Raid in general and Sil 3114 in particular

[Dave Neve]

Hello

I've only got a very general idea of what RAID is about.

Anyway, I put together a new computer a few months ago with a friend.

I noticed that the motherboard/processor had RAID capabilities.

There is a RAID controler Sil 3114 SoftRaid 5 controler which I have even
managed to update.

There is also a program which the processor/motherboard CD installed called
SAM (Sil array image) by Silicon Image but there are no help pages.

So this is where I begin to come unstuck.

How do I program my HD's to work in RAID and do I have to reinstall Windows
from scratch or can I activate the system now and it will 'recuperate'
everything already done?

Any help appreciated

Dave Neve

 

[Kerry Brown]

Hello

I've only got a very general idea of what RAID is about.

Anyway, I put together a new computer a few months ago with a friend.

I noticed that the motherboard/processor had RAID capabilities.

There is a RAID controler Sil 3114 SoftRaid 5 controler which I have
even managed to update.

There is also a program which the processor/motherboard CD installed
called SAM (Sil array image) by Silicon Image but there are no help
pages.
So this is where I begin to come unstuck.

How do I program my HD's to work in RAID and do I have to reinstall
Windows from scratch or can I activate the system now and it will
'recuperate' everything already done?

Any help appreciated

Dave Neve

Here's a pretty good explanation of RAID and how it works.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=830&page=1

If you have already partitioned and formatted your disks then you cannot
setup RAID without losing some data. You need unallocated space to set up
RAID. If you add more hard drives your RAID controller may be able to build
some RAID configurations on the fly without losing data. Make sure you have
a backup whatever you do.