• Welcome to Tux Reports: Where Penguins Fly. We hope you find the topics varied, interesting, and worthy of your time. Please become a member and join in the discussions.

Raid!

B

bettablue

Flightless Bird
So, I am running a Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L main board which supports up to 8
drives; , 6 - SATA and 2/4 - IEDE ports. After my wife lost a whole slew of
data, movies, vacation pictures and such on her computer, I decided to
"update" my system and set up a RAID. I currently have 1 - 500 Gig drive
for Windows and programs and 1 - 1 TB drive for storage and network sharing.
I am primarily interested in setting up the RAID with 2 - 500 Gig Western
Digital hard disks for the operating system and programs. I really can't
find anything on my mother board's manual or on their site about setting it
up, but I know it can be done. My question is; where do I get instructions
for doing the setup for the 2 disk RAID? I am also thinking about setting
up a secondary RAID using 2 2TB drives for storage. I heard that what I am
looking for is to set them up as RAID 0-1 or something like that. (Sorry, I
don't know the terminology. ) I understand that this will speed up my
system quite a bit too. So my 2nd question is this. How much of an
improvement will I see in load and operational performance with Windows 7
boot times and heavy read/write tasks?

As always, thanks for your input.

**Support our 2nd Amendment Rights! Because when seconds count, the police
are only minutes away**
 
P

Paul

Flightless Bird
bettablue wrote:
> So, I am running a Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L main board which supports up to 8
> drives; , 6 - SATA and 2/4 - IEDE ports. After my wife lost a whole slew of
> data, movies, vacation pictures and such on her computer, I decided to
> "update" my system and set up a RAID. I currently have 1 - 500 Gig drive
> for Windows and programs and 1 - 1 TB drive for storage and network sharing.
> I am primarily interested in setting up the RAID with 2 - 500 Gig Western
> Digital hard disks for the operating system and programs. I really can't
> find anything on my mother board's manual or on their site about setting it
> up, but I know it can be done. My question is; where do I get instructions
> for doing the setup for the 2 disk RAID? I am also thinking about setting
> up a secondary RAID using 2 2TB drives for storage. I heard that what I am
> looking for is to set them up as RAID 0-1 or something like that. (Sorry, I
> don't know the terminology. ) I understand that this will speed up my
> system quite a bit too. So my 2nd question is this. How much of an
> improvement will I see in load and operational performance with Windows 7
> boot times and heavy read/write tasks?
>
> As always, thanks for your input.
>
> **Support our 2nd Amendment Rights! Because when seconds count, the police
> are only minutes away**
>
>


http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_ga-ep43-ud3l(us3l)_e.pdf

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3499#sp

Your motherboard uses an ICH10 and not an ICH10R. The letter "R" on the end
of the name of the Southbridge, is an indication that the driver will support
soft-RAID when installed. Since your Southbridge was a couple dollars cheaper,
and has a "tick-box" set in the silicon to prevent the RAID from being used,
you won't get RAID out of the box from it.

You could look for some kind of third party software solution to getting RAID
working, or use a plug-in hardware card that supports RAID.

This is an example of a RAID card with two SATA ports. You could do
a RAID 1 mirror with this if you wanted. It will use one of your
PCI Express x1 slots.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132008

The main chip is a SIL3132. The "PMC" chip next to it, stores a BIOS
for supporting booting of your OS, if you decide to put the OS
on the RAID array. If the BIOS contents aren't correct for what you
want to do (RAID or non-RAID), then that chip can be re-flashed with
a different BIOS version.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/16-132-008-S01?$S640W$

One other operating detail for your computer, is it may benefit
from a UPS (uninterruptable power supply). A RAID mirror is only
an exact duplicate, if you protect it from unexpected power interruptions.
Some UPS boxes have a RS232 or USB cable, that connects the UPS digitally
to the computer. When the AC power goes off, the UPS can signal the
computer, to initiate a controlled shutdown. This helps keep the two
disks in RAID 1 mirror, in identical condition. If you leave the computer
running, and leave the house, during a power failure, the UPS provides
power for two minutes, until the UPS can tell the computer to shut itself
off. Once shut off, the controlled shutdown helps ensure the disks
have identical information content.

