Conversion to RAID 5

I'm not exactly a newbie but I haven't written any books on this
subject either.

The more I research converting from a one-drive set-up with a hardware
RAID capability to RAID 5, the more it seems ridiculously hard to do
so. This is what I understand it involves. First, I have to image my
existing 500 gig SATA HD. Then I need to wipe that HD and install 2
more HDs identical to the one I have. I then configure the 3 HDs to
RAID 5 and then restore the image I created at the beginning.

Using Acronis Home, I tried to image the existing HD by connecting a
250 gig external (USB) HD (to store the image) and was told by Acronis
that the destination HD had to be identical to the source HD. I don't
understand why since only 140 gig of the source HD has been used. If
I can't work around this problem, that suggests that I would need a
4th (throw-away HD) for the image. Or I have to wipe and rebuild from
scratch. Surely, I must be missing something. Any thoughts out
there?

My goal is to have 1.5 TBs in a RAID 5 arrangment so I can begin to
capture hundreds of hours of video from old VHS and DV tapes.

I'm tempted to just install one additional 500 gig HD for a total of
two and just dedicate the second HD to video capture ala an old EIDE
(non-RAID) arrangement. I won't get the performance benefit from
striping. But do I really need it? Can I do this?

I'm running XP Pro on a Systemax with Q6600 processing. Only Vista
Business came on media with the machine so wiping the HD without first
imaging it will be a problem for me because I do not want to switch
(notice I did not say upgrade) to Vista at this time. And I just got
the PC the end of last year and I really don't want to go thru the
hassle of restoring Outlook, iTunes, Picassa, etc., etc. again so
soon.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Better check your math! IF you have 500 gb drives AND you want 1.5 TB
total data storage you will need 4 drives for the array, not 3.

ritpg wrote:
I'm not exactly a newbie but I haven't written any books on this
subject either.

The more I research converting from a one-drive set-up with a hardware
RAID capability to RAID 5, the more it seems ridiculously hard to do
so. This is what I understand it involves. First, I have to image my
existing 500 gig SATA HD. Then I need to wipe that HD and install 2
more HDs identical to the one I have. I then configure the 3 HDs to
RAID 5 and then restore the image I created at the beginning.

Using Acronis Home, I tried to image the existing HD by connecting a
250 gig external (USB) HD (to store the image) and was told by Acronis
that the destination HD had to be identical to the source HD. I don't
understand why since only 140 gig of the source HD has been used. If
I can't work around this problem, that suggests that I would need a
4th (throw-away HD) for the image. Or I have to wipe and rebuild from
scratch. Surely, I must be missing something. Any thoughts out
there?

My goal is to have 1.5 TBs in a RAID 5 arrangment so I can begin to
capture hundreds of hours of video from old VHS and DV tapes.

I'm tempted to just install one additional 500 gig HD for a total of
two and just dedicate the second HD to video capture ala an old EIDE
(non-RAID) arrangement. I won't get the performance benefit from
striping. But do I really need it? Can I do this?

I'm running XP Pro on a Systemax with Q6600 processing. Only Vista
Business came on media with the machine so wiping the HD without first
imaging it will be a problem for me because I do not want to switch
(notice I did not say upgrade) to Vista at this time. And I just got
the PC the end of last year and I really don't want to go thru the
hassle of restoring Outlook, iTunes, Picassa, etc., etc. again so
soon.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

ritpg wrote:

I'm not exactly a newbie but I haven't written any books on this subject either.

The more I research converting from a one-drive set-up with a hardware
RAID capability to RAID 5, the more it seems ridiculously hard to do
so. This is what I understand it involves. First, I have to image my
existing 500 gig SATA HD. Then I need to wipe that HD and install 2
more HDs identical to the one I have. I then configure the 3 HDs to
RAID 5 and then restore the image I created at the beginning.

Using Acronis Home, I tried to image the existing HD by connecting
a 250 gig external (USB) HD (to store the image) and was told by
Acronis that the destination HD had to be identical to the source HD.

