I have 4 300GB Maxtor SATA hard drives. I have two plugged into the black
SATA connectors, and 2 plugged into the red SATA connectors on the MOBO.
When i run the configuration utility in the BIOS, it only finds 2 drives and
sets them up as RAID array 1. I was under the impression i could get all 4
going on a RAID 0. Is this wrong ? and if so, can i have 2 arrays then and
if so how do i set it up ? thanks in advance.

In article <cmJyd.701518$mD.187760@attbi_s02>, "D" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I have 4 300GB Maxtor SATA hard drives. I have two plugged into the black
> SATA connectors, and 2 plugged into the red SATA connectors on the MOBO.
> When i run the configuration utility in the BIOS, it only finds 2 drives and
> sets them up as RAID array 1. I was under the impression i could get all 4
> going on a RAID 0. Is this wrong ? and if so, can i have 2 arrays then and
> if so how do i set it up ? thanks in advance.

Here is the storage section of the feature list, found in the
manual. The Southbridge is a separate chip from the Promise,
so you have two chips that each can do a two drive RAID
array.

SouthBridge supports
- 2 x UltraDMA 133 connectors
- 2 x Serial ATA with RAID 0, RAID 1, and JBOD

Promise PDC20378 RAID controller
- 1 x UltraDMA 133 connector
- 2 x Serial ATA connectors
- support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, and Multiple
RAID configurations

If you want four drives RAIDed together, that will take
a software solution of some kind. I understand Windows
has some RAID options, but I've never researched exactly
what they are.

You might look around, and see if anyone makes a PCI
plugin card that uses a SIL3114 or similar cheap SATA
RAID chip. But, if you buy a PCI controller card, the
bus will limit performance to 100-110MB/sec, and a
four drive array is probably capable of going faster
than that. If you really want to harness the potential
of four drives, you would be better off with a motherboard
with a better bus structure.

You may find two separate RAID arrays is a more
flexible arrangement than a four drive single array.
The nice thing about two arrays, is you can read a
source file from one array, while writing it back to
the second array. A streaming workflow using two arrays,
means the disk head doesn't have to flip back and forth
between two areas on the disk.

Also, if you are striping disks, having two arrays means
only half your data is endangered when a disk fails. If
you stripe four drives, then a problem with one drive means
all data is lost, and restoring 1200GB from backup would
suck. (600GB would still be pretty bad.)

HTH,
Paul

"Paul" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:nospam-2312042340590001@192.168.1.177...
> In article <cmJyd.701518$mD.187760@attbi_s02>, "D" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> I have 4 300GB Maxtor SATA hard drives. I have two plugged into the
>> black
>> SATA connectors, and 2 plugged into the red SATA connectors on the MOBO.
>> When i run the configuration utility in the BIOS, it only finds 2 drives
>> and
>> sets them up as RAID array 1. I was under the impression i could get all
>> 4
>> going on a RAID 0. Is this wrong ? and if so, can i have 2 arrays then
>> and
>> if so how do i set it up ? thanks in advance.
>
> Here is the storage section of the feature list, found in the
> manual. The Southbridge is a separate chip from the Promise,
> so you have two chips that each can do a two drive RAID
> array.
>
> SouthBridge supports
> - 2 x UltraDMA 133 connectors
> - 2 x Serial ATA with RAID 0, RAID 1, and JBOD
>
> Promise PDC20378 RAID controller
> - 1 x UltraDMA 133 connector
> - 2 x Serial ATA connectors
> - support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, and Multiple
> RAID configurations
>
> If you want four drives RAIDed together, that will take
> a software solution of some kind. I understand Windows
> has some RAID options, but I've never researched exactly
> what they are.
>
> You might look around, and see if anyone makes a PCI
> plugin card that uses a SIL3114 or similar cheap SATA
> RAID chip. But, if you buy a PCI controller card, the
> bus will limit performance to 100-110MB/sec, and a
> four drive array is probably capable of going faster
> than that. If you really want to harness the potential
> of four drives, you would be better off with a motherboard
> with a better bus structure.
>
> You may find two separate RAID arrays is a more
> flexible arrangement than a four drive single array.
> The nice thing about two arrays, is you can read a
> source file from one array, while writing it back to
> the second array. A streaming workflow using two arrays,
> means the disk head doesn't have to flip back and forth
> between two areas on the disk.
>
> Also, if you are striping disks, having two arrays means
> only half your data is endangered when a disk fails. If
> you stripe four drives, then a problem with one drive means
> all data is lost, and restoring 1200GB from backup would
> suck. (600GB would still be pretty bad.)
>
> HTH,
> Paul

2 Arrays would be fine, i wanted one big one but thats ok. Thing is i have
no idea how to set up 2 arrays in the bios. windows only sees one drive
that is 600GB right now, and the bios doesnt seem to recognize my other 2
drives, i think i just dont know how to navigate the bios screens. all i
have for data is music and porn so im not worried about backups really hehe.
thanks.