a raid question

[teknix]

how do's

im new to raid and was hoping someone would be kind enough to answer a few questions for me ?

i have an ASUS P5W62 WS Pro mobo which has 2 raid controllers ... an Intel ICH7R (on the south bridge) and a Marvell 88SE6145 controller as well. the mother board has 7 onboard sata slots to play with (4*intel, 3*marvell) and 1 esata also.

im gonna be using my pc for making music, so fast read/write times are essential. i've already decided i wanna run raid 0 on my hds but im unsure if i can run them in the configuration that id like and was hoping for some words of wisdom if possible.

currently i own 4 maxtor 500gb sata ii 16 cache (3 more to add soon) and i was thinking of 'raiding' them this way (if possible) ...

intel raid :
sata 1+2 - 2*500gb (raid 0 + partitioned) for dual boot 32bit xppro + 32bit vista + storage
sata 3+4 - 2*500gb (raid 0 + partitioned) as install drive(s) for apps + games etc

marvel raid :
sata 1+2+3 - 3*500gb (raid 0 + partitioned) for audio samples etc

1. is this configuration possible ?
2. will this give me the 3gb/s transfer rates on every hd raid setup ?
3. will i need any other hd wires to run raid (i only have sata wires, hd's are 'oem' i think .. they came with no wires/packaging, just an antistatic bag)
4. any other pitfalls running raid 0 with these controllers ? (exept obvious data loss if 1 hd dies)

many thanks in advance

tex

 

[semi-pro waster]

1. I believe the configuration is possible but don't know enough about the Intel controller to say for sure. You can always have a look in the Raid 'bios' without committing to doing anything anyway.

2. If all the hard drives are capable of 300mb/s then you can get up to that speed in (very) short bursts from each and all of them.

3. There is no other method of connecting the hard drives other than the SATA (data) cables and the power cables, nothing like crossover cables etc because the linking of the drives is done at a hardware level on the motherboard.

4. None that I know of beyond the obvious risk of data loss and the fact that it is an onboard Raid so probably not as good as a proper add-in Raid card (still good enough for home use though) and less ability to transfer the Raid array if necessary.

 

[teknix]

thanks m8

ill give it a shot using onboard raid 1st. i only have 2 pci slots and my soundcard uses both of them ... having said that tho i do have 3 unused pci-e slots that i could fit a sata card too...

hmm... i thinks i need to take a visit to ocuk and check out some controller card £££'s.

thx again


edit : just had a look at the £££'s ... my pci-e slots are pci-x i think and those prices are like telephone numbers hehe .. ill be risking onboard for the time being hehe

i hope those words dont come back to bite me in the ass