RAID 0 and 5

[nphield]

I currently have a Intel Desktop Board D975XBX2 and run a raid 0 for my OS. I want to run a RAID 5 for storage. Would it be possible for me to run a raid 0 for my system OS and run a raid 5 for storage simultaneously with my mobo??

 

[samsayit]

I don't think you can on if you want to use the same disks. But if you have enough connectors on the board to add the extra drives for the raid 5, my _guess_ is that you could - in the RAID config utility you can define more than one array for sure...

 

[RJ]

I currently have a Intel Desktop Board D975XBX2 and run a raid 0 for my OS. I want to run a RAID 5 for storage. Would it be possible for me to run a raid 0 for my system OS and run a raid 5 for storage simultaneously with my mobo??

No time to llok for myself....does your mobo have Intel Matrix Storage? If so, yes. You CAN put 2 different RAID arrays on the same set of drives with Intel Matrix 8)

 

[jt001]

Do you mean seperate arrays as in with 5 or more disks, or matrixed? Raid 5 on onboard controllers sucks, but if it's for storage only then it'll be more than enough, and the OS on the seperate Raid 0 array will do wonders for performance. If you're saying you wanna do matrix raid with only 3 disks then I would strongly recommend against it if performance is what you're after.

 

[JonnyDough]

I believe he mentioned he was setting up storage...and already has Raid-0 for his OS...

 

[hunter_green32]

Correct me if Im wrong, but this guy wasnt asking about the technical aspects of nested RAID arrays? You look way smarter answering the question that was asked, lol.

No, you cannot run a RAID 0 array and a RAID 5 array on that board.

This configuration would require a minimum of five SATA ports to accomplish. That board only has four.

RAID 0 requires 2 or more drives.

RAID 5 requires 3 or more drives, with the storage capacity of the logical drive being equal to the capacity of all (identical) drives drives in the array minus one. In other words... 3 100gb drives would yield a 200gb logical drive, 4 100gb drives would yield a 300gb logical drive, etc.

There is not a 975X board available that can do that on a single RAID controller, even intel 975X boards with eight ports are really 4+4. There are some wonderful core 2 duo nVidia 680i SLI chipset boards that can use up to six drives in an array, and support RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, JBOD (spanning), and 50. Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and DFI all make great 680i based boards. Expensive tho, thats the hottest chipset on the market right now, nVidia's 975X crusher. At any rate, this is an option for you to accomplish your goal. Plan on dropping around $300+ for a 680i SLI mainboard.

Since you are striping your OS, and since onboard RAID uses the CPU for processing, I would consider getting a 3ware 9650SE-2LP. Ive found that card for around $200, cheaper than a (680i) mainboard upgrade. Its a PCIe card that would work nicely in your 4x slot on that board, altho actually, it only requires a 1x PCIe slot, as it is a two port card. It's true hardware RAID, doesnt use system resources for anything. Another thing is that this card will carry over into your next major upgrade.

Im going to guess that you are looking to protect data, but also increase capacity beyond what a mirror(RAID 1) allows. You only really have the option of mirroring if you want to keep the dual logical drive configuration. If all of your drives are identical, you can do a single RAID 5 array. RAID 5 is only weak on write performance, read performance is fairly good, redundancy could be better, but certainly beats a single drive.

Hope that was the answer you were seeking.

Regards,
Scott

 

[hunter_green32]

PS... RAID matrix is so bad on performance, and so absolutely murderous on hadware (swinging heads back and forth, back and forth) that it's not worth considering. Dont do it. You'll hate it; everyone does.

 

[noblekitty]

I currenly have a media server running software raid 5 in windows xp composing of both PATA and SATA drives. Its writing performance is very bad, but reading is superior, which is all i really care about. THG had an old article talking and showing how to run software raid 5 in XP, long ago.

 

[noblekitty]

Yes, he can do it if he wants to software raid.

 

[nphield]

I just wanted to clarify my question. I currently have a Intel Desktop Board D975XBX2 and run 2 raptors 74gigs in a raid 0 for my OS. I want to run 3 500Gig Western digital drives in a RAID 5 for storage. There is 8 sata ports on my motherboard. Can I run two separate hardware RAIDS on my motherboard? I don’t want to run a software RAID

Thanks for everyone’s help so far.

 

[JonnyDough]

If you're using an onboard controller, it's already software raid...but yeah, you can use an add-on card to run your storage setup with different drives and it'll work completely independently of your Raid-0 setup on your motherboard's controller.

 

[SuperFly03]

I just wanted to clarify my question. I currently have a Intel Desktop Board D975XBX2 and run 2 raptors 74gigs in a raid 0 for my OS. I want to run 3 500Gig Western digital drives in a RAID 5 for storage. There is 8 sata ports on my motherboard. Can I run two separate hardware RAIDS on my motherboard? I don’t want to run a software RAID

Thanks for everyone’s help so far.

yes you can. Just attach the 3 500GB drives to the other set of SATA ports, which should be grouped in sets of 4.

What you can't do is have the array span two different controllers, so you want to make sure you get all 3 drives on that 2nd set of SATA ports.