2 RAID arrays in dual boot

R

RoS

I have a Gigabyte GA-81915P Duo (Pro) motherboard with P4 3.2; 1gb RAM; 2 x
160gb HDs.



I currently have 2 SATA hard drives in a Raid 0 array. These are handled by
the onboard Intel ICH6R chipset. The OS is WinXP pro.



The MB has 2 unused IDE sockets and a separate IDE Raid function on a Via
IDE Raid Host Controller (VT6410).



I'm thinking of increasing my hard drive capacity and the idea of setting up
a second Raid array and creating a dual booting system has crossed my mind
(WinXP on one, Win2000 on the other).



Two of the existing 4 SATA connections are occupied by the 2 SATA hard
drives.

Could I use the other two for a second pair of HDs in a Raid 0 array?

Alternatively could I use 2 IDE hard drives through the Via IDE Raid Host
Controller? This second option would allow me to install a SATA DVD
recorder on one of the two spare SATA connections.



What I have in mind is having two, as independent as possible, computers in
the same box. I would use one to experiment with downloads etc but keep the
other as clean as possible. This would accommodate backed up data and apps
etc from the first, once they had been well and truly tested and found to be
safe. I would prefer to keep Win XP on the existing SATA drives, setting up
Win2000 on the new pair. I say this simply in the hope that I would have
one functioning OS at all times during the installation of the new drives in
a second RAID array on 2 new HDs with a new OS.



I say all this very much with tongue in cheek because I'd be leaping well
outside my comfort zone in attempting any of this. I've never tried to set
up a dual boot set up before and have only seen Win 2000 a few times. I just
have the opportunity to acquire this OS by barter. I would need a
comprehensive tutorial on the basics to guide me through all this
(Gigabyte's documentation is horrendous and setting up the SATA RAID 0
originally was a nightmare until a site in the US came to my rescue). Does
anyone know of a source of help for what I have in mind?



Regards,



RoS
 
G

Guest

The ICH6 RAID controller only handles 1 RAID set,the other would be independ-
ent.SATA with RAID will give you better transfer rates than an IDE RAID set
ever could,its transfer rate will only run at 100MB/S where SATA/RAID is up
to
150MB/S.See results
at:http://www.intel.com/performance/desktop/platform_technologies/storage_performance.htm
Youre best bet is setting one set with Matrix storage & xp,the other set
for storage
& page file,IDE RAID isnt a performance option at all....
 
D

DL

You might first want to consider as to whether your pwr supply is up to the
load, a partial pwr supply can lead to all sorts of probs with raid.
You could certainly install a second o/s on the other raid as dual boot, I
believe you would have to use the F6 option to install the sata raid drivers
from floppy during the install.
PS you can also use VirtualPC to install a another clean o/s environment
 

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