Enter Matrix Question

[confusedxx]

I am getting 2 samsung Spinpoint 500gb drives that I will set in a raid. My motherboard has the intel chip to support the matrix raid.

So now a couple questions about the matrix.

1. Does the matrix have to be with both raid 0 and raid 1 or can I simply use two drives and create multiple Raid 0 partitions? The first partition would be C:\ and be 100gb for the Windows Vista 64 installation.

2 Since I have a WD Mybook for backups, do I still see the full performace increase of using 2 drives in a Raid 0?

3. If I do only a raid 0, what is the difference between doing it on the Intel chip or via the board's raid controller?

[bing]

I am getting 2 samsung Spinpoint 500gb drives that I will set in a raid. My motherboard has the intel chip to support the matrix raid.

What mobo is that ?


1. Does the matrix have to be with both raid 0 and raid 1 or can I simply use two drives and create multiple Raid 0 partitions? The first partition would be C:\ and be 100gb for the Windows Vista 64 installation.

Sure, you can, making single big Raid 0 drive and then divide them into two partitions as you wanted is no different than matrix raid with two Raid 0 volumes.
If there is a performance different, no one ever intensively benchmarked it, but I doubt it will be like night and day.

Assuming you aware and understand, that people with matrix raid 0 and 1 volumes want that Raid 1 exist is for a "reason". :)



2 Since I have a WD Mybook for backups, do I still see the full performace increase of using 2 drives in a Raid 0?

Good practice ! :thup: As long you do it periodically and not lazy ! :D

Redundant raid 1/5/10 is NOT a replacement for a good backup, no matter how good they are.



3. If I do only a raid 0, what is the difference between doing it on the Intel chip or via the board's raid controller?

This is the most easy question, that Intel ICHxR chip is THE on board raid controller. :D

Most Intel mobo now has two which are this Intel ICHxR and other "crappy" one like JMicron which I recommend never use it for raid-ing drives, they use this "crappy" chip simply for the purpose to support PATA devices that Intel left out.