RAID with Intel Matrix Technology

Jjoshua2

Senior member
Mar 24, 2006
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I read a lot of this webpage. http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/matrixstorage_sb.htm
I have the ICH8R chipset on the P5B-e Asus mobo.
Right now I have a 320gb seagate 7200.10 hd. I want to buy a 750gb seagate 7200.10.
Could I then do a raid 0+1 of 320gb and have ~400gb single hd? I was reading about how you can have part raid 0 and part 1 with just two hard drives, and also that you could combine the raid 0 and raid 1 to have the benefits of both. Is there some article I can read to give me more info? Can I not do any of this without an exact 320 gb drive (without wasting the extra space)?
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
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RAID 0+1 is 2 seperate RAID 0 arrays mirrored together(RAID 1). This can be attained by either 4 physical drives, or 4 partitions. Your RAID controller does not care which.

If you do a RAID 0+1 using a 320GB size, you will need 4 320GB partitions. using a 320GB and a 750GB does not yield enough physical disk space to create this array.

google RAID 0+1 for a explanation that probably will include graphics.
 

Jjoshua2

Senior member
Mar 24, 2006
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So would it work to create a 250gb raid 0 and a 70gb raid 1 and have a 430gb single drive left over? Sound like a good plan?
 

gramboh

Platinum Member
May 3, 2003
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I'm not sure what the benefit of Matrix is, if one of the drives fails isn't your RAID 1 toast because it's spanning? Or maybe I am not interpreting this right. I don't see the RAID 0 boost either.

If you want 0+1, why not buy another 7200.10 320GB (cheap) and do 160GB 0+1 array? I think this would work (160x2 = 320x2 = 640)?
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
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You're better off not doing a RAID 0+1 unless you can afford to purchase the 4 physical drives. RAID really isn't meant to be used by everyone, what exactly are you trying to accomplish?
 

MerlinRML

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Sep 9, 2005
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Originally posted by: Jjoshua2
So would it work to create a 250gb raid 0 and a 70gb raid 1 and have a 430gb single drive left over? Sound like a good plan?

I'm not sure whether it would work or not, but it's an interesting configuration.
[Edit] It definitely seems like people are confused. There's RAID 0+1 which is a stacked RAID array on top of other RAID arrays to present 1 logical volume to the OS. I'm interpreting what the OP is asking about is a RAID 0 array and a RAID 1 array to coexist on the same phyiscal drives. [/Edit]

You get the performance of RAID 0 for your OS/Apps, the redundancy of RAID 1 for your important data, and the 430GB of mass storage for anything else. Be careful about having too much running to too many disks, though, as you've still only got 2 physical disks. So no matter which RAID array is being accessed, it will slow performance on all arrays.

Just make sure that you have a backup plan. If your 160GB disk fails, you lose the RAID 0 portion of both disks. If your 750GB disk ever fails, you lose the RAID 0 portion on both disks and the 430GB portion. In essence, you only have saved the RAID 1 portion.
 

Jjoshua2

Senior member
Mar 24, 2006
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Right, I am aware of that. It is a 320gb disk that I have now actually. I think that should work well, to have a few things fast, a few things secured, and a few things large cheap storage. I probably won't be doing all three at the same time ever. Only the RAID 0 would be used much, the others are mostly for storage with light usage. How can I find if this will work before I buy the 750gb. The reason I picked 750 is because I think I might be able to get it at a really good cents per gb price, since its so large.
 

Jjoshua2

Senior member
Mar 24, 2006
635
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What do you think of me getting a 500gb WD SATAII with 16mb cache? I saw it for around $120. Should I stick with the 7200.10 since that's what my first one is?
 

Jjoshua2

Senior member
Mar 24, 2006
635
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I ended up buying a 400gb 7200.10. So I should probably create a 100gb raid 0 and a 220gb raid 1 partition and a 80gb single partition. Would this work you think? Has anyone done something like this? I want more secure storage space more than fast, since I already have a Raptor as my primary drive.

Since my 320gb drive is already almost full, will I have to back it up and reformat it vs just mirror and stripe it?
 

Jjoshua2

Senior member
Mar 24, 2006
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Ok, I bought the hard drive oem, and I found out I'm using the two sata cables that my mobo came with already, so I need to get another. Is there any quality differences in cables? All will work full speed SATA II just fine? Where is somewhere I can get one for just a couple dollars. Newegg is pretty cheap, but they have pretty expensive shipping. Maybe some local store has a good price on them? I'm sure someone here has had to buy them before. Also, if anyone has one that they don't need I could buy it from you for a few bucks shipped. What do you think about buying sata cables on ebay? It looks like they have some there that are around $4 shipped.
It appears some cables have latches, the ones I have now don't. Is that helpful? Are they still easy to get off when you need to?
Does this one look ok? http://cgi.ebay.com/18-Serial-ATA-SATA-...15QQcategoryZ74941QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Thanks!