Thats mad. God knows what you were actually doing or what it said that
made you 'think' that thats what it was saying, but it never ever says that.

You should be imaging the original drive, not cloning it.

I don't understand why since only 140 gig of the source HD has been used.

Yeah, that operation will work fine.

If I can't work around this problem,

Corse you can.

that suggests that I would need a 4th (throw-away HD) for the image. Or I
have to wipe and rebuild from scratch. Surely, I must be missing something.

Yep.

Any thoughts out there?

You should be imaging the original drive, not cloning it.

My goal is to have 1.5 TBs in a RAID 5 arrangment so I can begin
to capture hundreds of hours of video from old VHS and DV tapes.

I'm tempted to just install one additional 500 gig HD for a
total of two and just dedicate the second HD to video capture
ala an old EIDE (non-RAID) arrangement. I won't get the
performance benefit from striping. But do I really need it?

Nope.

Can I do this?

Yep.

I'm running XP Pro on a Systemax with Q6600 processing. Only Vista
Business came on media with the machine so wiping the HD without
first imaging it will be a problem for me because I do not want to
switch (notice I did not say upgrade) to Vista at this time. And I just
got the PC the end of last year and I really don't want to go thru the
hassle of restoring Outlook, iTunes, Picassa, etc., etc. again so soon.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

On Feb 27, 1:04*pm, "Rod Speed" wrote:
ritpg wrote:
I'm not exactly a newbie but I haven't written any books on this subject either.
The more I research converting from a one-drive set-up with a hardware
RAID capability to RAID 5, the more it seems ridiculously hard to do
so. *This is what I understand it involves. *First, I have to image my
existing 500 gig SATA HD. *Then I need to wipe that HD and install 2
more HDs identical to the one I have. *I then configure the 3 HDs to
RAID 5 and then restore the image I created at the beginning.
Using Acronis Home, I tried to image the existing HD by connecting
a 250 gig external (USB) HD (to store the image) and was told by
Acronis that the destination HD had to be identical to the source HD.

Thats mad. God knows what you were actually doing or what it said that
made you 'think' that thats what it was saying, but it never ever says that.

ritpg wrote:
I'm not exactly a newbie but I haven't written any books on this
subject either.

The more I research converting from a one-drive set-up with a hardware
RAID capability to RAID 5, the more it seems ridiculously hard to do
so. This is what I understand it involves. First, I have to image my
existing 500 gig SATA HD. Then I need to wipe that HD and install 2
more HDs identical to the one I have. I then configure the 3 HDs to
RAID 5 and then restore the image I created at the beginning.

Using Acronis Home, I tried to image the existing HD by connecting a
250 gig external (USB) HD (to store the image) and was told by Acronis
that the destination HD had to be identical to the source HD. I don't
understand why since only 140 gig of the source HD has been used. If
I can't work around this problem, that suggests that I would need a
4th (throw-away HD) for the image. Or I have to wipe and rebuild from
scratch. Surely, I must be missing something. Any thoughts out
there?

My goal is to have 1.5 TBs in a RAID 5 arrangment so I can begin to
capture hundreds of hours of video from old VHS and DV tapes.

I'm tempted to just install one additional 500 gig HD for a total of
two and just dedicate the second HD to video capture ala an old EIDE
(non-RAID) arrangement. I won't get the performance benefit from
striping. But do I really need it? Can I do this?

I'm running XP Pro on a Systemax with Q6600 processing. Only Vista
Business came on media with the machine so wiping the HD without first
imaging it will be a problem for me because I do not want to switch
(notice I did not say upgrade) to Vista at this time. And I just got
the PC the end of last year and I really don't want to go thru the
hassle of restoring Outlook, iTunes, Picassa, etc., etc. again so
soon.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.


RAID 5 involves striping. Why on earth would you want to split your data
over several drives? The usual reason to do this is to diminish access time
when accessing data randomly. With TV editting, you're essentially accessing
the data sequentially and striping will gain zilch!

I take that back; stripping will gain increased complexity.

