StUcK: WhAt ShouLd I buY? OS-SSD/APPS-HDD

[auWANNAdie]

ok I have been messing around with this stupid raid for a few weeks now, havent made any real progress either. So here is my setup:

asus m3a78-cm (RAID-0,1,10(updated bios) Windows 7 64 bit
8 gig ram

storage:

64 gig ssd with 2 30 gig partitions.
(3) TB hdd all sata

i bought a 2 port pcie sata 2 controller and am unable to see the device in order to install windows 7. SATA mode in BIOS is on btw.

it just will not recognize ssd connected on pcie(ftm64gl25h) to sata card when windows 7 installer finally gets started up. what can I buy?

***i am not doing full time heavy computing or gaming. occasionally doing some movie files but i have like 6 computers going so i dont need to be sitting in front of it watching the hourglass spin up and down.
i have a ssd drive and 3 tb drives. i can just stripe the 3 in windows 7. will i really notice that big of a difference with :

(2) 64GB SSD SLC on Asus Motherboard
and
(3-4) 1TB HDD 7200RPM on SATA 2 PCIE controller?

OS on SSD drive

Programs/Docs on HDD's

vs all on motherboard

vs any other way?

Thanks alot. this is the first time i have ever posted on a site asking a question.

 

[sub mesa]

SSD are thousands of times faster than HDDs in random I/O workloads; that's why you use SSD as system drive containing your OS + installed applications.

You say the SSD is not detected when you connect it to a PCIe SATA controller. Is the SSD detected when you connect it to your motherboard SATA ports? Any reason you want to avoid your motherboard? It has the fastest SATA ports available - nothing will be faster.

It seems you're dealing with two separate issues; please tell us what you would like to address; information about SSDs or investigating your problem of the SSD not being detected.

 

[auWANNAdie]

well i am really only concerned with having very fast load times in windows.. its fast now, ssd onboard sata.. ive got the other 3 hdd on sata ports too now.. id like to put the program files on the 3 mirrored drives if i could ever get them mirrored. if i put the bios to raid, then it wont see the ssd

dont know what to do. thats why i bought a pcie sata controller for the ssd.. and because the people at asus told me too

 

[sminlal]

The PCIe SATA controller will likely require drivers. Did it come with a disc? You'd probably have to load the drivers from that disk as part of the Windows installation in order for Windows to see drives attached to the controller.

But sub mesa is right, there should be no reason to use a PCIe controller since your motherboard appears to have plenty of SATA ports.

If you're trying to build a RAID array, you should be able to configure the SATA ports to use "RAID" mode in the BIOS, and then you'd configure the hard drives as a RAID array and the SSD as a single, non-RAID drive. That kind of configuration works with all the other motherboards I've heard about and I can't imagine that it wouldn't work with yours.

But I'd strongly advise doing the Windows install to the SSD with the hard drives disconnected or unconfigured. If the hard drives are visible as a RAID volume (or as individual drives), Windows will put a "recovery" partition on them and set it as the boot device - this means that you won't be able to boot in the event of a hard drive failure (assuming you're using RAID-0).

 

[auWANNAdie]

well i appreciate your help! i guess that i could just do it all off of the motherboard. hopefully the dvd drive will show up still. I do have the other pcie controller i am going to have another parity pair of drives on.

i do not care at all about redundancy, I only care about performance as I will be having a backup instantly created when any change is made on any of our future "Redirected Folders." Heard that was much better than lugging around roaming profiles. I will let u know.

I am going to try to get another 64gig ssd and make sure that the one I have and am going to get is SLC. I am going to experiment with win 7 and save a partition on each.

I think it will end up being like this unfortunately:
RAID0 2 SLC SSD onboard SATA PCIE is faster but i dont think even the SSD will ever show up on the PCIE card... i have the cd and put it in during windows 7 installer but it never recognized it-even with hiding and disabling the blocking of un-assigned drivers.

is there anywhere else that I can install this driver ? it would be without any type of operating system. or maybe that's just it. Maybe i should install linux on the other half of the 64 gigs and install the driver in that, then I can setup raid maybe.. who knows..

bottom line is, i dont think that my duo core is going to show a significant improvement to excuse the fact that I have spent many allnighters on this subject and a few weeks on trying to figure it out. just cant justify it.. ill just buy another computer in 6 months.. one that has more RAID options.

none of this is comparable to an external hardware raid with its own separate 12 core processor.