Advice on RAID-0 Setup

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calvincoetzee

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Hi Mybb users,

I have the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R motherboard.
I have two Seagate 7200.12 1Tb drives which I want to setup in RAID-0.

The motherboard has the following controllers:

South Bridge:

1. 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2_0, SATA2_1, SATA2_2, SATA2_3, SATA2_4, SATA2_5) supporting up to 6 SATA 3Gb/s devices
2. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10

Marvell 9128 chip:

1. 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3_6, GSATA3_7) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
2. Support for SATA RAID 0, and RAID 1

GIGABYTE SATA2 chip:

1. 1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices
2. 2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (GSATA2_8, GSATA2_9) supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices
3. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, and JBOD

I would like to install Windows 7 on the RAID array, but I have never installed raid before, only once on an HP 1U server so my experience is rather limited.

My question is which one of these interfaces do you recommend I choose to setup the RAID on?
My main reason for asking is because I'm not sure which will give the best performance and driver support.
 
Use the normal SATA 3GB/s links. Your drives will not get close to saturating these links, so no point in using the faster 6GB/s.
 
Yes I agree, I don't plan on using the 6GB/s links as future hardware may require it, 3GB/s is more than fast enough IMO, so then between the Intel SouthBridge vs Gigabyte RAID which one would be best to use?
As in best intergration with the rest of the mobo, if it makes any difference?
 
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I specifically bought two drives so that I can try out RAID, I understand the risks of data loss, however all my important data is backed up on my notebook, so not too woried.
 
I ran RAID 0 on 2 x 320GB drives for 3 years, was never really impressed with it. It always scores well in synthetic benchmarks but does nothing for real world applications. Sadly, if you use onboard RAID, thats at least partly to blame, because onboard RAID controllers, although functional, never perform very well.

The other problem you have is that your drives will now be tied to your motherboard. You can read the data if you use another motherboard with a similar controller though.
 
I have 2 x 500Gb WD Black drives in RAID 0.
My loading times for games is alot less than friends of mine who run similar and also better systems than me.
I have my windows OS and games on the RAID array.
 
Ancalagon said:
I ran RAID 0 on 2 x 320GB drives for 3 years, was never really impressed with it. It always scores well in synthetic benchmarks but does nothing for real world applications. Sadly, if you use onboard RAID, thats at least partly to blame, because onboard RAID controllers, although functional, never perform very well.

The other problem you have is that your drives will now be tied to your motherboard. You can read the data if you use another motherboard with a similar controller though.
Click to expand...


I agree also ran RAID 0 on a couple of drives and it's really not worth the effort.
 
Okay thanks for all the info guys, but which controller will be the better one to setup my raid in? Intel controller or the gigabyte one?
 
Install it on either one - the performance increase that you will notice will be zero on either.... Otherwise find the controller that has native windows 7 support and use that - although both may be supported.
 
Not a fan of partitions

killadoob said:
Why did you buy 2 1tb's for raid though? You not seriously going to have a 2tb windows partition?
Click to expand...
While I understand the benifits of partitions, I really don't like the layout, I know there are work arounds such as changing the location of your documents / music folder to another drive.

But yes I'm going to have a 2 Tb windows partition, I have afterall got a notebook with 250Gb storage, enough for all my documents, photos and music. The rest of the data on my 2Tb is not going to be the end of the world if it all gets lost, seriously I only intend having easily re-copyable video files on it anyway.

The only reason I would use a partition is to install multiple opperating systems on a single drive, such as I've done in the past with a vast amount of Linux distros as well as multiple Windows installations for compatability (Remember when Vista came out).
 
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