P5GD2 Premium, Raid mirror set up suggestions.

[agit8er]

New system build:

P5GD2 premium
Win XP Pro w/sp2

(2) sata WD Raptor 37 gig HD
(1) sata WD Caviar 250 gig HD

I want to set up the Raptors as a raid mirror configuration. I wish to use
the 250 gig HD for mass storage and PVR. I am a little unclear as to what
sata connections to make. What I was going to do was set up the raptors on
sata 1 and 2 with the 250 gig on sata 3. I realize I need to change the
bios from ide to raid. My main question is whether I should be setting up
on these ports or should I be using the sata-raid1, sata-raid2, sata-raid3
and sata-raid4 ports.

Any configuration suggestions or links to additional reading on my part
would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Paul]

New system build:

P5GD2 premium
Win XP Pro w/sp2

(2) sata WD Raptor 37 gig HD
(1) sata WD Caviar 250 gig HD

I want to set up the Raptors as a raid mirror configuration. I wish to use
the 250 gig HD for mass storage and PVR. I am a little unclear as to what
sata connections to make. What I was going to do was set up the raptors on
sata 1 and 2 with the 250 gig on sata 3. I realize I need to change the
bios from ide to raid. My main question is whether I should be setting up
on these ports or should I be using the sata-raid1, sata-raid2, sata-raid3
and sata-raid4 ports.

Any configuration suggestions or links to additional reading on my part
would be greatly appreciated.

With the PCI Express chipsets, I think the connection between
the Northbridge and Southbridge (DMI bus) is pretty fat. Perhaps
1GB/sec up and 1GB/sec down, in order to support the PCI Express ports
that terminate on the Southbridge. What this means is, a disk
controller on the Southbridge should have a pretty good path
from a bandwidth perspective.

The SIL3114 is still a PCI chip, with a 133MB/sec theoretical limit.

If it was my computer, I'd stick as many SATA storage devices
as possible on the Southbridge first.

(If you plan on moving the disks to another computer on occasion,
you may want to test for interoperability of the disk image,
between the two computers while there is still no important
data on the disk. It may not even be possible to move the disk
from the Southbridge to the SIL3114, so test to be sure that
any interop test cases are checked, before you really need
the migration capability. Check to see that all partitions are
showing up, for example. I just get nervous any time the
"reserved sector" concept of RAID interfaces, comes into play.)

With regard to the PATA interface, a CD/DVD can still go on
the Southbridge. But, in terms of specs, the Southbridge has
100MB/sec read and 88.9MB/sec write limitation on PATA. The
8212F chip, supports ATA133, which means if you are using a
PATA disk drive, you should test both 8212F and Southbridge
interfaces and see which is faster. It could all boil down to
how good the driver is for each piece of hardware. Due to
the PCI bus limit, the 8212F should be able to manage around
100-110MB/sec both read and write (PCI bus limit), but if
the drivers used are not very good, then it may not make it
to that level of performance.

Paul