A Raid Zero question

[Mubbers]

I've just conjured up two Raptor 37 GB drives with the intention of setting a RAID 0 arrary on my PC to run the OS and some selcted gaming software.

Any considerations to take before I do this e.g. stripe size etc?

Help appreciated

 

[Heeter]

Don't worry about stripe size, Mubbs. I never saw a difference in speed in my setup.

Just make sure that you set your First Boot Device in your BIOS to "SCSI". That should actually be your second as your XP disk is your First during installation. Make sure that you have your SCSI drivers on a floppy and ready to press F6 when it is asked.

Heeter

 

[Mubbers]

Don't worry about stripe size, Mubbs. I never saw a difference in speed in my setup.

Just make sure that you set your First Boot Device in your BIOS to "SCSI". That should actually be your second as your XP disk is your First during installation. Make sure that you have your SCSI drivers on a floppy and ready to press F6 when it is asked.

Heeter

SCSI? The raptors are SATA!

I hear 128 KB stripes are preferable for speed.

 

[Heeter]

Yes, Mubbers, I know that the Raptors are SATA. I have the same setup that you are thinking of doing. Since your Mobo does not have inherent SATA support, you will have to setup the Boot Device on your Mobo to "SCSI".

As well, if you are using a "Promise" RAID chipset, I have noticed that the chipset will automatically choose the most efficient striping for your setup. I have tried other striping and did not really notice the difference.

Hope this helps out,

Heeter

 

[Mubbers]

mmhh my main drive is a SATA with two ATA IDE's as extra storage But my new problem appears to be that there are only 2 SATA ports on the MOBO

 

[Heeter]

Well,

Mubbers, you can either keep aside the 160SATA for future use, or, buy a PCI SATA card and use it there. That option will bring you down to PATA data transfer speeds as the PCI bus does not support current SATA data transfer speeds. (150mB/s SATA vs 33/66mB/s PCI Bus speed)

On a different note, you mentioned that your intent for this setup was for gaming. Just to let you know, RAID0'ing the two Raptors will not net you any increased gaming performance, as gaming is CPU/GPU intensive and does not rely on the HD's for faster/smoother gaming speeds. About the only thing this setup will help with gaming is that it will load the actual game faster than before. Once you start playing, you will not notice any significant game speed increases.

Heeter

 

[MC82]

Mubbers, If I am not reading your post wrong, you are saying you do not have any PATA slots and two SATA slots.

I hear there is a adapter kit to change a PATA connection to a SATA connection. This may help you use one of your extra storage drives.

 

[American Zombie]

I think he is saying he has one SATA and two PATA drives now with 2 SATA drives on the way.
So he will have three SATA drives but only two SATA ports on motherboard.

 

[Mubbers]

Thanks for your replies - the board has 2 SATA ports and three PATA slots (I think). When the raptors arrive I will then have 3 SATA drives!!

Thanks for the tip Heeter re the PCI SATA card - I shall probably get that too.