Running RAID 1 does not reduce the need to do backups. So you'll still need
a third disk, or other media, to make copies of what is on the RAID array.
For example, if the power supply on your computer, puts out +15V instead
of +12V, both SATA drives can be burned at the same time. That is why you'll
still need a real backup, on a separate drive that remains unplugged
most of the time.

One benefit of using a card like that, instead of motherboard ports,
is if your motherboard dies for some reason, you can move that
RAID card to a new motherboard, and the two disk array will boot
immediately without a problem. (The New Hardware wizard will still
pop up, for all the other new hardware it finds, but it won't be
complaining about having no driver for the RAID card.) So in a sense, the
add-in RAID card, does afford a bit of portability to the setup.

So that is the cheapest hardware solution I can see for your problem.
An add-in card for $25. Read the customer reviews, to see what preparation
is needed for using it, or whatever issues they may have had.

The SIL3132 supports port multipliers. In fact, that chip and its associated
software, can control ten disks drives total. But you need two $100 port
multiplier boxes to make that happen. And I've yet to run into someone
rich enough to try it. Without port multipliers, you're limited to just
two disks, which is fine for RAID 1 mirroring.

I would not expect a big difference in speed. RAID 1 can support "drive racing",
which means on a read operation, the first disk to complete the operation,
gives its data to the operating system. But other than that, if a single disk had
an 80MB/sec read rate, it is going to be 80MB/sec afterwards from your mirror.
If you picked a (non-secure) RAID 0 stripe, that would give you 160MB/sec
on reads. But one failed drive on a RAID 0, means your data is lost. That's
why you are using the RAID 1 mirror setup instead. It's the one that
meets the requirements you've described, of helping to keep your data
safe. If one drive fails, and it wasn't a power supply problem, then
the copy on the other drive is ready to take over.

Paul
 
D

DanS

Flightless Bird
"bettablue" <bettablue@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:i2r26p$u58$1@news.eternal-september.org:

> So, I am running a Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L main board which
> supports up to 8 drives; , 6 - SATA and 2/4 - IEDE ports.
> After my wife lost a whole slew of data, movies, vacation
> pictures and such on her computer, I decided to "update" my
> system and set up a RAID. I currently have 1 - 500 Gig
> drive for Windows and programs and 1 - 1 TB drive for
> storage and network sharing. I am primarily interested in
> setting up the RAID with 2 - 500 Gig Western Digital hard
> disks for the operating system and programs. I really
> can't find anything on my mother board's manual or on their
> site about setting it up, but I know it can be done. My
> question is; where do I get instructions for doing the
> setup for the 2 disk RAID? I am also thinking about
> setting up a secondary RAID using 2 2TB drives for storage.
> I heard that what I am looking for is to set them up as
> RAID 0-1 or something like that. (Sorry, I don't know the
> terminology. ) I understand that this will speed up my
> system quite a bit too. So my 2nd question is this. How
> much of an improvement will I see in load and operational
> performance with Windows 7 boot times and heavy read/write
> tasks?
>
> As always, thanks for your input.


Why bother with RAID ? Just backup regularly.

Anything personal, such as pictures and videos you shot should
be burned to quality DVD's. Burned, verified, then put in a
dark, non-damp, place for storage.








>
> **Support our 2nd Amendment Rights! Because when seconds
> count, the police are only minutes away**
>
>
 
K

Ken Blake

Flightless Bird
On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:05:24 -0700, "bettablue"
<bettablue@hotmail.com> wrote:

> So, I am running a Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L main board which supports up to 8
> drives; , 6 - SATA and 2/4 - IEDE ports. After my wife lost a whole slew of
> data, movies, vacation pictures and such on her computer, I decided to
> "update" my system and set up a RAID.



You are talking, not about RAID in general, but about a particular
form of RAID, RAID 1 (mirroring). But in my view, that's not an
"update" at all, and would be a serious mistake. Read on.

