Best guide for RAID setup

Omnituens · 3 Apr 2006 at 01:13

Hi everyone, I need a good site to look up setting up a RAID-0

I have recently gotten my mitts on a pair of 74GB Raptors, and I want to set these up in RAID-0

Only problem is, im inexperienced with both SATA drives a RAID setups. I'm using a Asus A7N8X-E mobo, latest bios, and will be installing a fresh copy of Windows XP SP2 on them. My PSU has the needed power connectors.

Any guides you can point me to would be great, and any tips you've picked up yourselves.

I'm also looking for a decent cooling/noise reduction solution for them, i saw the OcUK Silentmaxx Aluminium Hard Drive Enclosure, and was thinking about getting a pair of them. Is this a good move, or are there better products out there? As these will be the only part of my current PC that will go into a new machine (when i can afford that) i want to put some effort into them

Thanks!

Energize · 3 Apr 2006 at 01:48

If its for games dont bother with raid 0.

Omnituens · 3 Apr 2006 at 12:20

my machine is used for rendering and video editing, as part of my uni course. As such, i often do large read/write operations, and my old WD just isnt cutting anymore (though its still a reliable drive)

while i do have a few games on here (BF2, Oblivion), wont they too also benefit from a RAID setup? cant hurt them right?

Even if RAID-0 turns out not to be the thing for me, I would still like to know how to do it, and i'll still want a good cooling/noise control enclosure for them.

Energize · 3 Apr 2006 at 12:56

Games wouldnt benefit, and I dont think video encoding would either because the cpu cant encode Video anywhere near fast enough for the hdd to have an effect on encode times.

Omnituens · 3 Apr 2006 at 13:06

I would still like to know how to do it though.

semi-pro waster · 3 Apr 2006 at 13:23

Welcome to the forums. Setting up a Raid0 system is really easy, you have a form of 'second bios' after the initial booting(on my motherboard you press ctrl+f for the Fastbuild utility) and then select that you want to build the array then leave it until it is done. On some Raid controllers you have to setup the stripe size, too large and you waste lots of space, too small and there aren't that many benefits, 32k or 64k seem to be decent options as a compromise.

All I'd say is to make sure that if you have any important data that you take regular backups(a good idea anyway) as Raid0 isn't the most reliable of storage solutions. There is some more info about this in the sticky

Omnituens · 3 Apr 2006 at 14:02

thanks!

i take regular backups anyway, i'll be using my current IDE drive to back up my uni work/downloads/etc.

I asked a friend about the silentmaxxx enclosures, and he recommended them. so when those are back in stock, i'll order a pair of them. i'll give RAID 0 a go, and if im not happy and run them as standard SATA drives.

thanks again for the help semi-pro