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#1
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R.A.I.D. for beginners.
Hi,
Is there anyone out there who can supply information for setting up a RAID array from the very beginning? I have tried googling and found that everything starts from having 2 or more drives etc etc. Trouble is that nobody tells you about having 2 drives and whether to set the jumpers for Master, Slave or whatever. Can I partition the drives first, obviously they would be partitioned the same. Specs a Asus P4P800E-deluxe with 2x WD1200JB drives. Unfortunately when I tried to browse the driver/software CD that came with the mobo, I found that it was no good and wouldn't read. I won't be able to replace that for a while now, anyone got a copy they can let me have? TIA Regards Pete. |
#2
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If mirror raid, set both to master, and assuming they will be boot disks,
set boot order in bios to SCSI. Format/partition as req.during preperation for install of o/s, remembering to F6, at the msg re installing drivers, during o/s install to load raid drivers from floppy - not cd Assuming Win2K or WinXP o/s You will therefore need the mobo disk before you install, though I guess you could download from mobo site. "Pete E" wrote in message news:5Kluc.223$qX1.29@newsfe6-win... Hi, Is there anyone out there who can supply information for setting up a RAID array from the very beginning? I have tried googling and found that everything starts from having 2 or more drives etc etc. Trouble is that nobody tells you about having 2 drives and whether to set the jumpers for Master, Slave or whatever. Can I partition the drives first, obviously they would be partitioned the same. Specs a Asus P4P800E-deluxe with 2x WD1200JB drives. Unfortunately when I tried to browse the driver/software CD that came with the mobo, I found that it was no good and wouldn't read. I won't be able to replace that for a while now, anyone got a copy they can let me have? TIA Regards Pete. |
#3
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In article 5Kluc.223$qX1.29@newsfe6-win, "Pete E"
wrote: Hi, Is there anyone out there who can supply information for setting up a RAID array from the very beginning? I have tried googling and found that everything starts from having 2 or more drives etc etc. Trouble is that nobody tells you about having 2 drives and whether to set the jumpers for Master, Slave or whatever. Can I partition the drives first, obviously they would be partitioned the same. Specs a Asus P4P800E-deluxe with 2x WD1200JB drives. Unfortunately when I tried to browse the driver/software CD that came with the mobo, I found that it was no good and wouldn't read. I won't be able to replace that for a while now, anyone got a copy they can let me have? TIA Regards Pete. First of all, I'll start by saying I've never set up a RAID, so this is just some guesses. A RAID works best, if the bandwidth of the drives is "spread" over the interfaces. If the RAID uses PATA, for example, then placing a single drive on each IDE cable is the best you can do. The single drive would be jumpered as a master, or master/single drive, depending on the brand of drive. With SATA, the math is simple, because there is only a single drive per cable anyway. There are two kinds of RAID on these simple controllers. Mirroring (two drives with identical data on them) or striping (files are interleaved over the two drives in chunks called the stripe size). Mirroring is for reliability, as a single drive failure lets you continue working. Striping is for performance, as two disks have more bandwidth to offer that way. The size of the chunk used (stripe size) determines whether the array works best with large files or small files. To start a mirror, you can enter the RAID BIOS at boot time (via some particular key press during POST), and when you declare two disks as a mirror, the BIOS writes the membership info in a reserved sector on each disk, then the BIOS "builds" the array, by doing a sector by sector copy of the data from the "good" disk, to the backup disk. If neither drive has any data you care about, there might be an option to start up without doing any copying at all ("Create and duplicate" versus "Create"). The stripe configuration is easier, in that there is no data to duplicate - each drive will have unique info on it, after it is formatted. Once configured (and duplicated if a mirror), you can boot. If doing an immediate OS install on the disk , there will be an opportunity to press "F6" and install a driver for the OS. If the disks are only data disks, you can install a driver on your boot disk, so the system can see the RAID. Some chipsets are snotty, in that they require the presence of the RAID first, before they'll allow you to install the software, which can lead to "chicken versus egg" problems on some Southbridge RAID interfaces. To review again, with the mirror, you could partition and format one drive first, but you'll need to use the "Create and Duplicate" option for the other drive to have the same info on it. If you assemble the RAID mirror first, then you can partition and format the array, and save the time needed to copy the primary drive to the backup. For the most part, it pays to configure any chips first for RAID, build the array (whether mirror or stripe), then install driver via "F6" during