RAID 1 (mirroring) is *not* a backup solution. RAID 1 uses two or
more drives, each a duplicate of the others, to provide redundancy,
not backup. It's used in situations (almost always within
corporations, not in homes) where any downtown can't be tolerated,
because the way it works is that if one drive fails the other takes
over seamlessly. Although some people thing of RAID 1 as a backup
technique, that is *not* what it is, since it's subject to
simultaneous loss of the original and the mirror to many of the most
common dangers threatening your data--severe power glitches, nearby
lightning strikes, virus attacks, theft of the computer, etc. Most
companies that use RAID 1 also have a strong external backup plan in
place.

"Why RAID is (usually) a Terrible Idea"
http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles?&id=29
 
G

GlowingBlueMist

Flightless Bird
On 7/29/2010 12:05 AM, bettablue wrote:
> So, I am running a Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L main board which supports up to 8
> drives; , 6 - SATA and 2/4 - IEDE ports. After my wife lost a whole slew of
> data, movies, vacation pictures and such on her computer, I decided to
> "update" my system and set up a RAID. I currently have 1 - 500 Gig drive
> for Windows and programs and 1 - 1 TB drive for storage and network sharing.
> I am primarily interested in setting up the RAID with 2 - 500 Gig Western
> Digital hard disks for the operating system and programs. I really can't
> find anything on my mother board's manual or on their site about setting it
> up, but I know it can be done. My question is; where do I get instructions
> for doing the setup for the 2 disk RAID? I am also thinking about setting
> up a secondary RAID using 2 2TB drives for storage. I heard that what I am
> looking for is to set them up as RAID 0-1 or something like that. (Sorry, I
> don't know the terminology. ) I understand that this will speed up my
> system quite a bit too. So my 2nd question is this. How much of an
> improvement will I see in load and operational performance with Windows 7
> boot times and heavy read/write tasks?
>
> As always, thanks for your input.
>
> **Support our 2nd Amendment Rights! Because when seconds count, the police
> are only minutes away**
>
>

The Gigabyte site does list a SATA Raid driver in the downloads section
for W7-32 for at least one version of your motherboard. No
documentation other than the self installing EXE file which I did not
attempt to open. Hopefully they stuck some documentation in it for you
to read.

Like others have indicated, backup drives are a good way to stop the
loss of data. I personally have switched to one of the Thermotake
"Toaster" style drives although they call them Docking Stations at the
Thermotake web site.

For what it's worth, Tiger Direct is selling 1TB Seagate Baracuda drives
for $59.99 for a brief time. I just plug a SATA drive into the toaster
and run off a backup to it and then store it away.

The first backup I make is to the smallest drive I have that can handle
an image copy of the boot drive, just in case it goes into meltdown.
Makes using later regular backups easier to handle once I swap in the
replacement boot drive after a disaster.

Even with my present Raid5 setup (not your brand of motherboard) I still
do routine backups of the data in case of a total meltdown, as in a
virus, lightning, or some other power problem that takes out multiple
drives.
 
B

Bill Bradshaw

Flightless Bird
As somebody who runs raid 1 follow the advice here and backup. Raid 1
basically keeps duplicate drives so if your primary gets garbage written to
it so will your secondary and you end up with two trashed drives.
--
<Bill>

Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska.

bettablue wrote:
> So, I am running a Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L main board which supports up
> to 8 drives; , 6 - SATA and 2/4 - IEDE ports. After my wife lost a
> whole slew of data, movies, vacation pictures and such on her
> computer, I decided to "update" my system and set up a RAID. I
> currently have 1 - 500 Gig drive for Windows and programs and 1 - 1
> TB drive for storage and network sharing. I am primarily interested
> in setting up the RAID with 2 - 500 Gig Western Digital hard disks
> for the operating system and programs. I really can't find anything
> on my mother board's manual or on their site about setting it up, but
> I know it can be done. My question is; where do I get instructions
> for doing the setup for the 2 disk RAID? I am also thinking about
> setting up a secondary RAID using 2 2TB drives for storage. I heard
> that what I am looking for is to set them up as RAID 0-1 or something
> like that. (Sorry, I don't know the terminology. ) I understand
> that this will speed up my system quite a bit too. So my 2nd
> question is this. How much of an improvement will I see in load and
> operational performance with Windows 7 boot times and heavy
> read/write tasks?
> As always, thanks for your input.
>
> **Support our 2nd Amendment Rights! Because when seconds count, the
> police are only minutes away**
 
