Raid???

[FunkDaMonkMan]

what exactally is RAID? I've seen it, and it has to do w/ hard drives. I've seen RAID 0 and RAID 1. If you have 1 hard drive...what would you want to do w/ these settings?

[crash16]

ya thats something i want to know to i have also seen raid5 with two 15000rpm Hds but have no idea what ti means.

[Jon]

RAID requires more than one hard drive and depending on the disk subsystem you're using (IDE or SCSI) can accept, literally, into the hundreds.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (Independant) Disks.

RAID 0 is not true RAID as it provides no redundancy but is still counted. RAID 0 is disk striping. Taking at least two or more disks and simultaneously writing data across them. This increases overal disk throughput (depending on disk subsystem again) by at least (usually) 75% and much more. Take for instance a 1MB file. 512KB is written to one disk and the other 512KB is written to the other...at the same time. It is also read this way for much higher performance over a single disk. Disks should be of the same size and speed for maximum performance, otherwise, overall disk size will only equal that of the smallest disk in the array. For example, if you use a 10GB and a 15GB disk in RAID 0, you will only have a 20GB disk array and 5GB will go to waste. Also, if a disk fails in this mode all data is lost and 99% of the time, unrecoverable.

RAID 1 is disk mirroring. This is very simple. In my example I will use only two disks but more can be used. Data is written to one disk, in whole, while the same data is written to another disk as a complete and identical backup. If one disk fails, the other can be used to boot from until a new disk replaces the failed one. Data can then be regenerated to the new, empty disk. Performance is basically the same as a single disk. The redundant disks in the array must be of equal or larger size in order to work.

There are several other RAID modes but these are the most popular for IDE RAID. Other modes consist of RAID 0+1, RAID 2, RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5 and RAID 6 (this is not yet an accepted standard in my knowledge but can be used in SCSI subsystems).

For IDE you will need an IDE RAID controller with a chipset made by Promise, HPT or CMD. HPT being the most common and Promise being the best in my opinion.

Hope this cleared it up a little for you although I'm sure you've both got more questions than before, haha.

[FunkDaMonkMan]

wow......so when i'm building my new coputer with only one hard drive.....i don't have to worry about raid.... Can i have 2 hard drives with out raid?

[crash16]

ya the new mobo i gunna be getting has promise ide raid on it. The new mobo is an Asus A7V266-E with KT266A chipset

[Jon]

You can run two hard drives without using RAID.

[crash16]

what exactally does raid5 do i run a counter strike server and one of the players that play there told me to get 2 15000Rpm Hds and put them on raid5 and it would be hella fast.