install (if a boot disk), or boot the system, install a driver for the RAID, then fill the array as a data-only array. Like any disk drive, it also pays to fill up the disk with large files, to test for the possibility that the OS is not properly prepared to handle a logical disk larger than 128GB. I like to copy the same 1GB file over and over again, onto the empty disk, until it is full. If the file system is not corrupted by doing this, then the install is good to go. I then use a small checksum program, and checksum all the files, and they should all return the same checksum if there are no problems. This passes a lot of data over the interfaces, so if there is something marginal, you might find it before good data is put on the disk. With the mirror configuration, it pays to experiment with how to operate the array when one disk fails. If you don't understand how to repair a mirrored array, there is no sense trusting your data to be safely stored on it. Both mirrors and stripes need to be backed up, as you never know what kind of hardware failure might destroy them all (like a bad PSU). A stripe is a particularly bad choice for a boot disk, as with two disks, there is twice the opportunity for the array to be broken. (Drivers) http://www.asus.it/support/download/...eluxe&Type=All (User manual - see section 5.6 for RAID info) http://www.asuscom.de/pub/ASUS/mb/so...0-e_deluxe.pdf HTH, Paul |
#4
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BUT--IF the Intel controller is used, isn't only RAID 0 available and isn't
RAID 0, using the Intel ICH5R chipset set, set up in BIOS and does not need any driver downloaded?? I am a noob at this, but thought that the Promise controller would do both RAID 0 and/or 1 and it needed the downloaded drivers whereas the Intel controller did not?? Opinions please--I will be doing this in a new computer build (P4C800-E) when the new Raptors come in. MikeSp --------------------------------- "Paul" wrote in message ... In article 5Kluc.223$qX1.29@newsfe6-win, "Pete E" wrote: Hi, Is there anyone out there who can supply information for setting up a RAID array from the very beginning? I have tried googling and found that everything starts from having 2 or more drives etc etc. Trouble is that nobody tells you about having 2 drives and whether to set the jumpers for Master, Slave or whatever. Can I partition the drives first, obviously they would be partitioned the same. Specs a Asus P4P800E-deluxe with 2x WD1200JB drives. Unfortunately when I tried to browse the driver/software CD that came with the mobo, I found that it was no good and wouldn't read. I won't be able to replace that for a while now, anyone got a copy they can let me have? TIA Regards Pete. First of all, I'll start by saying I've never set up a RAID, so this is just some guesses. A RAID works best, if the bandwidth of the drives is "spread" over the interfaces. If the RAID uses PATA, for example, then placing a single drive on each IDE cable is the best you can do. The single drive would be jumpered as a master, or master/single drive, depending on the brand of drive. With SATA, the math is simple, because there is only a single drive per cable anyway. There are two kinds of RAID on these simple controllers. Mirroring (two drives with identical data on them) or striping (files are interleaved over the two drives in chunks called the stripe size). Mirroring is for reliability, as a single drive failure lets you continue working. Striping is for performance, as two disks have more bandwidth to offer that way. The size of the chunk used (stripe size) determines whether the array works best with large files or small files. To start a mirror, you can enter the RAID BIOS at boot time (via some particular key press during POST), and when you declare two disks as a mirror, the BIOS writes the membership info in a reserved sector on each disk, then the BIOS "builds" the array, by doing a sector by sector copy of the data from the "good" disk, to the backup disk. If neither drive has any data you care about, there might be an option to start up without doing any copying at all ("Create and duplicate" versus "Create"). The stripe configuration is easier, in that there is no data to duplicate - each drive will have unique info on it, after it is formatted. Once configured (and duplicated if a mirror), you can boot. If doing an immediate OS install on the disk , there will be an opportunity to press "F6" and install a driver for the OS. If the disks are only data disks, you can install a driver on your boot disk, so the system can see the RAID. Some chipsets are snotty, in that they require the presence of the RAID first, before they'll allow you to install the software, which can lead to "chicken versus egg" problems on some Southbridge RAID interfaces. To review again, with the mirror, you could partition and format one drive first, but you'll need to use the "Create and Duplicate" option for the other drive to have the same info on it. If you assemble the RAID mirror first, then you can partition and format the array, and save the time needed to copy the primary drive to the backup. For the most part, it pays to configure any chips first for RAID, build the array (whether mirror or stripe), then install driver via "F6" during install (if a boot disk), or boot the system, install a driver for the RAID, then fill the array as a data-only array. Like