B

bettablue

Flightless Bird
"Bill Bradshaw" <bradshaw@gci.net> wrote in message
news:YuednXB-GJgsWMzRnZ2dnUVZ_tmdnZ2d@posted.gcicommunications...
> As somebody who runs raid 1 follow the advice here and backup. Raid 1
> basically keeps duplicate drives so if your primary gets garbage written
> to it so will your secondary and you end up with two trashed drives.
> --
> <Bill>
>
> Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska.
>
> bettablue wrote:
>> So, I am running a Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L main board which supports up
>> to 8 drives; , 6 - SATA and 2/4 - IEDE ports. After my wife lost a
>> whole slew of data, movies, vacation pictures and such on her
>> computer, I decided to "update" my system and set up a RAID. I
>> currently have 1 - 500 Gig drive for Windows and programs and 1 - 1
>> TB drive for storage and network sharing. I am primarily interested
>> in setting up the RAID with 2 - 500 Gig Western Digital hard disks
>> for the operating system and programs. I really can't find anything
>> on my mother board's manual or on their site about setting it up, but
>> I know it can be done. My question is; where do I get instructions
>> for doing the setup for the 2 disk RAID? I am also thinking about
>> setting up a secondary RAID using 2 2TB drives for storage. I heard
>> that what I am looking for is to set them up as RAID 0-1 or something
>> like that. (Sorry, I don't know the terminology. ) I understand
>> that this will speed up my system quite a bit too. So my 2nd
>> question is this. How much of an improvement will I see in load and
>> operational performance with Windows 7 boot times and heavy
>> read/write tasks?
>> As always, thanks for your input.
>>
>> **Support our 2nd Amendment Rights! Because when seconds count, the
>> police are only minutes away**

>
>


All great advice... And, I personally do use regular backups to make sure I
am not losing anything important.

I am left still with a nagging question about RAID in general. I understand
that using it as a backup solution is probably not the way to go, however,
what about using RAID to speed the operation of the PC's operation and boot
loading? Looking at my Windows 7 performance numbers, I see that my primary
hard disk is the lowest scoring item at 5.9 while all of the other
performance parameters read at least 6.5. Will setting up a RAID array
speed up system performance? I mean, with 2 disk drives operating as one,
the theoretical boost in read/write performance would seem to double just
for the fact that you would essentially have double the disk cache and
buffer size.
 
F

Frank

Flightless Bird
On 7/31/2010 9:02 AM, bettablue wrote:
> "Bill Bradshaw"<bradshaw@gci.net> wrote in message
> news:YuednXB-GJgsWMzRnZ2dnUVZ_tmdnZ2d@posted.gcicommunications...
>> As somebody who runs raid 1 follow the advice here and backup. Raid 1
>> basically keeps duplicate drives so if your primary gets garbage written
>> to it so will your secondary and you end up with two trashed drives.
>> --
>> <Bill>
>>
>> Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska.
>>
>> bettablue wrote:
>>> So, I am running a Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L main board which supports up
>>> to 8 drives; , 6 - SATA and 2/4 - IEDE ports. After my wife lost a
>>> whole slew of data, movies, vacation pictures and such on her
>>> computer, I decided to "update" my system and set up a RAID. I
>>> currently have 1 - 500 Gig drive for Windows and programs and 1 - 1
>>> TB drive for storage and network sharing. I am primarily interested
>>> in setting up the RAID with 2 - 500 Gig Western Digital hard disks
>>> for the operating system and programs. I really can't find anything
>>> on my mother board's manual or on their site about setting it up, but
>>> I know it can be done. My question is; where do I get instructions
>>> for doing the setup for the 2 disk RAID? I am also thinking about
>>> setting up a secondary RAID using 2 2TB drives for storage. I heard
>>> that what I am looking for is to set them up as RAID 0-1 or something
>>> like that. (Sorry, I don't know the terminology. ) I understand
>>> that this will speed up my system quite a bit too. So my 2nd
>>> question is this. How much of an improvement will I see in load and
>>> operational performance with Windows 7 boot times and heavy
>>> read/write tasks?
>>> As always, thanks for your input.
>>>
>>> **Support our 2nd Amendment Rights! Because when seconds count, the
>>> police are only minutes away**

