RAID 1 to RAID 0?

k1ucHt · Post by **k1ucHt** » Sun Jun 20, 2004 3:29 pm

Hello everyone as you can probably tell I'm new to these forums but I have a question and I hope you'll have the answer. I just recently configured/bought a comp from http://www.cyberpowerpc.com

These are the specs:

System Summary
X-BLADE Medium Tower Case 450 W (SILVER)
AMD ATHLON64 3000+ CPU
NEW ASUS K8V SE Deluxe VIA K8T800 Chipset AGP8X w/LAN,USB2,IEEE,
1GB (512MBx2) PC3200 DDR400 Memory
Seagate 80GB 7200RPM Serial ATA 150 8MB Cache
Seagate 80GB 7200RPM Serial ATA 150 8MB Cache
ATI RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB DDR AGP 8X W/ TV-OUT & DVI
SONY 16X DVD-ROM (SILVER)
SONY DW-U18A DUAL FORMAT 8X DVD±R/±RW
CD-R/RW DRIVE (SILVER)
NONE - MONITOR
3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD

Price: $1250.00

Now here is my question though. As you can see I have two Serial ATA harddrives. These drives are comming RAIDED (RAID 1 MIRRORING). I understand now that RAID 1 MIRRORING is when the harddrives are identical and the second one almost forms a backup of data for the first and RAID 0 STRIPPING is when bits of the data are stored on both hard drives doubling the hard drive space and speed.

My question for you all though is is it possible to change from RAID 1 MIRRORING to RAID 1 DATA STRIPPING. What is involved and how "hard" is this to do? I should have looked into it more before ordering but now that it's said and done how can I fix my mistake. Also the harddrives are comming formatted (no operating system installed) what is involved with installing one as well.

Brent · Post by **Brent** » Sun Jun 20, 2004 4:16 pm

usually after POST the RAID BIOS will initilialize and from there there is a certain key combo to press to enter it, its kinda like going into your bios, and from there you can delete the RAID array that is setup and create a new RAID0 array, but be warned doing this will erase all the data on the drives

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » Sun Jun 20, 2004 7:04 pm

If it's onboard RAID your motherboard manual should have instructions. Brent's pretty well spelled it out. You will loose all your data once you delete the array. You will get double your space but you won't get double your speed. It will be faster but I think it's more like a 20 to 50 % increase. Also if you use raid 0 and one drive dies, you will loose all your data on both drives.

k1ucHt · Post by **k1ucHt** » Sun Jun 20, 2004 11:01 pm

Well in that case which would you all recommend?

Brent · Post by **Brent** » Sun Jun 20, 2004 11:16 pm

k1ucHt wrote:Well in that case which would you all recommend?

depends what you need

RAID-1 if you have mission critical stuff and need the backup of stuff on another drive

or

RAID-0 if you need the performance increase of faster hard drive througput with double the space available

for the record I run two WD 80GB Special Edition HDD's in RAID-0 for my app/game drive, i have two 80mm fans that intake air (witha filter) directly onto them from the front of the case to keep them cool, and I make sure to clean the filter every month

that is the key to making hard drives last, get good name brand hard drives, and keep them cool

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 6:45 am

k1ucHt wrote:My question for you all though is is it possible to change from RAID 1 MIRRORING to RAID 1 DATA STRIPPING. What is involved and how "hard" is this to do?

RAID 1 Mirroring to RAID 0 Striping. "Stripping" is what does on at strip clubs. There's no RAID 1 Striping, although there are several other flavors of RAID which mix striping and mirroring.

It looks like your system isn't up and running yet, if I'm reading your post correctly....that it will arrive, and it's up to you to install the OS and everything? In your case, easy, as mentioned above, go into the configuration utility and change the RAID controller mode from RAID 1 to RAID 0.

Now if your have an existing computer with an OS installed, applications, data, etc etc, the answer to your question about migrating from one form to the other is "Yes"...but to ad confusion, the answer for most home level motherboards and RAID controllers is "No". Many higher end RAID controllers do allow migration to happen.

