The lowdown on RAID

[Ness]

I have a motherboard with RAID, but I've never taken the time to look up how to utilize it.

When I use RAID, does that mean that I can have up to 8 IDE devices connected at once, or is it a way to put 4 IDE devices on their own channel so that the mother board can access them quicker and easier?

Can someone please shed some light on this for me?

Thanks, In advance

 

[overclox]

My experience is that RAID is best used when writing large files frequently, such as video editing....the nice thing about onboard RAID is that you can use the 2 RAID connectors for normal hard drive attachment, freeing up the other 2 for your disk drives and such. From what I've seen, using RAID on a gaming box or one that is not using the faster write speed of RAID can actually slow your overall processing down. To use the RAID controllers for normal hard drives, you will need to install the RAID drivers for the motherboard, and then connect the drives just as you would the normal IDE connectors. RAID won't be enabled unless you do it manually thru the RAID BIOS utility. I hope this helped, I'm still kinda new at this, and was rather disappointed at this finding after spending extra $$$ for a RAID board. At least it means you don't need a PCI card to attach extra disk drives....unless you have more than 8

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

RAID stands for Redundant array of independent (or inexpensive) drives.

There are many variations to RAID but overall RAID is used to reduce access times, make your data redundant, or both. Most on-board RAID controllers will support RAID 0/1/or 0+1. In the first case you make two disks look like one disk to the OS. Your access times will increase as well as your write times. In RAID 1 you make an exact copy of one disk on the other. This provides a continuous backup of your data on the first disk. RAID 0+1 is a combination but takes at least 4 drives. Most newer boards will allow you to use the RAID headers for standard IDE drives so you may be able to use up to 8 drives...

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

Thanx for your replies to this post St4r and overclox. I, like an idiot, just made a seperate post on this topic and then look down 3 places and find the answer I was looking for. I think I will not go with RAID today. Doesn't seem to give the benefits that I though that it would.