>>
>>

>
> All great advice... And, I personally do use regular backups to make sure I
> am not losing anything important.
>
> I am left still with a nagging question about RAID in general. I understand
> that using it as a backup solution is probably not the way to go, however,
> what about using RAID to speed the operation of the PC's operation and boot
> loading? Looking at my Windows 7 performance numbers, I see that my primary
> hard disk is the lowest scoring item at 5.9 while all of the other
> performance parameters read at least 6.5. Will setting up a RAID array
> speed up system performance? I mean, with 2 disk drives operating as one,
> the theoretical boost in read/write performance would seem to double just
> for the fact that you would essentially have double the disk cache and
> buffer size.
>
>
>

In theory, maybe, but in practicable terms, as a human being, it's
doubtful you'd even be able to notice the possible millisecond increase
in speed.
If you really want to increase your HDD's speed, then opt for an SSD and
load your OS on it and put all other files on a regular HDD, like an SATA.
 
S

Sunny Bard

Flightless Bird
bettablue wrote:

> I am left still with a nagging question about RAID in general. I understand
> that using it as a backup solution is probably not the way to go, however,
> what about using RAID to speed the operation of the PC's operation and boot
> loading? Looking at my Windows 7 performance numbers, I see that my primary
> hard disk is the lowest scoring item at 5.9 while all of the other
> performance parameters read at least 6.5. Will setting up a RAID array
> speed up system performance? I mean, with 2 disk drives operating as one,
> the theoretical boost in read/write performance would seem to double just
> for the fact that you would essentially have double the disk cache and
> buffer size.


Theoretically RAID1 can read faster (by reading independently from both
drives) but write slower (as writes have to be done to both drives), but
in practice don't expect reads to be twice as fast, or writes to be half
the speed.

If you really want speed (and don't mind having *LOWERED* reliability)
try RAID0.
 
K

Ken Blake

Flightless Bird
On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 09:02:24 -0700, "bettablue"
<bettablue@hotmail.com> wrote:


> what about using RAID to speed the operation of the PC's operation and boot
> loading? Looking at my Windows 7 performance numbers, I see that my primary
> hard disk is the lowest scoring item at 5.9 while all of the other
> performance parameters read at least 6.5. Will setting up a RAID array
> speed up system performance? I mean, with 2 disk drives operating as one,
> the theoretical boost in read/write performance would seem to double just
> for the fact that you would essentially have double the disk cache and
> buffer size.



That's RAID 0 (striping), not mirroring. Yes, in theory, it should
make a significant improvement in performance. However in my
experience the improvement was next to nothing, and halving the
reliability for next to no improvement in performance is a bad
bargain.

I don't recommend that either.
 
B

bettablue

Flightless Bird
"Ken Blake" <kblake@this.is.invalid.com> wrote in message
news:f1v856h42sfrerm566m15nd2e3blb9ipnt@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 09:02:24 -0700, "bettablue"
> <bettablue@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> what about using RAID to speed the operation of the PC's operation and
>> boot
>> loading? Looking at my Windows 7 performance numbers, I see that my
>> primary
>> hard disk is the lowest scoring item at 5.9 while all of the other
>> performance parameters read at least 6.5. Will setting up a RAID array
>> speed up system performance? I mean, with 2 disk drives operating as
>> one,
>> the theoretical boost in read/write performance would seem to double just
>> for the fact that you would essentially have double the disk cache and
>> buffer size.

>
>
> That's RAID 0 (striping), not mirroring. Yes, in theory, it should
> make a significant improvement in performance. However in my
> experience the improvement was next to nothing, and halving the
> reliability for next to no improvement in performance is a bad
> bargain.
>
> I don't recommend that either.
>


I see. Although I would like to speed up hard drive access and trim boot
times, RAID is definitely not the way to go. At this time, solid state
drives are too new for me to trust. So, I guess I'll leave that for later.
thanks for all of the info.
 
