Simple RAID questions

[rtatts]

I have done some before but not often got 2 new drives deliverd today and would like to set them up tonight.

I have a Gigabyte P35-DS3R.
2 x WD5000AAKS
I was considering a third but would rather not spend the extra money.

1. Do i go for Gigabyte RAID or Intel. atm im thinking intel.
2. What about this RAID 0+1 i have heard about. At the moment i have no real need for 1tb of space stripped and have no space to save important data. How reliable is the mirror part. Or should i forget the whole thing and stick to RAID 0?

Any advice or help would be great.

 

[rupert88]

I would boot up into windows off an old hard drive having setup a raid 0 stripe on either (intel or gigabyte raid) then test in hdtune (trial is free i think). You can then make your decisions based off this, although my guess is the intel one should have higher throughput.

It would also be advisable if you have 2x 500gb to consider short stroking the drives (this means setup raid to only use the first 100-200gb of each drive). This can also marginally improve performance as it minimizes the head movement during normal OS operation.

You can then (i believe) use the rest of the space for raid 1 or for JBOD (single hard drive config).

 

[rpstewart]

1. Do i go for Gigabyte RAID or Intel. atm im thinking intel.

Go with the Intel one, the Gigabyte controller is pretty poor in comparision

2. What about this RAID 0+1 i have heard about.

RAID0+1 requires a minimum of 4 disks

and have no space to save important data.

That's something you really need to sort out. Just look how many threads there are here asking about data recovery and the like. A simple backup strategy will save a huge amount of hassle if the worst happens.

 

[rtatts]

Data recovery i deal with at work but to be honest so far i just back up on another computer daily.

Having said that i went for the third drive and RAID 5. speed and parity.