before i setup raid questions!!

[robin801]

let's get the good stuff out of the way first---system specs---

gigabyte ga-7vaxp
athlon 1800+xp
aiw 7500
nec dvd-r+
16x dvd
32x cdrw
samsung 512mb ram
wd 80gb special edition
maxtor 80gb
game theater sound card
logitech z560

i want to use my on board raid for a raid 0 setup. i will be using win2k pro.

now on to the questions---

1-i have a 17gb 5400 hdd and a 20gb 7200 hdd.
which would be better to put the os on?


2--will using the 2 different cache speeds of the 80gb drives slow down my raid 0?

3-do i connect all of my drives before i install the os?

4-what do i set my boot up to in my bios?

if i left out any questions(and i'm sure i did) please feel free to offer the answers. :D

[Xaotic]

1) If you're not using the RAID for a boot drive, use the 20GB 7200RPM drive for the boot and system drive. It will have better seek and access times due to the higher rotational speed.

2) It will limit it somewhat, but not substantially. The drives, being different, will also have differing geometry and will also limit it slightly. Normally, the performance of the array will be limited by the slower drive. On the issue of cache, most of the limitation would be for sequential reads in any event.

3) If you are not using it as the boot drive, The array can be installed later. You will need to boot into the configuration menu and configure the array.

4) If booting off the 20GB, then set the boot device to IDE 0.

[robin801]

if i want to use just the 2 80gb drives as the boot drive can it be partitioned?

when u say "boot into the configuration menu and configure the array" where and what changes do i make?

[Mntsnow]

Yes the drives can be partitioned.

During the BIOS post for the Raid controller it will list what you need to press (something like cntrl+p) to enter the raid controller bios which is where you define the raid array.

[Xaotic]

It'll be CRTL+F for the Fasttrack RAID.

Attach one HDD as Master to each IDE channel. When booting, hit CRTL+F and enter the configuration menu. The drives should be detected properly, if not then recheck connections. You can either configure the two drives as RAID-0 or 1. If you use 0 for speed, make sure you back up frequently as the array cannot be recovered in the event of hardware failure.

The RAID manual for the board is here:

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/Manual/Manual_GA-7VAXP.htm

[robin801]

thanks for the help. my board arrived yesterday and after work today i am going to put it together.

[robin801]

i need a little additional help.

i have a 120gb hdd and i want to know if i can add this to my system to use as a storage drive?


i would have to remove my cdrw drive and attach the cable to my hdd(make hdd slave).

will the hdd letters come after the last partition letter of my raid setup?

would i be able to partition the 120gb hdd?

i just want to maybe break it into 2 or 3 partitions.

[Xaotic]

Attach it to either of the regular IDE channels. It can be attached as either master or slave, performance will not change. The only difference in the two drives is whether the address bit is 1 or 0. With W2K, you can change the drive letter or path using disk management. If you use disk management to partition and format, you'd be limited to 32GB FAT32 partitions as a maximum size, NTFS has no limits for that size disk. One thing to check for, before you add data to the drive, make sure the drive is listed as a basic disk. This will make any DOS based transfer or trouble shooting possible, if necessary.

[robin801]

i am using winxp pro.

i don't know what you mean by address bit 1 or 0.

where do i check to see if drive is listed as a basic disk?

[Xaotic]

The address bit is internal to the IDE interface and you don't need to worry about it. On a parallel IDE channel since there are 2 drives, it uses an electrical signal to designate which device the onboard chip is talking to. If memory serves, the master device is addressed as device 0 and the slave as device 1.

It's the same with both 2K and XP. I was going from the info above. Disk Management has the information on Basic/Dynamic disk located in the lower right pane. It will show Disk 0 and directly under it either Basic or Dynamic disk.