Can I RAID and non-RAID on dual boot?

justinmg · 20 Mar 2009 at 07:40

I have never set up RAID before. I would like to retain my old setup on a single drive until all is running well. Can I set up dual boot to retain my old set up, or is a RAIDed system a one way thing?

rpstewart · 20 Mar 2009 at 08:52

Are you thinking of having a 2 disk RAID array in addition to your existing disk? If so it's possible but you'll probably need to do a bit of monkeying to your existing setup to get it to boot with the SATA controller in RAID mode but after that it should be plain sailing.

If you're hoping to only add a single drive and switch between RAID and non RAID depending on the OS then that's not possible, the RAID array exists at the hardware level and has to be created before you start installing anything.

gurusan · 20 Mar 2009 at 12:00

rpstewart said:
Are you thinking of having a 2 disk RAID array in addition to your existing disk? If so it's possible but you'll probably need to do a bit of monkeying to your existing setup to get it to boot with the SATA controller in RAID mode but after that it should be plain sailing.

What sort of monkeying? I have 2 hitachi drives in RAID 0 and a 3rd hitachi in non-raid, can't seem to boot off it while the controller is in RAID mode. The 3rd hitachi has XP and the RAID drives will have Win7

cybergeek · 20 Mar 2009 at 13:09

You will need to get a seperate SATA controller... it seems yours only has the option to run as RAID or standard.

rpstewart · 20 Mar 2009 at 13:37

gurusan said:
What sort of monkeying? I have 2 hitachi drives in RAID 0 and a 3rd hitachi in non-raid, can't seem to boot off it while the controller is in RAID mode. The 3rd hitachi has XP and the RAID drives will have Win7

You need to update the XP installation to use the RAID version of the SATA controller driver rather than the one you're using now. If you have a google there should be guides out there on how to do it, the steps will be similar to how to move from IDE mode to AHCI mode.

cybergeek said:
You will need to get a seperate SATA controller... it seems yours only has the option to run as RAID or standard.

There's no need for a separate controller, it's simply a case of getting the right drivers into the XP install.

bledd · 20 Mar 2009 at 13:44

as rpstewart says

some controllers (nvidia & intel) let you specify which ports are raid and which are ahci or ide

justinmg · 21 Mar 2009 at 10:41

I have just checked. My mobo Gigagbyte 945 pl-s3 does not have RAID integrated. Just SATA II which show up as IDE in the BIOS.
There are 3 PCI E 1x slots. If I understand correctly the max throughput is 250 MB/s, so that would be O.K., as I would only be running 2 samsung SSDs, which people seem to feel would max out <200MB/s?

If this is the case, can anyone suggest a PCI E 1x RAID card (I have seen one with a JM chipset- should I avoid)?

justinmg · 21 Mar 2009 at 18:52

Adaptec 1220 looks good, and apparently has Vista drivers, so looks like I will go for that.

kppanic · 25 Mar 2009 at 21:06

rpstewart said:
You need to update the XP installation to use the RAID version of the SATA controller driver rather than the one you're using now. If you have a google there should be guides out there on how to do it, the steps will be similar to how to move from IDE mode to AHCI mode.

What is AHCI mode?? O_o