Raid help, pleeeease

Lelisevis · Jan 30, 2007, 07:40 PM

Tonight im going to unleash the evil that is Vista 32 retail, I walked into the shop and picked up an OEM copy for £72.

Ok DH people I need a little advice with a Raid setup.

Gotta clear something up first I have a AN9 32X board which supports Raid setups, do I setup my Raid using the bios or as part of the windows vista setup.

Ok what im working with hardware wise:

2X160GB Samsung Spinpoint HD160JJ Sata2 NCQ
1X200GB Maxtor Diamondmax 10 PATA
1X200GB Maxtor Diamondmax 9 SATA1

Weird configuration but it's what I have to work with unfortunately. Now I have a few options but no idea how it's going to impact on stability and performance.

Option 1 is Raid 0 for the Samsungs and use the rest for storage
Option 2 is Raid 5 Run from the 2 samsungs and back up to the ? Which would be better?
Option 3 Leave it to you DH guru's to put me on the straight and narrow with wise words of enlightenment.

Judas · Jan 30, 2007, 08:36 PM

imo, best bet would be to raid the 2 samsungs in raid 0, and set the other drives as storage (aka, downloads/music/movies)

Lelisevis · Jan 30, 2007, 08:46 PM

Yep im thinking that too but still open to suggestions.

Currently im thinking Raid 0 the two Samsungs, regular backups to the Maxtor9 and photo's, movies etc on the Maxtor10. Don't worry im still dualbooting XP off a seperate 40gb drive.

Now a question, would I get better results putting media etc on the Sata max9 or the Pata max10???

Edit: one last thing does Norton ghost run with Vista??

Judas · Jan 30, 2007, 08:49 PM

Media.. hmm.... while pata has it's limitation that sata doesn't, i'm not sure how the different versions of the drives stack up (although i've had some pretty bad luck with older sata 1 maxtor drives recently)

Have you ran HDTach on either one of them? That should give you a little idea which is overall better (consider the CPU usage and sustained bandwidth on either)

Lelisevis · Jan 30, 2007, 09:00 PM

Heh, dont get me started on Maxtor and it's damned drives, I had 3 fail on me last year. I'm hoping to invest in a couple of western digitals once my wedding and stuff is over with.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jan 30, 2007, 09:51 PM

If you're investing in drives for RAID-0 or RAID-5, the Seagate 7200.10 320GB drives are an insanely good value these days, I can get one for CDN $105. I slapped 3 into an Asus P5B-e, I'm seeing 150MB/sec sustained transfer on a RAID-5 volume and 170 or so into the RAID-0 volume.

The RAID-5 is nice because its ultra reliable. If you're a lazy butt and don't backup all that often (I myself am guilty of that despite just getting a 750GB drive for that purpose) then its great.

Plus it should keep Vista flowing nice and smooth

Jan 30, 2007, 07:40 PM	#1
Lelisevis Howlin at the moon Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 1,663 Rep Power: 0	Raid help, pleeeease Tonight im going to unleash the evil that is Vista 32 retail, I walked into the shop and picked up an OEM copy for £72. Ok DH people I need a little advice with a Raid setup. Gotta clear something up first I have a AN9 32X board which supports Raid setups, do I setup my Raid using the bios or as part of the windows vista setup. Ok what im working with hardware wise: 2X160GB Samsung Spinpoint HD160JJ Sata2 NCQ 1X200GB Maxtor Diamondmax 10 PATA 1X200GB Maxtor Diamondmax 9 SATA1 Weird configuration but it's what I have to work with unfortunately. Now I have a few options but no idea how it's going to impact on stability and performance. Option 1 is Raid 0 for the Samsungs and use the rest for storage Option 2 is Raid 5 Run from the 2 samsungs and back up to the ? Which would be better? Option 3 Leave it to you DH guru's to put me on the straight and narrow with wise words of enlightenment.

Jan 30, 2007, 08:46 PM	Thread Starter #3
Lelisevis Howlin at the moon Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 1,663 Rep Power: 0	Yep im thinking that too but still open to suggestions. Currently im thinking Raid 0 the two Samsungs, regular backups to the Maxtor9 and photo's, movies etc on the Maxtor10. Don't worry im still dualbooting XP off a seperate 40gb drive. Now a question, would I get better results putting media etc on the Sata max9 or the Pata max10??? Edit: one last thing does Norton ghost run with Vista??

Jan 30, 2007, 09:00 PM	Thread Starter #5
Lelisevis Howlin at the moon Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 1,663 Rep Power: 0	Heh, dont get me started on Maxtor and it's damned drives, I had 3 fail on me last year. I'm hoping to invest in a couple of western digitals once my wedding and stuff is over with.

Jan 30, 2007, 09:51 PM	#6
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	If you're investing in drives for RAID-0 or RAID-5, the Seagate 7200.10 320GB drives are an insanely good value these days, I can get one for CDN $105. I slapped 3 into an Asus P5B-e, I'm seeing 150MB/sec sustained transfer on a RAID-5 volume and 170 or so into the RAID-0 volume. The RAID-5 is nice because its ultra reliable. If you're a lazy butt and don't backup all that often (I myself am guilty of that despite just getting a 750GB drive for that purpose) then its great. Plus it should keep Vista flowing nice and smooth