair of Western Digital 120g drives, configured in Raid 1 (Mirroring).

I put each drive on it's own channel (cable) on the raid ports on the MB, and a CDROM drive on one of the standard ports.

I'm currently loading Windows 2000 on it, and am very concerned because it seems to be going very slowly, IO wise. The CDROM will read for a bit, drives will write a bit, then it'll sit there for a bit - CDROM reads for a bit, drives write a bit, sit there for a bit.. VERY SLOWLY. I've loaded plenty of machines before, and not seen anything this slow since my 486 days.

Any suggestions?

I upgraded to latest MB BIOS (9n) and used latest Highpoint drivers for the onboard HPT372.

Other config into (don't think it's relevant) - AMD Athlon XP 1600+ and 1gig of Kingston RAM.

 

[Hawkes]

UPDATE:

after finishing the load, it does seem somewhat quicker (ie, normal "fast" speed) once I'm actually IN the OS.

I still want to ensure my config is optimal, tho. I need "data security" more than speed, so R1 is definitely wanted over R0. I figured putting the drives on different channels would help out as from what I recall from my earlier system building days, IDE channels can only access one drive at a time - both devices on same channel didn't sound like a good config for a mirrored setup. Does the HPT372 raid change this "rule"? I've still got an open port on each channel, figured if I needed more space later, I could mirror another two drives using those.

Seemed to me that with my setup, it should of basically been reading from the CD and writing to the drive during setup fairly continually - the slowdown and pauses (with seemingly nothing happening) concerned me...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

You'll find the answers you are looking for here under the section "why is my RAID array so slow?"