Question about Raid 0 (how to set it up)

[attackRus]

Ok I have some questions I would like to ask and I'm also very new to these forums. Sorry if im in the wrong section.

I have a computer with not enough memory and would like upgrade. In this case I would like to try raid out. From what understand it can boost your speeds up to 15% or more.

Would it be good to invest in these parts?

2 of the "SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive"

Link - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181

Will they install fine on this mobo "GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard" link - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128358

would windows 7 ultimate go on them just fine?

Some of my system part incase you need them.

Intel X6800 2.93 @ 3.20

Ram 6 GB

GTX 470

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P - mobo

580w Power supply

If they don't go together maybe you can give a suggestion on what i need or you can pick something out from new egg for me.

I only plan on using 2 HDD but where to i connect them to the mobo?

 

[thompatry]

I know that it will boost read speeds by almost 2 X . Sorry I dont know more about this.

 

[~Darkseeker~]

RAID 0 is also known as 'striping'.

it is the process of linking two disks to act as one essentially, writing half the data to each disk simultaniously, thus boosting speed by double.

so essentially, two 7,500RPM 500GB Drives, theoretically would behave like a 15,000RPM 1TB (in theory).

firstly, if you are installing the RAID setup WHILE installing the OS, i believe it is f6 to install RAID drivers, usually from a FDD but i believe it can be done with a USB stick or similar.

Plug the SATA disks into SATA0 and SATA1 on the mobo.

if you're striping inside windows, which i doubt since you said 'install' OS on it, then it is done in computer management. Might be an idea to give it a go on a VM to get the hang of it.

Computer Management -> Disk Management -> RightClick disk in the label box and convert to dynamic (do to both disks) -> New Striped Volume -> follow the wizard.

i hope i helped a little, i dont have much experience myself with doing it, only in theory for my A+ and MCITP.

oh and, you only need 2 disks to stripe, they will act as one disk.


a little more on basic RAIDing:

RAID0 = Striping (x2 speed increase. no fault tolerance. i.e. if one breaks, the RAID setup isnt going to function as there is only one disk remaining)
RAID1 = Mirroring (exact copy of disk, used alot in servers)
RAID5 = Striping with Parity (3 or more disks, if one breaks, the others (2 or more) can carry on being striped.)

also RAID10, which i believe is a mirrored striped volume? or something like that. sorry im just ramblinh

~Drk

I know that it will boost read speeds by almost 2 X . Sorry I dont know more
about this.

not ALMOST x2, exactly x2 in most cases.


EDIT: just flicked over to 7 pro, had a look, it gives options for all mentioned RAID types in the Computer management page when the labelled area is right clicked.

so it seems Microsoft might have added support for RAID-5 in 7, it used to require a 3rd party RAID controller.

 

[Jesusfrk611]

OP's motherboard supports RAID, so the best option is to do a hardware RAID. Software RAIDs are not as reliable, and if you ever ran a second OS or Linux live CD or anything like that it wouldn't see the 2 drives in a software RAID. To setup a hardware RAID differs by motherboad brand, but you can set it up in the BIOS or sometimes there's a screen right after the POST that says hit "specific key" to go into RAID settings. Once you get the hardware RAID setup, both hard drives will act as if it is a single hard drive in any OS and in the case of a RAID0 it will be a 1TB drive with 2 500GB drives in the RAID.

On the side of performance increase, I tired out RAID0 for awhile and I never saw 2X the speed. Just my personal experience.

 

[Indigo]

Software RAIDs are not as reliable,

I have to call bunk when it comes to recent operating systems. I run both RAID 1 and RAID 0 in software on two different systems, and hardware RAID 0 on my desktop, and the two RAID 0 systems are virtually neck and neck performance wise, and are very reliable. The RAID 1 is set up on my Server 2008 R2 box, and is very responsive, and very reliable. I have two friends who run RAID 5 in software, one with Samba, and the other with Server 2008 (not R2) and they both have fantastic results. Hardware isn't always necessary, and when you're worried about being able to find a replacement board 4 years down the road, or just configuring an OS, it's a great tradeoff. I'm not saying you're wrong, but experience in my circle has proven otherwise, time and time again.

On the side of performance increase, I tired out RAID0 for awhile and I never saw 2X the speed. Just my personal experience.

2x is pushing it. It's closer to 1.5x depending on configuration. Most people will never see a speed increase on a platter based RAID 0 setup unless they do a lot of sequential access (video editing, etc) and you won't see much, if any, increase in gaming or general performance. RAID 0 is good for three things, video work, expanding the size of two drives to increase file storage size and drive reliability. (two disks in RAID 0 do half as much work compared to operating in single disk mode, this was published in a report on RAID drive impact studies)