Raid 5 on a P9X79...

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MartinB1

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Mar 18, 2012
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Hi !

Well, I just bought a P9X79, a SSD for the os, and 3 x 2T disk.
I'm trying to setup the Raid 5...
The only time I did this in the past was with the JMicron controller on a P5Ke...

Now I have been able to create a RAID Volume of 4T on the Inter Rapid Storage, but unlike the last time, the graphic representation of the 3 drives do not show a rectangle that spread across the 3 disk... is that normal ? Or should I review the setup ? Also, the tech connected 2 drive on SATA6gb and one on Sata3Gb, is that a good thing ?
Have I done something wrong ?

Also, the format will probably take 5-6 days.... is that normal ?

Any hint will be welcome ;-)

Thanks,
 


Hi,

It does not matter if 1 drive is in the 6gb and the others in the 3gb.
Did you create the raid volume from the Bios? If you did you will only see One disk in disk managment from within windows. In Intel IRST you can view the single hard drives.
5 Days is a bit excessive for a format but your drives are very large...
 
Thanks for the reply.

Well, I did activated the RAID mode in the BIOS, but then I created the volume in windows using Intel Rapide Storage... Should I have done something else before getting in Windows ?

I am now at 48% after 3 days... so it will take 6 !
 
Yes you have done it the Correct way.

Peronally though I make the partition in disk managment and only used IRST to initialise the Array.

Raid 5 is infact one of the slowest arrays in terms of read/write due to how it is structured. The other options you can look at, and I'm not saying delete the array and reformat is:

Just use 2 drives and have Raid 1 - You will get the capacity of 1 disk and no performance hit. You can then configure the other drive as a hot swap (I do not know if your mobo support that though)

Buy another Drive to make 4 drives and configure Raid 10 (or 01) this will give you the capacity of 2 hard drives and 0 performance hit as well.

I personally do not use Raid 5 due to the performance problems it made to my database's. It should not cause a problem for normal users though, but it may be a reason your format is taking so long.

Edit: Just realised what you might have said about creating the array: You should have pressed CTRL + I (or maybe CTRL + R) on boot to go into raid creation mode during post. Doing it this way guarentees you are using the hardware controller.
 
Hi Bleechy....

From your last sentence, do you think I should stop my 50% format and restart ?

My plan is to upgrade in 2013 when hard disk becomes cheaper and probably move to a 4 x 4T raid 10... I do have a lot of big files here (videos and 30 megapix raw pictures).
Thanks ;-)
 


No, not if money is an issue. It is a lot more expensive to run Raid 10... raid 5 became a popular standard because you only lost the space of one drive. I doubt you will see a real world performance hit as a storage drive and it is quite reliable/redundant.
Raid 10 though can also like Raid 5 be a combination of more disks. So you could have 6 2tb drives all in the same array (Please check your manual the your mobo supports this), you can do that with Raid 5 aswell and not lose as much space but making a possible loss in performance.
Adding a drive at a latter date to the array though does mean you have to delete and recreate it making it very annoying if you have a lot of data.

Seen as you are looking to overhaul in 2013, that is less than a year away. I personally would bite the bullet and get another 2tb drive or if I had to buy 3 more (again check your mobo) to have 6 drives and make Raid 10 Also I would have the operating system on a partition on the same array in your case. For me 4tb of storage is huge but again it is down to your own choice/budget if you know you require more space in the future.

Good luck ^^
 
Well, according to the price of the market and my usage, I may go with 3 or 4 4T in 1 to 1.5 year (raid 5 or 10, but maybe not worthed to got raid 10 as reading does not seems faster).
These would replace the current disk and the current disk would become usefull pour offsite backup.
My OS is separate, on SSD.

But, right now, do you think I should stop the current format to do that CTRL-I or CTRL-R to make sure the hardware controller is involve as you said ? And then, will format becomes faster when I restart ?

Thanks
Martin
 
Bleechy, you won't beleive it.... i was not touching the computer since sunday... but tonight I opened a photoshop file on it... and it freezed !
53%... back to 0%... I have to start again...

So I did the CTRL-I, and I saw the Volume was there... I deleted it and recreated it using that tool... hoping format can be faster this time... we'll see ;-)
 



Hi Again,

Well that is unlucky =(

It is smart to do a normal format as this scans for bad sectors, I always do. You can use quickformat but make sure you use ChkDSK /r after.
 
Hello Sir i have the motherboard p9x79 and i have one hdd 130 gb for the OS and 4 hdd 2t for the data
i want to make a raid 5 for the 4 hdd but i dont know how to enter to the bios to enable the raid controller
any ideas pls 10x
 
Hello Sir i have the motherboard p9x79 and i have one hdd 130 gb for the OS and 4 hdd 2t for the data
i want to make a raid 5 for the 4 hdd but i dont know how to enter to the bios to enable the raid controller
any ideas pls 10x
 
Hello Sir i have the motherboard p9x79 and i have one hdd 130 gb for the OS and 4 hdd 2t for the data
i want to make a raid 5 for the 4 hdd but i dont know how to enter to the bios to enable the raid controller
any ideas pls 10x
 
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