What the heck is RAID anyways!?

[JzAr]

Im a little confused about RAID can some fill me in please. What exactly is it used for and does it really improve speed?

oops I meant to post this thread in the mobo forum!:D




AMD T-Bird 1.13Ghz @ 1.47Ghz 1.85v
w/Thermaltake volcano 6u+ 42c load
Soyo Dragon +, 256MB Corsair PC2400
45 Gig Maxtor 7200rpm HD
Cendyne 16x DVD-ROm
TDK veloCD 24/10/40
Teac Floppy drive
Radeon VE(8500 comin' soon)
SB PCI512(audigy gamer comin' soon)

[SteenkyBastage]

hola jzar, welcome to the forums

RAID = Redundand Array of Independant Disks

or something like that.

there are different modes to raid, which do different things and give different results. some of the more common ones

raid 0 = striping, which takes multiple disks and combines them into one large hard drive (as seen by the operating system). this means that half the data goes to the first drive (assuming you're using 2 drives) and half to the second drive. this would give improvements in speed.

raid 1 = mirroring, which takes multiple drives and copies the exact same data to each drive. this gives reliability, as if one drive fails, the other drive will still have that data you need.

there are other modes, but those are the most common.

for the average joe, raid would probably not make enough difference to justify the cost. power users, and people running servers or audio/video workstations would be the people who would most benefit from this.

that all make sense? heh

[JzAr]

oh I see. Thanx

So if I was to run raid 0 would I need 2 HD's of the same size? Or could they be dfferent sizes?

[Bobby_Mac]

You can have different size Hard Drives but the partitions that are being used in the RAID array have to be the same size,
For example if you had a 20gb and a 30gb you would have to partition the 30gb to have a 20gb partition. Then the two 20gb partitions are used in the RAID. This is for RAID 0

[bongo]

You can use two different hard drives , butttttttttttttttt........
The raid array will will only be as fast as the slowest drive in hte array and as large as the smallest drive is!!

Example!!!!!!

30Gb drive at 54000 rpms
20GB drive at 72000 rpms
40 Gb drive at 72000 rpms

Lets say u make a stripped array (raid 0, best perfomance!!)
The array would be 3x 20 GB (60GB) and only as fast as 54000rpms...
Get it......... So it only makes sense and is the most efficient way to have identical drives!!

[nikhsub1]

When mirroring you get the speed benefit when READING, not writing. Also if a mirrored array becomes corrupt (ie, your os has bombed and you can't start up) the second drive does you no good. Mirroring is only beneficial if one of the drives physically fails. Stripping is where it is at, or raid 0. The theory is it is twice as fast (really only about 35% faster) cause it writes the data simultaneously to 2 drives, half on each.

[PsYko420]

72000 RPMS wow thats a pretty nice hard drive LoL.


I think you meant 7200

[minoukat]

Can SCSI still do RAID or is it only for IDE drives ?

BTW, PsYko420, I like this in your sig :
****Warning****
Keyboard not detected.
Hit any key to continue.

lol, happened to us a school once, a comp didn't have the keyboard plugged in, is said the exact same message :D :p

[SteenkyBastage]

hey,

you can use raid on any type of hard disks, to my knowledge.

the only catch is you have to have a raid controller to support it. for example, you would need a scsi raid card to get (true hardware) raid capabilities out of your scsi hard drives.

also note, there are software raid methods. noteably windows 2000 has a built in raid option which does the same thing in a software environment. but as i have not tested the results of hardware vs software raid, i am not positive it will give the identical/ideal results as compared to a hardware raid controller.

[Thelemac]

*Moved to "General Hardware"*

[supraway]

RAID was originally created for SCSI, not IDE. IDE Raid has only recently come around, Promise being the first company to release an ATA- based RAID controller.

[bigfoot]

I think any user around hear would stick with using ATA RAID for personal use, If you want a taste of a SCSI RAID, you might mistake the price tag with a down-payment for a new house.

[Gandalf]

i jsut use my comp for gaming, downloading, and sharing music and stuff, so do you think Raid 0 or Raid 1 would be for me?