K

Ken Blake

Flightless Bird
On Sun, 1 Aug 2010 09:27:26 -0700, "bettablue" <bettablue@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
> "Ken Blake" <kblake@this.is.invalid.com> wrote in message
> news:f1v856h42sfrerm566m15nd2e3blb9ipnt@4ax.com...
> > On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 09:02:24 -0700, "bettablue"
> > <bettablue@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> what about using RAID to speed the operation of the PC's operation and
> >> boot
> >> loading? Looking at my Windows 7 performance numbers, I see that my
> >> primary
> >> hard disk is the lowest scoring item at 5.9 while all of the other
> >> performance parameters read at least 6.5. Will setting up a RAID array
> >> speed up system performance? I mean, with 2 disk drives operating as
> >> one,
> >> the theoretical boost in read/write performance would seem to double just
> >> for the fact that you would essentially have double the disk cache and
> >> buffer size.

> >
> >
> > That's RAID 0 (striping), not mirroring. Yes, in theory, it should
> > make a significant improvement in performance. However in my
> > experience the improvement was next to nothing, and halving the
> > reliability for next to no improvement in performance is a bad
> > bargain.
> >
> > I don't recommend that either.
> >

>
> I see. Although I would like to speed up hard drive access and trim boot
> times, RAID is definitely not the way to go. At this time, solid state
> drives are too new for me to trust. So, I guess I'll leave that for later.
> thanks for all of the info.



You're welcome. Glad to help.

By the way, I have three drives on my system: C: for Windows and
installed programs, D: and E: for everything else. C: (120G8) is SSD,
and it's been fine. No problems at all, and it's very fast.
 
B

bettablue

Flightless Bird
"Ken Blake" <kblake@this.is.invalid.com> wrote in message
news:qmfb56huhtceb1co6rololgss0drarenue@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 1 Aug 2010 09:27:26 -0700, "bettablue" <bettablue@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Ken Blake" <kblake@this.is.invalid.com> wrote in message
>> news:f1v856h42sfrerm566m15nd2e3blb9ipnt@4ax.com...
>> > On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 09:02:24 -0700, "bettablue"
>> > <bettablue@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >> what about using RAID to speed the operation of the PC's operation and
>> >> boot
>> >> loading? Looking at my Windows 7 performance numbers, I see that my
>> >> primary
>> >> hard disk is the lowest scoring item at 5.9 while all of the other
>> >> performance parameters read at least 6.5. Will setting up a RAID
>> >> array
>> >> speed up system performance? I mean, with 2 disk drives operating as
>> >> one,
>> >> the theoretical boost in read/write performance would seem to double
>> >> just
>> >> for the fact that you would essentially have double the disk cache and
>> >> buffer size.
>> >
>> >
>> > That's RAID 0 (striping), not mirroring. Yes, in theory, it should
>> > make a significant improvement in performance. However in my
>> > experience the improvement was next to nothing, and halving the
>> > reliability for next to no improvement in performance is a bad
>> > bargain.
>> >
>> > I don't recommend that either.
>> >

>>
>> I see. Although I would like to speed up hard drive access and trim boot
>> times, RAID is definitely not the way to go. At this time, solid state
>> drives are too new for me to trust. So, I guess I'll leave that for
>> later.
>> thanks for all of the info.

>
>
> You're welcome. Glad to help.
>
> By the way, I have three drives on my system: C: for Windows and
> installed programs, D: and E: for everything else. C: (120G8) is SSD,
> and it's been fine. No problems at all, and it's very fast.
>


Yeah, I know with boot times for my system running at just over a minute,
I'm probably just being geeky. Someone at work plays with RAID arrays on
his computer and got his boot times for his to just over 30 seconds. His
initial boot times were 1:30... I guess I'm also being a little competitive
too, wanting to out perform his system with my home built computer. I
really don't have anything to complain about though.
 
R

R. C. White

Flightless Bird
Hi, bettablue.

> I am left still with a nagging question about RAID in general.


While I'm sure others can explain RAID better, here's my non-techie and
greatly-simplified stab at it.

RAID 0 is striping. That means that a program gets divided into pieces
called "stripes" and written to two disks. Step 1 of the program goes to
the first disk, Step 2 to the second disk, Step 3 back to the first, etc.
Since each of the two disks has its own set of read/write heads, Step 1 and
Step 2 can be written simultaneously, so it takes only half as long to write
the whole program - plus a small amount of overhead. Only one copy of each
step is stored, so there is no wasted space.