To emphasise: there is NO performance benefit to striping when the data are
accessed sequentially (or anything approaching sequential).

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage ritpg wrote:
I'm not exactly a newbie but I haven't written any books on this
subject either.

[...]
My goal is to have 1.5 TBs in a RAID 5 arrangment so I can begin to
capture hundreds of hours of video from old VHS and DV tapes.

I'm tempted to just install one additional 500 gig HD for a total of
two and just dedicate the second HD to video capture ala an old EIDE
(non-RAID) arrangement. I won't get the performance benefit from
striping. But do I really need it? Can I do this?

[...]

I think the question is what you want to actually do. RAID5 is not for
speed. Unless yu have a fast hardware controller (recognizable by its
price, at the moment something like 500 USD and up), speed will
be slower than individual disks. My impression is that you do
not actually want RAID in any form.

Also messing with your system drive is probably a bad idea, if you
are not sure you can actually reliably backup and recreate it.

You also do not seem to want the RAID5 for added reliability,
correct? If so, use additional drives for your video-data.
Current deives should be fast enough even for high-resolution
streaming. As to size, I would advise to honestly estimate
how much space you need and then get 1.5x ... 2x that. TB
disks are really not that expensive.

As to reliability, RAID1 and RAID5 reduce down-time due to failed
disks. They do not replace backups. For backups the currently
cheapest solution is external USB HDDs. For files, just copy them
over. For system backups, yes, this is a bit difficult under
Windows, typically writing to an image file is best. (Linux:
use ye old tar archiver, which still does the trich reliably
and for free.)

Arno

On Feb 27, 10:23*pm, Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storageritpgri...@hotmai l.com wrote:

I'm not exactly a newbie but I haven't written any books on this
subject either.

[...]

My goal is to have 1.5 TBs in a RAID 5 arrangment so I can begin to
capture hundreds of hours of video from old VHS *and DV tapes.
I'm tempted to just install one additional 500 gig HD for a total of
two and just dedicate the second HD to video capture ala an old EIDE
(non-RAID) arrangement. *I won't get the performance benefit from
striping. *But do I really need it? *Can I do this?

[...]

I think the question is what you want to actually do. RAID5 is not for
speed. Unless yu have a fast hardware controller (recognizable by its
price, at the moment something like 500 USD and up), speed will
be slower than individual disks. My impression is that you do
not actually want RAID in any form.

Also messing with your system drive is probably a bad idea, if you
are not sure you can actually reliably backup and recreate it.

You also do not seem to want the RAID5 for added reliability,
correct? If so, use additional drives for your video-data.
Current deives should be fast enough even for high-resolution
streaming. As to size, I would advise to honestly estimate
how much space you need and then get 1.5x ... 2x that. TB
disks are really not that expensive.

As to reliability, RAID1 and RAID5 reduce down-time due to failed
disks. They do not replace backups. For backups the currently
cheapest solution is external USB HDDs. For files, just copy them
over. For system backups, yes, this is a bit difficult under
Windows, typically writing to an image file is best. (Linux:
use ye old tar archiver, which still does the trich reliably
and for free.)

Arno

Thanks to you all for the great feedback - even though I feel dumber
than a rock at this point. I had started out just wanting to add a
dedicated HD for video capture and editing. And that is all I want to
do at this point. I was under the impression that because my PC out
of the factory, was set up for RAID (with the controller card on the
motherboard) I was not going to be able to simply add a HD like I
would on my old PC which had EIDE architecture. I'm still not sure
what my options are. I guess I can understand that because I will be
dealing with large files that the data will be read into RAM serially
thus negating any benefit from striping (although I'd would wonder why
RAID wouldn't include the ability to initiate 2 reads in parallel even
for large files). So if this is true I have nothing to gain from RAID
0 (striping). And I don't really care about backing up the video
files (RAID 1) because I'm not throwing away the source media
(although some of the VHS tapes are a bit long in the tooth).
So I guess I go back to my original question. How do I add a single
500 gig HD to this PC without going thru the complexity of converting
to any of the RAID options (0, 1, 5, 10, etc.) all of which are
supposedly supported by my MB (with hardware RAID controllers added).

