raid?

[tehczar]

hi, what exactly is raid and how do i use it and do i even have it?

i have a ASUS M2N-SLi Deluxe mobo and a Segata SATA2 hd

 

[Tommy Boy]

Well first of all, you have to have 2 or more hard drives.

And RAID stands for Random Array of Independent Drives, and it allows you to set it up so that when you install something it copies some of it to one hd, and some to the other hd for faster seek times. And there are other ways you can do it, like have it ghost to the second drive I think.

And you probably have RAID support on that board.

 

[mfrostbutter]

Actually it stands for redundant array of independent disks, and it serves several functions and there are several different variations, RAID-0 (striped) which is two drives, data is written to both of them at the same time thereby writing data faster. RAID-1 (mirroring) This has to be done with two identical drives, basicly all the data is written to one of the drives and the other is used as real time backup a mirror if you will of the first drive, if either drive fails you wont lose any data and can run off the mirror, RAID-5 is mirroring with parity this type of array can stand the complete failure of one drive and not skip a beat, then there's the best yet RAID-1+0 or sometimes called RAID-10 this is a set of four drives, two setup RAID-0 for speed and the other two a mirror image (RAID-1) of the striped array, so you get the best of both worlds speed and fault tolerance. Here's a good article for you to read
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid5_gci214332,00.html

 

[Toby1]

Or this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID