Asus P4C800 Deluxe - PATA RAID on only one cable?

[Noozer]

Well, I decided to pick up an Asus P4C800 Deluxe mainboard (two actually,
a -E and a non -E) and noticed something...

There is only one PATA connector for RAID. Does this mean to run RAID 0 on
PATA drives that they will share the cable? Won't this hurt performance? I
assume that it would still be faster than a single drive configuration... is
this correct?

Thanks!

 

[Noozer]

I've read several people complaining about very high CPU usage when using
that via based raid controller.

Since when did VIA start making Promise chips?

The only VIA thing on these boards is the firewire.

 

[stacey]

Well, I decided to pick up an Asus P4C800 Deluxe mainboard (two actually,
a -E and a non -E) and noticed something...

There is only one PATA connector for RAID. Does this mean to run RAID 0 on
PATA drives that they will share the cable? Won't this hurt performance? I
assume that it would still be faster than a single drive configuration...
is this correct?

I've read several people complaining about very high CPU usage when using
that via based raid controller.

 

[stacey]

Since when did VIA start making Promise chips?

I was thinking about the P4P800 Deluxe.

 

[kony]

I was thinking about the P4P800 Deluxe.

I think you have nightmares about Via. ;-)

Not to discount your conclusion though, I wouldn't want high CPU
utilization on a RAID either.


Dave

 

[k_yhz]

I read a review from MaximumPC mag (August issue) and they said that
board had the highest benchark score but there were a couple of
issues.
- 3com NIC uses slower PCI bus
- USB 2.0 performance poor
- CPU useage as hi as 50% using on board RAID (compared to 10% on
other boards); odd RAID set up
- might need extra fan for Northbridge over clocking as cooling seemed
inadequate
- seemed to run stabe at 1200Mhz FSB with a "C" processor
- onboard audio weak; some jacks are unuseable with 5.1 speakers

Now the board that interests me is the Asus P4S800D-E
- good overclocking all around (FSB and Proc. using air cooling)
- apparently Prescott compatible as well. I haven't done enough
research on it yet to know if they overcame the RAID problems.
Anyone have any exprience with this board?

 

[stacey]

Now the board that interests me is the Asus P4S800D-E
- good overclocking all around (FSB and Proc. using air cooling)

No dual channel ram. That takes a serious performance hit. P4's LOVE memory
bandwidth. I went from an 845G to a P4P800 using the same 2.53/533 DDR333
chip and ram in both and saw a BIG performance gain going to a dual chanel
board.

Stacey

 

[Noozer]

By the way I have one set as the master and the other as the slave on the
first controller cable and in the correct order.

Should both drives be formated and partitioned prior to this use?

You can't use ANY drive (even a floppy) unless it has a filesystem on it.

Since the drives appear in the device mangler they are probably working
right.

If you are using WinXP/2000 you can use the disk manager to partition and
format the drives. FDISK and FORMAT will be fine for lower Win/Dos versions.

 

[kony]

By the way I have one set as the master and the other as the slave on the
first controller cable and in the correct order.

Should both drives be formated and partitioned prior to this use?

Yes

 

[RanMan]

They don't exactly appear in the device manager as drives. The line under
disk drives is:

"VIA 6410 RAID 0 SCSI Disk Device."

And I can't fdisk or format in any file management program unless I can get
access to them.

I guess I'll have to slave each one to my pri ide drive and get them ready.

Do you think this will work?

 

[Noozer]

They don't exactly appear in the device manager as drives. The line under
disk drives is:

"VIA 6410 RAID 0 SCSI Disk Device."

And I can't fdisk or format in any file management program unless I can get
access to them.

I guess I'll have to slave each one to my pri ide drive and get them ready.

Do you think this will work?

Nope... You must partition/format with them on the RAID controller.

Right click MY COMPUTER and choose MANAGE. In the window that appears, look
for the Disk Manager. That will show the drives regardless of
partitioning/formatting.

(assumiing WinXP/2000)

 

[RanMan]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you! Thank you!

 

[Noozer]

No problem... You can buy me a beer next time you're in Calgary.

: )