RAID 0 on MSI 790FX GD70

[xbonez]

I intend to set up RAID 0 using my two SAmsung Spinpoint F3 500GB (single platter) 8MB cache on my MSI 790FX-GD70 motherboard. My board has 8 SATA ports. SATA 1-6 are controlled by the southbridge while SATA 7 and 8 are controlled by a JMicron controller.

Which ports should I use for my RAID 0 for best performance?

 

[soulbrotha80]

I've never had great performance from RAID 0 arrays using a JMicron controller, so probably better to use the southbridge controller.

 

[xbonez]

Thanks...i was kinda inclined towards the southbridge myself coz I read somewhere that the JMicron controller operates using the PCI-E bridge and hence does not have as much bandwidth available as the southbridge.

 

[foscooter]

Agree! Use the southbridge onboard original controllers. Is it an Intel based board (X58 or P55)?

Sorry, just saw your signature. So its NVidia chipset. Still, better than JMicron, imo.

Anyways, make sure you download the "Third Party" drivers for your RAID controllers. It'll ease the installation, if Windows 7 doesn't have the drivers in it's install package (i.e ICH10R). You'll add these during installation, when the OS looks for your drives to install itself.

 

[xbonez]

@foscooter: I've downloaded the RAID drivers for my motherboard from the MSI website, and have it ready on a USB drive.

Btw, at the point where I set up the RAID, I get the option of choosing either WriteBack or WriteThru. Which one should I pick?

 

[soulbrotha80]

I've only ever used write-back.

Here's a pretty good explanation:
"When a CPU tries to store a value at a memory address there are two ways to deal with it: it can just write the value to the cache (write-back), or it can write the value to both the cache and to memory (write-through). Write-back is quicker because it eliminates unnecessary writes to memory. The fact that the cache and memory are out of sync doesn't matter because the memory controller knows to write the cache value out before something outside of the CPU tries to read it directly from memory. Just set it to write-back and forget it."