newbie raid question

[Punkychan]

is it easy to install a raid card in XP Pro SP1 ? I've went through this forums and seems very technical for me with all those "raid 0, raid 1...." etc etc...what I want is some extra drives as slaves or backup for my pc...
what's the best way to instal the card ? Just plug in the pci , hook the ide , and will Windows recognise it after I start the pc ? what about the jumpers on the hd ? Thanks..call me anything...I just want some back up drives.

 

[a1ehouse]

How many drives (inc. CD/DVD) have you currently got? How many do you want to add?? If it's less than 4 then RAID may not be necessary. Have a butchers here: http://forum.osnn.net/showthread.php?t=40529 for master slave tips if 4 is the max.

 

[Punkychan]

I have 2 now but would like to put in 2 more.I have the usb though, but not so practical...

 

[GoNz0]

just buy a IDE controller card if you dont need raid. u can add 4 extra drives on 1 of those and all i had to do was install the drivers that came with it.

 

[Kush]

i never really undrestood raid, i used to have it so i can just use more ide devices, but isnt it like a mirror thing like say if i have a raid of drive d: on drive f: everything i copy or install or whatever would automatically be copied to the f drive as a backup. but thats what i thought it was what is it plz in n00b terms

 

[GoNz0]

u can have a raid controller and just have 1 drive on it running like any normal drive dont have to use raid 0 or 1 etc..

 

[Kush]

uhhh english? what is the basic function of raid then, like the purpose

 

[fitz]

uhhh english? what is the basic function of raid then, like the purpose

RAID - Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks

Raid is basically using multiple disks to provide data loss protection.

In theory, when people talk about striping (ie - RAID 0), there is not redunancy thus, it is not to be very nit picky, technically truly RAID.

More useful RAID information here: http://www.uni-mainz.de/~neuffer/scsi/what_is_raid.html

u can have a raid controller and just have 1 drive on it running like any normal drive dont have to use raid 0 or 1 etc..

That's true.. but then why spring the money for a RAID controller?

That's like buying a F1 race car and only using in 20MPH streets

i never really undrestood raid, i used to have it so i can just use more ide devices, but isnt it like a mirror thing like say if i have a raid of drive d: on drive f: everything i copy or install or whatever would automatically be copied to the f drive as a backup. but thats what i thought it was what is it plz in n00b terms

In a RAID mirror, you would not the f: drive. Your RAID mirror would contain both drives on one drive letter with the RAID doing the work of automatically writing the data to both drives.

 

[Punkychan]

wooaaa..this is more confusing...
"IDE controller card if you dont need raid. u can add 4 extra drives on 1 of those and all i had to do was install the drivers that came with it."
now...what's the difference between an ide controller and a pci raid card ??

 

[leedogg]

wooaaa..this is more confusing...
"IDE controller card if you dont need raid. u can add 4 extra drives on 1 of those and all i had to do was install the drivers that came with it."
now...what's the difference between an ide controller and a pci raid card ??

with an ide controller each drive is seperate from one another, this is just like adding another hd. Under Raid 0, pretend each drive is like a platter inside a single large hd and data is read/written to both simultaneously. Under Raid 1, the 2 drives are clones and if one goes down the 2nd one takes over. There are many other raid configurations, but they arent really relevant to your needs.

 

[Punkychan]

so....in my case on the box is written " ata 133 pci raid controller " it means......

 

[fitz]

PCI is a bus (you can have PCI video cards, PCI network cards, PCI modems, etc..) See http://computer.howstuffworks.com/pci.htm for more info..

IDE is an interface type (another would be SCSI ). You can have IDE Harddrives, CD Drives, DVD Drives, and even the old IDE zip drives. See http://computer.howstuffworks.com/pci.htm for more info

RAID is a standard of organizing data across multiple drives (see earlier post for a link with RAID info)

They are different things. Don't confuse the issue.

so.. going back to your box label:
The controller gets plugged into an open PCI slot on your motherboard.

Your IDE Harddrives get connected to your Controller which is plugged into an open PCI slot on your motherboard.

Your Software provided with the Controller is used to create a RAID volume using the IDE Harddrives connected to your controller plugged into an open PCI slot on your motherboard.

My last words on the issue:
If what you want is to get another drive letter for your to run a manual or scheduled backup/copy of your data, don't bother with RAID.

I have 2 now but would like to put in 2 more.I have the usb though, but not so practical...

Assuming you only have 2 devices on your built-in controllor now(I'm assuming this is a HardDrive and a CD/DVD of some sort - ie: a "c:" drive and a "d:" drive) you can should be able to put in an extra harddrive or two without buing a new controller. You won't have RAID, but seeing as you don't know what it is anyway, you probably won't miss it.

If you already bought this card and you really, really, really want to use it, you can still use it.

Just plug the card into an open PCI slot, connect your drives to the card with the ribbon cables, connect the power cables to the hard drives. Power up, install the drivers but don't setup anything with RAID.