any disk drive, it also pays to fill up the disk with large files, to test for the possibility that the OS is not properly prepared to handle a logical disk larger than 128GB. I like to copy the same 1GB file over and over again, onto the empty disk, until it is full. If the file system is not corrupted by doing this, then the install is good to go. I then use a small checksum program, and checksum all the files, and they should all return the same checksum if there are no problems. This passes a lot of data over the interfaces, so if there is something marginal, you might find it before good data is put on the disk. With the mirror configuration, it pays to experiment with how to operate the array when one disk fails. If you don't understand how to repair a mirrored array, there is no sense trusting your data to be safely stored on it. Both mirrors and stripes need to be backed up, as you never know what kind of hardware failure might destroy them all (like a bad PSU). A stripe is a particularly bad choice for a boot disk, as with two disks, there is twice the opportunity for the array to be broken. (Drivers) http://www.asus.it/support/download/...eluxe&Type=All (User manual - see section 5.6 for RAID info) http://www.asuscom.de/pub/ASUS/mb/so...0-e_deluxe.pdf HTH, Paul |
#5
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If you want to use the intel controler install the drives on the serial
connectors. When you boot the computer you will see press Ctrl + l to set up RAID. When you set the raid up and reboot have your Windows XP CD in the CD drive and start the Windows installation. You will see the message press F6 to install any drivers this is where you need to install the drivers for the intel controller. The Windows installation will continue as normal. Glen "Michael S." wrote in message ... BUT--IF the Intel controller is used, isn't only RAID 0 available and isn't RAID 0, using the Intel ICH5R chipset set, set up in BIOS and does not need any driver downloaded?? I am a noob at this, but thought that the Promise controller would do both RAID 0 and/or 1 and it needed the downloaded drivers whereas the Intel controller did not?? Opinions please--I will be doing this in a new computer build (P4C800-E) when the new Raptors come in. MikeSp --------------------------------- "Paul" wrote in message ... In article 5Kluc.223$qX1.29@newsfe6-win, "Pete E" wrote: Hi, Is there anyone out there who can supply information for setting up a RAID array from the very beginning? I have tried googling and found that everything starts from having 2 or more drives etc etc. Trouble is that nobody tells you about having 2 drives and whether to set the jumpers for Master, Slave or whatever. Can I partition the drives first, obviously they would be partitioned the same. Specs a Asus P4P800E-deluxe with 2x WD1200JB drives. Unfortunately when I tried to browse the driver/software CD that came with the mobo, I found that it was no good and wouldn't read. I won't be able to replace that for a while now, anyone got a copy they can let me have? TIA Regards Pete. First of all, I'll start by saying I've never set up a RAID, so this is just some guesses. A RAID works best, if the bandwidth of the drives is "spread" over the interfaces. If the RAID uses PATA, for example, then placing a single drive on each IDE cable is the best you can do. The single drive would be jumpered as a master, or master/single drive, depending on the brand of drive. With SATA, the math is simple, because there is only a single drive per cable anyway. There are two kinds of RAID on these simple controllers. Mirroring (two drives with identical data on them) or striping (files are interleaved over the two drives in chunks called the stripe size). Mirroring is for reliability, as a single drive failure lets you continue working. Striping is for performance, as two disks have more bandwidth to offer that way. The size of the chunk used (stripe size) determines whether the array works best with large files or small files. To start a mirror, you can enter the RAID BIOS at boot time (via some particular key press during POST), and when you declare two disks as a mirror, the BIOS writes the membership info in a reserved sector on each disk, then the BIOS "builds" the array, by doing a sector by sector copy of the data from the "good" disk, to the backup disk. If neither drive has any data you care about, there might be an option to start up without doing any copying at all ("Create and duplicate" versus "Create"). The stripe configuration is easier, in that there is no data to duplicate - each drive will have unique info on it, after it is formatted. Once configured (and duplicated if a mirror), you can boot. If doing an immediate OS install on the disk , there will be an opportunity to press "F6" and install a driver for the OS. If the disks are only data disks, you can install a driver on your boot disk, so the system can see the RAID. Some chipsets are snotty, in that they require the presence of the RAID first, before they'll allow you to install the software, which can lead to "chicken versus egg" problems on some Southbridge RAID interfaces. To review again, with the mirror, you could partition and format one drive first, but you'll need to use the "Create and Duplicate" option for the other drive to have the same info on it. If you assemble the RAID mirror first, then you can