how to go about setting up raid 0 first time..

I've got a 120gb 8mb s-ata maxtor drive, and (if all goes well) another one (same one) coming soon™
Im planning on setting it up as raid 0, because i game a lot, and load times mean a lot to me

just the part of setting it up, confuses me...
how would i go about setting it up? i will be using onboard S-ATA raid on my IC7-G.
i don't mind if i have to format my drive(s)

would i just format my drive, then restart my pc with both HDD's in my rig, and load it with some weird floppy saying "s-ata drivers" or something..?

also, is it possible to have seperate partitions on a drive, so i would have a couple of partitions on *one* (ok, two, because of raid 0) drive, or if you go raid, can you not use partitions?

All advice/help will be kindly appreciated

Install the second drive in SATA2 and turn on the computer. After the Bios boots there is a RAID bios that you enter by hitting ctrl-I. This is where you set up the RAID Array. When that is done you boot up from the Windows CD and proceed as you normally would when installing Windows except hit F6 to install SATA RAID drivers that came on a floppy with the mobo. You can create partitions the same as on a single disk.

I have the same mobo and 2x120 SATA WD hard drives. The only thing you need to be careful about is how you set up the main BIOS in integrated peripherals, so that windows sees your RAID array.

If you have trouble let me know and I will copy my BIOS settings down to give you. I'd do it now but I would have to reboot.

OK, I rebooted and checked out the settings.

in Advanced BIOS
Bootable add-in device = OnChip SATA RAID
Boot sequence: floppy, CDROM, Hard drive, Other enabled

in Integrated Peripherals (E = enabled , A=Auto)
in OnChip IDE
EEAAAAEAAAA, RAID, E, Enhanced
in On Board PCI
Serial ATA Controller = Disabled

Use the third file down on the Intel list when Windows install asks for the RAID driver name = ICH5R - 82801ER

That should do it

thanks a lot! that should do it

with raid 0, do you get 2*120=~200gb of space, or do you keep 120gb but just faster?

im still checking out some tihngs concerning the stripe size, so im not done yet, but thanks a lot for your help!

You only get 111.5 GB out of a 120 GB drive so...
Its 2x111.5 = 223GB it's bigger and faster than an individual drive.
I used 64K stripe size but there is a lot of uncertainty about this number.

Just a reminder for anyone using Raid0, Backup your important data and back up often. If just one of the drives dies all off your data is gone

Kendan said:

Just a reminder for anyone using Raid0, Backup your important data and back up often. If just one of the drives dies all off your data is gone

Click to expand...

I take this opportunity to ask you guys: does the loss of data on a Raid 0 occurs often?What are your experiences?

L&M said:

I take this opportunity to ask you guys: does the loss of data on a Raid 0 occurs often?What are your experiences?

Click to expand...

indeed, does it happen more often than with a single HDD? i've been thinking, if the odds are the same, then it wouldnt really matter if i had raid 0 or a single HDD except for total space and speed... since if id lose one in both configurations, id lose all my data anyway

No one?!

Think of it this way.
If there are ten drives in the world and the failure rate is 10% per year then;
If you have one drive you have a 10% chance of getting a failed drive (1 in 10).
If you have two drives in RAID 0 and one of the ten will fail then you have two chances to get one of the bad drives. A 20% chance of losing your data.
If you have two drives in RAID 1, you still have a two in ten chance of getting a bad drive but you are mirrored to a good drive and would lose no data.

so its not like raid 0 is less stable than a single drive? just the same chances? per drive..

IMHO raid0 is more stable then a single ide drive,or at least as stable.I just recently updated the bios on both of my raid cards,and of coarse you know how it goes.One went fine but the second,my program drive with some vital files on a seperate partition were lost.Well,not really lost but the computer would not boot anymore,because sometime during the flash,it wigged out on me and data began streaming across the screen so fast it could'nt be read.I rebooted and reflashed and it went ok but still would not boot.I soon found I could remove the card and boot the os but my proggies would not load.I could then insert the card with the OS loaded and the drives would show up in my computer,with everything intact.Weird huh? I keep all my important partitions backed up on an ide drive so I wasn't to worried but i needed it to boot.
The short version is,because the different cards used the same chipset,all that had to be done was reverse the cards and replug the HD's into their new card and all was ok.Eve weirder is the fact that i changed the stripe size of one when I thought all was lost without refornmatting.Still all was there.
I did however lose an array once when my backup IDE returned a SMART error and corrupted both itself and the array at the same time.I did have all my precious file on dvd's so even then all was not lost completely.A failing drive on an array however has not yet affected the backup IDE.I think that data loss is way overstated with raid0,but backup is way under rated.