Thanks again.

How many SATA channels does your motherboard provide ? To add
a new drive is basically just install the drive and connect it to a SATA
connector. I'd get a Seagate SATA with a 32-Megabyte cache that
uses Perpendicular data orientation. Just make sure you have adequate
power and cooling for the new drive. If your motherboard supports an
eSATA connector you might be better with an external drive to lessen
loading inside the PC cabinet. Sometimes you can even get a little more
performance by using a PCIe SATA card to host your new drive instead
of the on-board SATA controller.

"ritpg" wrote in message
...
On Feb 27, 10:23 pm, Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storageritpgri...@hotmai l.com wrote:

I'm not exactly a newbie but I haven't written any books on this
subject either.

[...]

My goal is to have 1.5 TBs in a RAID 5 arrangment so I can begin to
capture hundreds of hours of video from old VHS and DV tapes.
I'm tempted to just install one additional 500 gig HD for a total of
two and just dedicate the second HD to video capture ala an old EIDE
(non-RAID) arrangement. I won't get the performance benefit from
striping. But do I really need it? Can I do this?

[...]

I think the question is what you want to actually do. RAID5 is not for
speed. Unless yu have a fast hardware controller (recognizable by its
price, at the moment something like 500 USD and up), speed will
be slower than individual disks. My impression is that you do
not actually want RAID in any form.

Also messing with your system drive is probably a bad idea, if you
are not sure you can actually reliably backup and recreate it.

You also do not seem to want the RAID5 for added reliability,
correct? If so, use additional drives for your video-data.
Current deives should be fast enough even for high-resolution
streaming. As to size, I would advise to honestly estimate
how much space you need and then get 1.5x ... 2x that. TB
disks are really not that expensive.

As to reliability, RAID1 and RAID5 reduce down-time due to failed
disks. They do not replace backups. For backups the currently
cheapest solution is external USB HDDs. For files, just copy them
over. For system backups, yes, this is a bit difficult under
Windows, typically writing to an image file is best. (Linux:
use ye old tar archiver, which still does the trich reliably
and for free.)

Arno

Thanks to you all for the great feedback - even though I feel dumber
than a rock at this point. I had started out just wanting to add a
dedicated HD for video capture and editing. And that is all I want to
do at this point. I was under the impression that because my PC out
of the factory, was set up for RAID (with the controller card on the
motherboard) I was not going to be able to simply add a HD like I
would on my old PC which had EIDE architecture. I'm still not sure
what my options are. I guess I can understand that because I will be
dealing with large files that the data will be read into RAM serially
thus negating any benefit from striping (although I'd would wonder why
RAID wouldn't include the ability to initiate 2 reads in parallel even
for large files). So if this is true I have nothing to gain from RAID
0 (striping). And I don't really care about backing up the video
files (RAID 1) because I'm not throwing away the source media
(although some of the VHS tapes are a bit long in the tooth).
So I guess I go back to my original question. How do I add a single
500 gig HD to this PC without going thru the complexity of converting
to any of the RAID options (0, 1, 5, 10, etc.) all of which are
supposedly supported by my MB (with hardware RAID controllers added).

Thanks again.

ritpg wrote:

Thanks to you all for the great feedback - even though I feel dumber
than a rock at this point. I had started out just wanting to add a
dedicated HD for video capture and editing. And that is all I want to
do at this point. I was under the impression that because my PC out
of the factory, was set up for RAID (with the controller card on the
motherboard) I was not going to be able to simply add a HD like I
would on my old PC which had EIDE architecture. I'm still not sure
what my options are. I guess I can understand that because I will be
dealing with large files that the data will be read into RAM serially
thus negating any benefit from striping (although I'd would wonder why
RAID wouldn't include the ability to initiate 2 reads in parallel even
for large files). So if this is true I have nothing to gain from RAID
0 (striping). And I don't really care about backing up the video
files (RAID 1) because I'm not throwing away the source media
(although some of the VHS tapes are a bit long in the tooth).
So I guess I go back to my original question. How do I add a single
500 gig HD to this PC without going thru the complexity of converting
to any of the RAID options (0, 1, 5, 10, etc.) all of which are
supposedly supported by my MB (with hardware RAID controllers added).