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 7:53 am

I have two Maxtor 80 gig ata-133 IDE hard drives connected to a silicon image SIL-680 Raid card. I ran Raid 0 for a while but have switched back to a non-raid setup. Those are the only two drives in my system so running Raid 0 I had no where to back up data except to cd-r's. I partitioned the drive(s) 80, 80, but if one goes down so does the other. I could have run raid 1 but that will only save you if a drive fails. If I hose windows it's hosed on both drives. In the end I went with the two drives setup in a normal master slave setup. One on one channel and one on the other. I kept the raid card so I could use the ATA-133 speed and also put my optical drives on my motherboard controller, gives me 4 IDE channels to play with. Now I can ghost my Windows setup to my slave drive and not worry about loosing it because of a Raid problem. If I ever get another hard drive I will likely setup a Raid 0 array again. I didn't do it for the extra space, I haven't come close to filling my single 80 gig drive let alone 160 gigs.

k1ucHt · Post by **k1ucHt** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 3:29 pm

Alright everyone well thanks for the help I really appreciate it. I can't exactly try what your telling me to do right now because yes I do not have the computer yet. I should see it though sometime late this week or early next week I hate to be a pain but just to sum all this up when accessing the RAID configuration "RAID BIOS" I will have to hit a button or combination of buttons. First of all, when will I see this? Almost as soon as the computer starts? Any idea what button combo? I usually just guess something like F12 or F8 etc but the more prepared I can be the better. I then will get into the raid configuration and delete the current array. Is this anything like deleting a partition on DOS? A similar menu setup? If so thats good because that is basically self explanitory. Then I will go about creating a new array. How do I set is to RAID 0? Will there be choices? And finally how long will it take to create this new array? I'm sorry to be such a bother but this is extremely new to me and I'd hate to see anything go wrong the first time I boot up this computer.

Also one final very important question. Is there any possible way I can seriously damage anything while messing around in this "RAID BIOS". The last thing I want is a corrup hard drive 5 minutes after booting up my new computer.

Once again thank you for your time and have a nice day.

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 3:57 pm

The procedure and menus vary depending on the bios and who made it. My raid bios pops up right after my video bios screen, just before my normal bios screen loads. The message says hit F3 to enter the raid BIOS. After that I just follow the menus to setup what I want. My RAID is an addin PCI card with it's own BIOS on board. Setting up the array doesn't take long. The drives are still formated by windows during your OS install. Your best bet is to sit down and read all the documentation before you even turn it on. Your raid setup procedure could be totally different from mine, depends on who made it. If it is built into the motherboard go to the website and download the manual for it. Then read it and if you still have questions just post back.

k1ucHt · Post by **k1ucHt** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 8:23 pm

thanks dude. im pretty sure its built into my motherboard. i got the new asus and it was required for raid setup.

Blisster · Post by **Blisster** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 10:15 pm

since the machine yu are getting is coming with no info on the drives just go for it...knock yourself out. You can't physically damage the drives. Mess around with the RAID controller to see whats available and do a little research to see exactly how you want to set it up.

I've learned the most from making mistakes and then fixing them.

Good luck, have fun and we are all here if you need help with it once you screw up the RAID configuration a few times

J

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 11:25 pm

are you using this for games / video editing and no real critical data? Then go for Raid 0, otherwise if you need a system with very little downtime then go for Raid 1

k1ucHt · Post by **k1ucHt** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 11:36 pm

games / video editing

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 5:27 am

then go with raid 0

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 7:29 am

Raid 1 sounds good for a server but isn't it a bit of overkill on a home PC. I guess if you work from home it would be a bit of extra protection. Most of my down time is from tweaking windows settings until it won't load anymore. I don't think Raid 1 will help you there will it? Windows will just end up being hosed on both drives, right? Maybe I just don't completely understand it myself.

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 7:49 am

The Dude wrote:Raid 1 sounds good for a server but isn't it a bit of overkill on a home PC. I guess if you work from home it would be a bit of extra protection. Most of my down time is from tweaking windows settings until it won't load anymore. I don't think Raid 1 will help you there will it? Windows will just end up being hosed on both drives, right? Maybe I just don't completely understand it myself.

Raid 1 wont really help you if you hose windows, it will help if you have critical data on drive that you cannot afford to lose in case a hard drive fails

but you are correct it is mostly used in a business server setting where the critical data is stored on separate drives from the OS, so if the OS does fail you still have data...also most business uses either RAID 1, RAID 5, or RAID 1+0

Bandit159 · Post by **Bandit159** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 7:51 pm

ghost is nice to have when using raid-0

critical data to disc-