RAID, how do you know what type you are running?

MowyTone

MowyTone

MowyTone

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As said above really. Setup the raid this moring using the drivers from the manufacturers website but it has not said what kind of RAID it is setup.

Going for RAID 0 (stripe)
 
if you set raid0, you will have twice the size..

2 x 320 gb hds will = 640 drive available in windows

riad1 will be half that size

2 x 320 gb hds will = 320 drive available in windows


when you boot up you should have a raid setup menu, you can select your options in there
 
In fairness if YOU set the RAID up then you should surely know what settings you applied, or if there was an automated system it would have told you during setup/in the manual?

Proper RAID is transparent to the OS but you should have some array management software or be able to boot into the array manager during POST

- Pea0n
 
My aim is to use the RAID for fast access. The way I set it up was through the vista install. TBH I have never setup a RAID before so if there is another way it would be news to me.

Is there a short answer to this or would it be a point of finding a walkthrough?

Pimp
 
If you are setting up RAID for fast access and have used two drives then you are after what is referred to as RAID 0. Sounds like you may be using software raid but either way each raid driver software has its on conventions on how to set-up RAID 0 rather than RAID 1. You will need to read the manual to figure this out. But as the other posters have said if you have set-up RAID 1 you will have installed two drives (say 2 x 500G) but only see space for one drive in windows (say 500G) rather than 1000G which would show for RAID 0.

Hope this helps. Happy raiding.
 
Ah I see. I have set it up via BIOS this time and selected 'stripping' instead of mirroring and it has given me double the space of one drive so I guess I should be going for the mirroring option?
 
Im sort of new on the RAID anyways, whats the best type of RAID setup? I see a lot of people have RAID 0, is that better than other RAID setups and why? thanks.
 
GuRkHa//$PIMP$ said:
Ah I see. I have set it up via BIOS this time and selected 'stripping' instead of mirroring and it has given me double the space of one drive so I guess I should be going for the mirroring option?
Click to expand...

Well that depends on what you want to gain ..

RAID 0 / Striping = 2 x disk space, fast access, but if one disk fails, all data is gone

RAID 1 / Mirroring = 1 x disk space, normal access, if one disk fails, data is kept safe, replace disk and let it auto rebuild the array
 
The RAID type you pick is totally dependant on what you want it to do and the number of drives you have available, one isn't necessarily better (unless you have a large number of disks and a dedicated RAID controller).

GuRkHa:

Striping and RAID 0 (although RAID 0 isn't technically real RAID)- Total capacity of both disks combined, faster access, NO redundancy

RAID 1 and Mirroring - Slightly different to each other but generally they offer slightly better read times but only the capacity of half the volumes total. The important thing is redundancy, if one disk dies, you dont lose your data.

- Pea0n
 
Ah ok thanks guys. The main thing I was after is the faster seak times so that looks like what I have achieved. As its just a gaming machine If one dies its not the end of the world to me.

Thanks again,

Pimp
 
GuRkHa//$PIMP$ said:
Isn't than an oxymoron?
Click to expand...

With RAID 0, the time it takes to access files is quite slow, but the time it takes to actually transfer it once it has got it, is quicker. Lower access times are what will make your computer feel snappier, so RAID 0 isn't going to achieve that - you need an SSD for that.
 
This is true, however I just dont have the cash to buy a decent one. So to get the best from what I've got in terms of performance would be to set it up as what?
 
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