RAID setup tips

[Athlonin]

Hi. I just purchased two new 40 GB Maxtor D740X drives from Office Depot (only $15 a piece with tax if i'm able to get all my rebates back) and would like to set them up with RAID. I'm hoping some of you with first hand experince will be able to guide me a little. My motherboard is a Soyo K7V Dragon Plus and has a promise raid chip on board. I believe I should set both drives up as master and connect them to IDE 3 & 4 with there own ATA cables. Then, change the RAID jumper on the MB to 1-2 which I think will enable RAID. Could you please advise me on the proper steps to follow from here? Will programs like Partition Magic and Drive Image 2002 work properly on this setup? Please also comment on the performance gains of RAID vs. the increased chances of data loss (I won't be putting important data on them but what do you think the chances are that the RAID setup will fail me, say in the next 3 years). Thanks for all your help!

 

[boyRacer]

Your RAID array will function just like a single drive... so those programs will work with no problem. There is an increased chance in data loss because all drives must function properly or all your information is lost. I wouldn't worry about it too much... unless you don't do regular backups. You won't really notice any drastic increase in performance if you're just a casual user... maybe if you were into photo editing that requires huge files. I've had my array for about a year now and they've been flawless... *KNOCK ON WOOD* ... good luck.

 

[Deeko]

I just set up my RAID array. I have the Epox 85KA+, with the Highpoint RAID controller. I set mine up with 128K stripes, that's not an option for you...I have dual 80GB WD drives, I just hooked both of them up on IDE 3, I get good performance, in the Sandra test I finish ahead of the dual 7200RPM RAID array, and just behind the 15K RPM SCSI setup...works pretty well. Everything will recognize your array as a single drive, outside of the RAID setup itself.

 

[Athlonin]

What is the best strip size for my setup?

 

[Deeko]

Your choices are 64K, 64K....and 64K The promise RAID controller doesn't let you change the stripe size.