Raid question

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18 Jan 2013
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Hi all,

I have 3 wd 250gb hard drives, a samsung 500 and 250 gb hdd.

I was wondering is it possible to wright a new OS onto the samsung 500 hdd and raid the 3 WD hdd's and also keep the samsng 250 hdd for files too.
thanks!
 
Yes.

Configure the SATA controller to RAID. Enter the RAID BIOS, add the 3 x WD disks into the RAID config of your choice (likely RAID-5 for redundancy/speed benefits or RAID-0 for no redundancy and all out speed)

Leave the other disks alone and they will work as stand alone disks on the same RAID controller (JBOD).

Reconfigure the SATA controller to RAID _PRIOR_ to reinstalling your OS.
 
perfect, thank you!

i have a sabertooth 990fx r2.0 i bought last week, is it difficult to change configuration to raid in the bios? just a matter of changing the 3 hdd to raid and loading up the normal OS from the other hdd? am I correct?
 
or if I install the new new OS on the 500, set up raid 0 or 1 on the 3 WD disks so i can put my games/ programs on the raid setup for good performance? would that be a good idea? i have everything backed up on a external hdd so i would not loose everything if one did fail.
 
Changing the SATA controller is done in the BIOS (UEFI if the 990fx runs it, I assume it does)

Once enabled a new boot screen will appear after your BIOS one with an option to enter the RAID configuration

A quick research reveals the following on your board:

AMD SB950 controller :
6 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), brown
Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10

Make sure all the disks you want in the RAID Array are all on these ports at least.

Once plugged into correct ports wait for the AMD SB950 controller BIOS screen to appear then press the relevant hotkey to enter config. Add the correct disks to the array you want and then exit/reboot.

If your OS drive is on the AMD SB950 controller it may fail to boot with a BSOD. If your OS lives on a different port/controller then you need not worry about booting issues.

In which case consider reading something like this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976
 
ok changed the 3 hdd in bios to raid, that worked fine. went into raid bios, it is seeing the 3 hdd but does not give me an option to set which raid number i want.
it loads the OS fine without any problems as its on a different disk. booted up fine and went into my computer and their is no sign of the raid disks anywhere?
sorry for been a noob on this but i cant seem to be able to set the raid i want and actually see the raid hdd in my computer:confused:
 
thanks for that manual, ya it is set up like that, I also went into amd raidxpert and it recognizes the 3 hdd's as one array and said it is functional. also i was able to set the raid to raid 5.

still no sign of of my set up in my computer. also have the latest drivers installed :/
 
thanks for that manual, ya it is set up like that, I also went into amd raidxpert and it recognizes the 3 hdd's as one array and said it is functional. also i was able to set the raid to raid 5.

still no sign of of my set up in my computer. also have the latest drivers installed :/

Right click My Computer and select Manage.

Choose Disk Management under Storage from the tree on the left and the RAID array should show up there as a Disk. Right click the volume and create a partition. Follow the steps and format it as NTSF.

It should then appear in My computer for use as a disk.
 
got that done and it showing 500gb of 750, same in the raid setup but says the third is still functional. anyway got it formatted and is now showing up on my computer, cheers!!
but I'v no idea if its the raid or just two hdd in a dynamic mode.

thanks for you help tho, much appreciated.
 
RAID-5 is striping + parity.

You do not get 100% of the space. In your scenario you get 2 disks worth of space, the last 3rd is used for parity.

IE - You can afford for 1 disk to fail and be able to replace it and rebuild the array.
 
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