Moving to Raid! Got some questions... - Overclock.net

0rion · 05-22-05

hey all, i have some questions about raid. what i have currently now is one 160 gb maxtor SATA, 7200 RPM, by itself, no raid yet. what i plan on buying is 3 more identical drives, so i will have a total of (4) 160 GB Maxtor 7200 SATAs. i want the performance of raid 0, but dont want to risk my data. i fried a hd once, not too keen on doing it again. so what my questions are, how to go about setting up data transfers from my old hard drive to the new array, and what differences will i notice in the system, in terms of speed?

Concerns about transferring data: i read that if you want to set up raid 0, you need to essentially have 2 new drives. if i did this, i could set up 2 in raid 0, then transfer data from the old drive to the raid 0 array. from there, i would need to implement the raid 1 part of it. you can see where im going from this. it is either my method, or setting up the entire raid 0+1 at once, and finding a way to backup my data temporarily, or some other method. some advice on it would be helpful. thanks!

ldk · 05-22-05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orion14_99

hey all, i have some questions about raid. what i have currently now is one 160 gb maxtor SATA, 7200 RPM, by itself, no raid yet. what i plan on buying is 3 more identical drives, so i will have a total of (4) 160 GB Maxtor 7200 SATAs. i want the performance of raid 0, but dont want to risk my data. i fried a hd once, not too keen on doing it again. so what my questions are, how to go about setting up data transfers from my old hard drive to the new array, and what differences will i notice in the system, in terms of speed?

Concerns about transferring data: i read that if you want to set up raid 0, you need to essentially have 2 new drives. if i did this, i could set up 2 in raid 0, then transfer data from the old drive to the raid 0 array. from there, i would need to implement the raid 1 part of it. you can see where im going from this. it is either my method, or setting up the entire raid 0+1 at once, and finding a way to backup my data temporarily, or some other method. some advice on it would be helpful. thanks!

If you can, I would recommend backing up first then setting up a RAID 0+1 if thats what you want. Then build the array, format, load windows, then reload your data.

You can expect a good increase in performance, esp from the RAID 0, although the mirroring may slow you down slightly but it will be much more than what you have now.

Make sure you get 3 more drives the same as you have now. Must be the same size or the RAID controller will set them to the smallest. Too bad you dont have one of the Intel Matrix boards or you could do a RAID 0+1 with just 2 drives.

0rion · 05-22-05

the reason i ask is because i read somewhere that when you set up raid 1, you can keep your files intact, and when you add the other drive into the array, windows copies the data from the first drive to the second. i was thinking that if you had a raid 0, that if you wanted 0+1 you could just then add the two other drives, tell it to be raid 0+1, and it would copy the data from the raid 0 onto the new drives, giving you the raid 0+1. i dunno, tell me if im way off in left field.

ldk · 05-22-05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orion14_99

the reason i ask is because i read somewhere that when you set up raid 1, you can keep your files intact, and when you add the other drive into the array, windows copies the data from the first drive to the second. i was thinking that if you had a raid 0, that if you wanted 0+1 you could just then add the two other drives, tell it to be raid 0+1, and it would copy the data from the raid 0 onto the new drives, giving you the raid 0+1. i dunno, tell me if im way off in left field.

I'm with ya, dude, but I'd back up first no matter which way you do it. I'm a stickler for consistency and would rather do everything from a clean slate. Why I recommended it the way I did. I'd make sure you got a good backup of your data first.

0rion · 05-22-05

Quote:

Originally Posted by ldk

I'm with ya, dude, but I'd back up first no matter which way you do it. I'm a stickler for consistency and would rather do everything from a clean slate. Why I recommended it the way I did. I'd make sure you got a good backup of your data first.

ah, ok.. i definitely see what you're saying. haha guess ill have a use for all those DVDs i just bought. in respect to the performance increase, where will i notice it most? will it help with gaming in particular? i run a lot of games from iso files on my computer, so i dont know if that would help. a little more specifics would be nice. right now im drooling over the idea of 4 drives in 0+1, first for the 320 GB hard drive, and the performance, the backup.. all of it. so ideas on performance increases are just candy

ldk · 05-22-05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orion14_99

ah, ok.. i definitely see what you're saying. haha guess ill have a use for all those DVDs i just bought. in respect to the performance increase, where will i notice it most? will it help with gaming in particular? i run a lot of games from iso files on my computer, so i dont know if that would help. a little more specifics would be nice. right now im drooling over the idea of 4 drives in 0+1, first for the 320 GB hard drive, and the performance, the backup.. all of it. so ideas on performance increases are just candy

The biggest place you'll notice a difference is in program loading and benchmarks. Performance during game play will not noticeably increase. You'll also see faster file copies, deletes, etc.

0rion · 05-22-05

Quote:

Originally Posted by ldk

The biggest place you'll notice a difference is in program loading and benchmarks. Performance during game play will not noticeably increase. You'll also see faster file copies, deletes, etc.

haha holy, you seem to make your way around the forums quite a bit, on the homepage you were the last to reply to like 3 or 4 different threads! lol but back tot he raid issue, that seems like a pretty good deal to me. thanks for your help!

ldk · 05-22-05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orion14_99

haha holy, you seem to make your way around the forums quite a bit, on the homepage you were the last to reply to like 3 or 4 different threads! lol but back tot he raid issue, that seems like a pretty good deal to me. thanks for your help!

My pleasure, dude. I have 3 eyes, 4 monitors, and 2 computers. That plus 27 cups of coffee per day help tremendously.

		Overclock.net - Overclocking.net > Components > Hard Drives & Storage
Moving to Raid! Got some questions...

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)