partition and format the array, and save the time needed to copy the primary drive to the backup. For the most part, it pays to configure any chips first for RAID, build the array (whether mirror or stripe), then install driver via "F6" during install (if a boot disk), or boot the system, install a driver for the RAID, then fill the array as a data-only array. Like any disk drive, it also pays to fill up the disk with large files, to test for the possibility that the OS is not properly prepared to handle a logical disk larger than 128GB. I like to copy the same 1GB file over and over again, onto the empty disk, until it is full. If the file system is not corrupted by doing this, then the install is good to go. I then use a small checksum program, and checksum all the files, and they should all return the same checksum if there are no problems. This passes a lot of data over the interfaces, so if there is something marginal, you might find it before good data is put on the disk. With the mirror configuration, it pays to experiment with how to operate the array when one disk fails. If you don't understand how to repair a mirrored array, there is no sense trusting your data to be safely stored on it. Both mirrors and stripes need to be backed up, as you never know what kind of hardware failure might destroy them all (like a bad PSU). A stripe is a particularly bad choice for a boot disk, as with two disks, there is twice the opportunity for the array to be broken. (Drivers) http://www.asus.it/support/download/...eluxe&Type=All (User manual - see section 5.6 for RAID info) http://www.asuscom.de/pub/ASUS/mb/so...0-e_deluxe.pdf HTH, Paul |
#6
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Apologies to those who could not find my first post, it read as follows:
Hi, Is there anyone out there who can supply information for setting up a RAID array from the very beginning? I have tried googling and found that everything starts from having 2 or more drives etc etc. Trouble is that nobody tells you about having 2 drives and whether to set the jumpers for Master, Slave or whatever. Can I partition the drives first, obviously they would be partitioned the same. Specs a Asus P4P800E-deluxe with 2x WD1200JB drives. Unfortunately when I tried to browse the driver/software CD that came with the mobo, I found that it was no good and wouldn't read. I won't be able to replace that for a while now, anyone got a copy they can let me have? TIA Regards Pete. |
#7
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"Pete E" wrote in message news:TMfvc.308$vK4.160@newsfe5-win... Apologies to those who could not find my first post, it read as follows: Hi, Is there anyone out there who can supply information for setting up a RAID array from the very beginning? I have tried googling and found that everything starts from having 2 or more drives etc etc. Trouble is that nobody tells you about having 2 drives and whether to set the jumpers for Master, Slave or whatever. Can I partition the drives first, obviously they would be partitioned the same. Specs a Asus P4P800E-deluxe with 2x WD1200JB drives. Unfortunately when I tried to browse the driver/software CD that came with the mobo, I found that it was no good and wouldn't read. I won't be able to replace that for a while now, anyone got a copy they can let me have? TIA Regards Pete. You can download all the drivers you need from the Asus web site. Put the RAID drivers on a floppy disk. And you don't need to partition the drives before creating the RAID array. When you boot at some point you will see the RAID bios screen. You have to press a key probably 'control F' to enter the RAID bios. The easiest would be to choose auto create and follow the prompts. Reboot with the XP CD and press F6 when it says on the bottom of the screen. Insert the floppy with the drivers when prompted. when your asked to choose the drive to install to depending on the type of array you created (1 mirrored or 0 stripped) you'll have either (if you used 2 80GB drives as an example) an 80GB drive or a 160GB drive. I assumed your going to run XP but if not you can use fdisk to partition the RAID array which will see it as described above. Jim M |
#8
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"Pete E" wrote in message news:TMfvc.308$vK4.160@newsfe5-win... Apologies to those who could not find my first post, it read as follows: Hi, Is there anyone out there who can supply information for setting up a RAID array from the very beginning? I have tried googling and found that everything starts from having 2 or more drives etc etc. Trouble is that nobody tells you about having 2 drives and whether to set the jumpers for Master, Slave or whatever. Can I partition the drives first, obviously they would be partitioned the same. Specs a Asus P4P800E-deluxe with 2x WD1200JB drives. Unfortunately when I tried to browse the driver/software CD that came with the mobo, I found that it was no good and wouldn't read. I won't be able to replace that for a while now, anyone got a copy they can let me have? TIA Regards Pete. Sorry I forgot about the jumpers. If you using an 80wire/40pin cable jumper each drive to CS (cable select). Other wise jumper the drive on the very end as master and the other as slave. Note you can jumper the drives as master and slave even if using the 80wire cable. Jim M |
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