A8V Deluxe RAID 0 setup

[dan]

I cannot decipher the necessary cabling requirements from the
motherboard manual. I have 2 identical Western Digital IDE UDMA100
drives that I wish to set up a RAID 0 array. The A8V has only one
IDE_RAID connector. The instructions simply say to connect the hard
drives. Is the array built off the one IDE_RAID connector? Do I simply
configure one drive master, the other slave, and connect them on one
cable to the one IDE_RAID connector? Or is the configuration such that
will require me to convert my drives to SATA in order to build a RAID 0
array?

Has anyone actually created a RAID 0 array using IDE drives? If so,
please help me understand how to do so on this board.
Thanks!

 

[dino]

on my old KT4 DFI board i simply set 1 drive Master ..1 drive Slave on my
ATA RAID connector..then I set it up thru the onboard utility as RAID
0...same thing to set it up on SATA drives on my A7N8X-Deluxe rev2.0...it is
actually as easy as putting 2 drives on the same ATA channel. Just make sure
to have a floppy with the RAID drivers on it and hit F6 when you start to
load Windows at the prompt

 

[Mercury]

There is absolutely no point in having RAID 0 with both drives on the same
PATA channel. You cannot get better performance. You greatly increase the
chance of data or system loss.
- Tim

 

[dan]

That's why it's so confusing to me to have only the one IDE_RAID
connector. It wouldn't seem to make any sense to convert both drives to
SATA and use the VIA SATA_RAID1 and SATA_RAID2 connectors. Or to try to
have one drive on the IDE_RAID and another converted-to-SATA drive on
the SATA_RAID1. Why have the IDE_RAID connector if you can't build a
true RAID 0 array? Is there really no way to create a true RAID 0 array
using 2 IDE drives on this board?

 

[Mercury]

i think the option of 1 x sata and 1 x pata is good for raid 0. Personally I
would not use a pata / sata converter.
I am always advising against raid 0, but you seem to be aware of whats going
on.

The raid 0 array will be a true array, just no performance boost other than
hat the controller can do better ie some is possible if it operates as a
scsi device - overlapped IO.

 

[Bert]

i think the option of 1 x sata and 1 x pata is good for raid 0. Personally I
would not use a pata / sata converter.
I am always advising against raid 0, but you seem to be aware of whats going
on.

The raid 0 array will be a true array, just no performance boost other than
hat the controller can do better ie some is possible if it operates as a
scsi device - overlapped IO.

What about:

[Q]
RAID 0 (Striping) interleaves sectors of data between the drives in the array.
So if you have two 20GB hard disks, data is written alternating between the
drives on the array. Neither drive holds all the data (just every other piece)
and your total drive space is twice the size of the smallest drive (40GB). This
can give you more data throughput, since you are essentially using two drives as
one and your data throughput could be close to double that of a single drive.
The problem is, if one drive fails you lose all the data. But if you were
running just one drive as most users do normally, you’d be in the same position,
so that may be a non-issue. More than 2 drives can be used and performance
should improve with more drives.
[\Q]

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT022201021241

Bert

 

[Mercury]

The benefit is lost when a single IDE (PATA) channel is used as the channel
can do only 1 IO at a time = performance of 1 drive. With 2 IDE channels (or
2 sata), two IO's can occur at the same time and this is how the performance
gain comes about.

i think the option of 1 x sata and 1 x pata is good for raid 0. Personally
I
would not use a pata / sata converter.
I am always advising against raid 0, but you seem to be aware of whats
going
on.

The raid 0 array will be a true array, just no performance boost other
than
hat the controller can do better ie some is possible if it operates as a
scsi device - overlapped IO.

What about:

[Q]
RAID 0 (Striping) interleaves sectors of data between the drives in the
array.
So if you have two 20GB hard disks, data is written alternating between
the
drives on the array. Neither drive holds all the data (just every other
piece)
and your total drive space is twice the size of the smallest drive (40GB).
This
can give you more data throughput, since you are essentially using two
drives as
one and your data throughput could be close to double that of a single
drive.
The problem is, if one drive fails you lose all the data. But if you were
running just one drive as most users do normally, you'd be in the same
position,
so that may be a non-issue. More than 2 drives can be used and performance
should improve with more drives.
[\Q]

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT022201021241

Bert

 

[Larry]

Agreed.

-Larry

 

[Larry]

Mercury is correct, especially since IDE does not support
Disconnect/Reconnect or Command Queing.

It's a waste of time to stripe off of one channel. You are just doubling
your chances of data loss with no resulting performance benefit.

-Larry

 

[Bert]

Mercury is correct, especially since IDE does not support
Disconnect/Reconnect or Command Queing.

It's a waste of time to stripe off of one channel. You are just doubling
your chances of data loss with no resulting performance benefit.

We agreed already on that topic...

Bert