RAID 1 is like a mirror. The means that a data file is written twice. Data
Item 1 is written to the first disk, and then written also to the second
disk. Again, because each disk has its own set of read/write heads, the two
writes take only slightly longer than a single write. There is no time
saving with RAID 1; a thousand items will take just as long - or slightly
longer - than using a single non-RAID disk. Since each item is stored in
two places, this uses twice as much disk space. (While each datum is
written twice, I don't think it is read twice each time it is needed.)

Since both RAID methods typically use two identical disks with equal risk of
failure (MTBF), there is about twice the risk that ONE of the two disks will
fail while the other continues to function. The effects of a single-disk
failure are quite different between RAID 0 and RAID 1.

If a RAID 0 disk fails, the operating system will not be able to start or to
load and run programs. No matter how perfectly it loads Step 1 and Step 3
from the good first disk, if it doesn't have Step 2 from the bad second
disk, the program's integrity will not pass muster and the program will
probably not even start.

If a RAID 1 disk fails, the OS should be able to load the entire program or
database from the other identical disk. The RAID program itself should warn
you that the RAID Array has failed, giving you some time to replace the bad
disk and rebuild the array while continuing to operate from the good disk.

So, RAID 0 gives you a speed advantage, while doubling your risk of complete
failure. RAID 1 costs a small time penalty but increases your chances of
surviving SOME types of disk failure. (There are other flavors of RAID, but
let's not get into all that.)

My only experience with RAID started about 3 years ago, after one of my 3
HDDs failed, taking much of my data (photos, etc.) with it. My BIOS had
RAID built-in, so I decided to try it. I replaced that single disk with a
pair of identical 300 GB Seagate Barracudas. After a lot of stumbling and
fumbling with new terminology, I recreated my "lost" data folders, then
rescued and copied as much as I could to one of the new disks. Then I
plugged in the second and let the system "build the array", which took about
a day, working mostly in the background while I continued to work in the
foreground. The RAID mirror has worked with almost no maintenance since
those first few adventurous weeks.

Disk Management sees my HDDs as Disk 0 (200 G8), Disk 1 (1 T8) and Disk 3
(300 GB; the TWO 300 GB disks are seen as a single "disk"). Each disk,
including the RAID "disk", is divided into several logical drives and
partitions. Any change in boot-up time has been so small that I don't
really notice. That disk is used mostly for data storage, but there are
several programs that load and run from there, too, and I've seen no
difference in performance or speed from when they were on a single disk.

That means that I have 1.8 TB of physical capacity but Win7 sees only 1.5
TB; I'm giving up 300 GB for the redundancy. This does not protect me from
a theft or fire or other loss of my entire computer, and maybe not from a
lightning strike or other disaster that would damage both disks. And a
program glitch could still write garbage to both disks. I still need to
backup my most critical data. But simple failure of one disk - as has
happened to me more than once - will not cost me the mirrored data. I'll
just replace the bad disk and rebuild the array. There is still some risk
of data loss, but it has been reduced to a level that I can live with.

I'm not bold enough yet to use RAID 0. But RAID 1 is working well for me.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2010 (15.3.2804.0607) in Win7 Ultimate x64)


"bettablue" wrote in message
news:i31hem$a3s$1@news.eternal-september.org...


