RAID 0 on P5Q-E

BeeP

BeeP

BeeP

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HI,

I just bought 2x WD RE3 320gb hdd drives from the MM, I want to have my OS & games (pretty much all Steam based) on a these in RAID 0.

Questions :-

I will Be installing Vista Premium 64 bit edition on my P5Q-E with these 2 drives, I have read that I need a driver, does anyone who has a RAID set-up on this mobo know what driver I need to download? I saw some on the ASUS site but it was late last night & I got a bit confuzzled lol.

I will be having these as my OS drives with 2 500gb disks as backup/media, do I have to have the 2 500gb disks unplugged while I start the RAID set-up? I would like to leave these separate to the RAID drives.

I have googled some of these questions but there are so many different problems I thought I would ask for some specific answers.

Any help greatly appreciated.
 
Your motherboard looks like it has the Intel ICH10R controller built into it.

Vista shouldn't need any additional drivers to install Windows onto it. Vista should install default drivers - though I recommend you install the latest Intel drivers for your motherboard and the matrix storage management once installed.

It's a good idea to disconnect your other drives when installing Windows, sometimes it gets confused and will put boot files on the wrong disk.

You will need to switch the controller to RAID in your BIOS and then after the initial POST enter the Intel ICH10R controller BIOS to setup your 2 drives in RAID (which also wipes the disks clean). You will want to select Stripe as the type and I'd recommend 128kb as the stripe size (these are the usually the default settings). If you only have 2 drives connected it will then create the RAID, if you have more than 2 drives connected it will ask you to select the disks to form the RAID.

Once that is done install Windows and finally add your 2 other drives back. Note if you add your 2 existing drives to the RAID controller, there is no need to set them up as RAID - the controller will happily see them as individual disks.
 
Thanks for that.

Yep it has the ICH10R controller onboard, I just read somewhere that I need to put some drivers on a usb key or something, I just wondered if anyone who has the same board as me could tell me which ones I need.

Nice reply m8, this is my 1st time trying RAID & that has really helped.
 
You're welcome :)

If you're looking to install Vista it will have the drivers already so you won't need them on a USB key. Just update to the latest versions once you've got Windows installed - like you would with a graphics card. I've been installing Vista for a good few years on older boards than yours (ICH7R and ICH9R).

You'd only need the drivers on a floppy if you were looking to install on an older OS like XP.
 
That's why I posted here :D

So many different answers from google & nothing that really gave me that info.

Again thanks, I will put my drives in tomorrow after work.
 
That board has the ICH10R (6 ports) and the Silicon Image SILxxxx (2 ports)

You can use either. The SI is designed to be an easy way to raid, how easy it is I have no experience of as I currently have a single drive on the orange port. I think the idea is that you pop a second drive in, and in the app you can set speed (RAID0) or security (RAID1) and then it does it's thing.

If you want to look into using that Asus call it Drive Xpert.
 
I thought the Drive expert thing was used only for backup, again not sure though. I didn't think that you could load on OS onto it.
 
The "backup" is RAID1 whereas the "speed" mode of it is RAID0.
It's just a quick an easy way of getting RAID without having to understand RAID.
 
Aye but I skimmed through some web pages last night & some said it was for data only, meaning it isn't meant for installing the operating system on.
I'm not saying it can or can't be used as I haven't tried it myself, I saw one guy say he has an operating system on it & many others who say you cant.......the wonders of googling :(
I will hopefully get my new drives in today, I'm putting in a TRUE too & have to get to the train station for 4pm (I finish work at 2 on a Friday) so 2 hours at best to strip out the mobo, fit a TRUE in push pull, change some case fans & Install my new hard drives in RAID 0 with Vista on them.
I bet I don't even get the case opened this arvo :(
 
Beep, the Asus Drive Expert I think is a feature to backup your OS and will probably use the SILxxxx ports. It's not to be confused with the capabilities of the SIL controller which will support RAID - though if it's anything like the Gigabyte equivalent, you get more options to set up the RAID in the mobo BIOS instead of hitting CTRL+I (usually) during the post to get into the Intel RAID BIOS to set things up.

To be honest if it were me, I'd tend to disable the SIL controller in your BIOS and just use the Intel controller - unless you need the extra ports for additional drives. It will give you a slightly quicker boot (1 less controller for the BIOS to initialise) and less devices and drivers in Windows.

Good luck with the upgrades :)
 
Got everything back in & vista64 re installed, thanks for all the help.

Everything seems fine apart from windows now taking about 1 minute to load, the part with the little green bar now goes past about 9 times which is a lot more than ever before, is this normal?
 
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