Thanks again.

I'm glad we were able to prevent you from wandering down a maze with no end.

To answer you question of how to add a drive:
1) Plug in the power cable.
2) Plug in the data cable.
[3) Optional: secure drive with screws.]
4. Turn on computer. It should recognize the existence of the drive. You
might have to format the drive and should if it's not NTFS. The OS will
assign a drive letter.

ritpg wrote:
On Feb 27, 10:23 pm, Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storageritpgri...@hotmai l.com wrote:

I'm not exactly a newbie but I haven't written any books on this
subject either.

[...]

My goal is to have 1.5 TBs in a RAID 5 arrangment so I can begin to
capture hundreds of hours of video from old VHS and DV tapes.
I'm tempted to just install one additional 500 gig HD for a total of
two and just dedicate the second HD to video capture ala an old EIDE
(non-RAID) arrangement. I won't get the performance benefit from
striping. But do I really need it? Can I do this?

[...]

I think the question is what you want to actually do. RAID5 is not
for speed. Unless yu have a fast hardware controller (recognizable
by its price, at the moment something like 500 USD and up), speed
will
be slower than individual disks. My impression is that you do
not actually want RAID in any form.

Also messing with your system drive is probably a bad idea, if you
are not sure you can actually reliably backup and recreate it.

You also do not seem to want the RAID5 for added reliability,
correct? If so, use additional drives for your video-data.
Current deives should be fast enough even for high-resolution
streaming. As to size, I would advise to honestly estimate
how much space you need and then get 1.5x ... 2x that. TB
disks are really not that expensive.

As to reliability, RAID1 and RAID5 reduce down-time due to failed
disks. They do not replace backups. For backups the currently
cheapest solution is external USB HDDs. For files, just copy them
over. For system backups, yes, this is a bit difficult under
Windows, typically writing to an image file is best. (Linux:
use ye old tar archiver, which still does the trich reliably
and for free.)

Thanks to you all for the great feedback - even though I feel
dumber than a rock at this point. I had started out just wanting to
add a dedicated HD for video capture and editing. And that is all
I want to do at this point. I was under the impression that because
my PC out of the factory, was set up for RAID (with the controller
card on the motherboard) I was not going to be able to simply
add a HD like I would on my old PC which had EIDE architecture.

You still add an extra hard drive the same way. The RAID functionality
is optional and you will find that the original drive isnt RAID.

I'm still not sure what my options are.

Just add a new drive of the size you feel you need, and forget about RAID.

I guess I can understand that because I will be dealing with large files that
the data will be read into RAM serially thus negating any benefit from striping

Its more complicated than that, but dont worry about it.

(although I'd would wonder why RAID wouldn't include
the ability to initiate 2 reads in parallel even for large files).

It does.

So if this is true I have nothing to gain from RAID 0 (striping).

The short story is that while raid 0 does give some increase in performance,
that isnt very useful for the sort of thing you want to do because the speed
of video editing isnt limited by the speed of access to the file, it limited by
the work done on the file when editing, and so on the cpu horsepower etc.

And I don't really care about backing up the video files
(RAID 1) because I'm not throwing away the source media
(although some of the VHS tapes are a bit long in the tooth).

Yes, in that situation doubling the cost of the drive(s) isnt necessarily
worth it when you can get it from the VHS tapes again if you ever need to.

So I guess I go back to my original question. How do I add a single
500 gig HD to this PC without going thru the complexity of converting
to any of the RAID options (0, 1, 5, 10, etc.) all of which are supposedly
supported by my MB (with hardware RAID controllers added).

Just plug the drive into the motherboard and see it show up in the bios.