"Bill Bradshaw" <bradshaw@gci.net> wrote in message
news:YuednXB-GJgsWMzRnZ2dnUVZ_tmdnZ2d@posted.gcicommunications...
> As somebody who runs raid 1 follow the advice here and backup. Raid 1
> basically keeps duplicate drives so if your primary gets garbage written
> to it so will your secondary and you end up with two trashed drives.
> --
> <Bill>
>
> Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska.
>
> bettablue wrote:
>> So, I am running a Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L main board which supports up
>> to 8 drives; , 6 - SATA and 2/4 - IEDE ports. After my wife lost a
>> whole slew of data, movies, vacation pictures and such on her
>> computer, I decided to "update" my system and set up a RAID. I
>> currently have 1 - 500 Gig drive for Windows and programs and 1 - 1
>> TB drive for storage and network sharing. I am primarily interested
>> in setting up the RAID with 2 - 500 Gig Western Digital hard disks
>> for the operating system and programs. I really can't find anything
>> on my mother board's manual or on their site about setting it up, but
>> I know it can be done. My question is; where do I get instructions
>> for doing the setup for the 2 disk RAID? I am also thinking about
>> setting up a secondary RAID using 2 2TB drives for storage. I heard
>> that what I am looking for is to set them up as RAID 0-1 or something
>> like that. (Sorry, I don't know the terminology. ) I understand
>> that this will speed up my system quite a bit too. So my 2nd
>> question is this. How much of an improvement will I see in load and
>> operational performance with Windows 7 boot times and heavy
>> read/write tasks?
>> As always, thanks for your input.
>>
>> **Support our 2nd Amendment Rights! Because when seconds count, the
>> police are only minutes away**

>
>


All great advice... And, I personally do use regular backups to make sure I
am not losing anything important.

I am left still with a nagging question about RAID in general. I understand
that using it as a backup solution is probably not the way to go, however,
what about using RAID to speed the operation of the PC's operation and boot
loading? Looking at my Windows 7 performance numbers, I see that my primary
hard disk is the lowest scoring item at 5.9 while all of the other
performance parameters read at least 6.5. Will setting up a RAID array
speed up system performance? I mean, with 2 disk drives operating as one,
the theoretical boost in read/write performance would seem to double just
for the fact that you would essentially have double the disk cache and
buffer size.
 
B

Bill Bradshaw

Flightless Bird
I do not know if it was vrey smart but I tested my Raid 1 by pulling the
power plug on the primary drive and the secondary kept the computer running
without a hiccup so I know it works.

<Bill>

R. C. White wrote:
> Hi, bettablue.
>
> That means that I have 1.8 TB of physical capacity but Win7 sees only
> 1.5 TB; I'm giving up 300 GB for the redundancy. This does not
> protect me from a theft or fire or other loss of my entire computer,
> and maybe not from a lightning strike or other disaster that would
> damage both disks. And a program glitch could still write garbage to
> both disks. I still need to backup my most critical data. But
> simple failure of one disk - as has happened to me more than once -
> will not cost me the mirrored data. I'll just replace the bad disk
> and rebuild the array. There is still some risk of data loss, but it
> has been reduced to a level that I can live with.
> I'm not bold enough yet to use RAID 0. But RAID 1 is working well
> for me.
> RC
>
> "Bill Bradshaw" <bradshaw@gci.net> wrote in message
> news:YuednXB-GJgsWMzRnZ2dnUVZ_tmdnZ2d@posted.gcicommunications...
>> As somebody who runs raid 1 follow the advice here and backup. Raid
>> 1 basically keeps duplicate drives so if your primary gets garbage
>> written to it so will your secondary and you end up with two trashed
>> drives. --
>> <Bill>
>>
>> Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska.
 
C

Char Jackson

Flightless Bird
On Tue, 3 Aug 2010 19:58:38 -0800, "Bill Bradshaw" <bradshaw@gci.net>
wrote:

>I do not know if it was vrey smart but I tested my Raid 1 by pulling the
>power plug on the primary drive and the secondary kept the computer running
>without a hiccup so I know it works.
>
><Bill>


Smart or not, at least you know it works. Most people who run RAID
systems probably can't say they know that.

Along the same lines, when I first got a UPS, I tested it by yanking
the plug from the wall. Fortunately, the computer never even noticed.
 
B

Bill Bradshaw

Flightless Bird
I have also done that and mine worked fine too.

<Bill>

Char Jackson wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Aug 2010 19:58:38 -0800, "Bill Bradshaw" <bradshaw@gci.net>
> wrote:
>
>> I do not know if it was vrey smart but I tested my Raid 1 by pulling
>> the power plug on the primary drive and the secondary kept the
>> computer running without a hiccup so I know it works.
>>
>> <Bill>

>
> Smart or not, at least you know it works. Most people who run RAID
> systems probably can't say they know that.
>
> Along the same lines, when I first got a UPS, I tested it by yanking
> the plug from the wall. Fortunately, the computer never even noticed.
 
Top