[IFMU]

ok, here's the situation.

i have 4 sata and 1 ide port on my board.
1 is taken for my ssd and 1 for my blu ray burner, so that leaves me 2 sata and 1 ide ports open.
now, i have
1 x 320gig 7200rpm (sata)
1 x 320gig 5400rpm (sata)
1 x 160gig 5400rpm (sata)
1 x 80gig 7200rpm (ide)
1 x 36gig raptor (sata)

I want to combine the drives to create the largest partition i can get. speed isn't absolutely mandatory, but i can't allow it to be slow either.
i was thinking of doing a few different things to get the largest partition i can get, without it causing lag etc.

i have an ide to sata adapter here that could be used to alter the onboard ide to sata, to be able to add in an additional drive, but it would slow the sata drives down correct? how bad?

my primary thought is to take the 2 x 320gig drives and either raid 0 them, for a "640" partition and call it good. but if possible, would it be feasible to add in the 160gig using the sata/ide adapter and raid 0, or the equivalent of all 3 drives?

i've been running the 320 and 80gigs separate up until now, but am tired of trying to keep track what is where, etc.

any suggestions on the best way to run the drives would be appreciated.

tia

[Psycogeec]

the answer is pretty easy, go get 2 new 1T drives, assemble them into your raid, the loose disks will still be usable in any way, and provide for a great backup. both drives will be similar as they should be before making any raid0 assembly, and they will be fresh and usable for a long time assuming they make it for the first month or so.

all your valuable data will still be hanging around on your crumb drives, which you can use to make a sandwitch anytime.
the alternative it to assemble a bloody mess using aged drives, dissimilar drives, and side adapted stuff, having problems loosing your data, and wanting to pay someone $500 to recover all your data.
about then you look back at the alternative, and wish you had plunked down $160 (or so) and had all the data in 2 places.

it is a win win, you still get to use the leftovers, to secure the data, and because they are NOT in raid, they are pretty secure, and can be put in or out easily, and stored in a safe place , if lightning would strike.
plus you are getting data insurance , the kind of insurance that comes in really usefull when you realise something died and start breaking out in cold sweats, because it is then you realised it took 2 years to assemble all that data, and it will take at least 2 months to get it back again. 2 months vs $160.
^ this is the kind of breakdown i ran when i thought i had lost my data, THEN the cost of a new drive was meaningless , luckily it was just a jumper , but it did make me think.

.

[shadowdr]

An 80 gig with an adapter is painfully slow, think less than 30 mb a second. Another problem that I see using raid is that AHCI will not be available. You can have raid or you can have AHCI unless there is more than one controller onboard. Using raid drivers disables the SSD's ability to run at full speed, now if you add a raid card that is another story. Sell all of them you can and get a WD black 1t drive for 79.00. Best way to run those drives is in someone elses computer.

[Psycogeec]

intel has said something about raid and ACHI.
and it is being iterpreted that raid enables ACHI.

http://www.intel.com/support/chipset.../CS-015988.htm

If you are using a SATA hard drive, set your BIOS to RAID mode. RAID mode provides the greatest overall flexibility and upgradeability because it allows your system to be RAID ready and enable AHCI.

but i never got that far to find out for sure yet.


http://www.overclock.net/intel-gener...t-minimum.html

""PS: FYI, Intel also describes the steps to set RAID and AHCI for their mother boards, as follows:

To enable RAID and AHCI:

1. Enter the BIOS.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Click Drive Configuration.
4. Enable Intel® RAID Technology.
5. Save the changes and exit the BIOS.


To enable AHCI only:

1. Enter the BIOS.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Click Drive Configuration.
4. Disable Intel® RAID Technology.
5. Enable SATA AHCI mode.
6. Save the changes and exit the BIOS." "

.

[IFMU]

only problem with "just buy new drives" is that would require money i do not have to spend.

so no ide , what about just running the 2 sata drives?

[Psycogeec]

but but thier not even the same speed :-)
it wont make that much difference being a consumer sort of raid, it will read a bit from the one, read a bit from the other, and work pretty similar. but it just isnt good form to mix them up like that.
there is enough differences already in making raid0 , to not want to add any minor inconsitancies.
so yes it will probably work, and it is probably preferable over dynamic or other goofey stuff to make a big fast disk, it just isnt proper.

[IFMU]

i understand that under the best circumstances this wouldn't be even close to optimal. but i have to make due with what i have.
the speeds are different, so i realize the speed won't be the best, but due to the differences, i'm mostly concerned with them just not working. i have to swap a lot of data around before i could attempt this, a good 250+gigs worth, which is the reason behind the thread. wanting to make sure it would even work before i go through all that effort.


since i created the thread, i've had the chance to check, and my board does not have onboard raid it would seem. so using the standard won't work for that, beyond the problem that shadowdr mentioned above.

how horrible would it be if i were to use the expansioning available in windows?
the drive(s) do a lot of reading and writing of new data. i more than likely go through anywhere between 20 to 50gigs worth of data being saved and deleted within a months time. keep in mind, this drive (partition) is only for data, it has no games, software etc installed on it. all of that is on my ssd drive. so loading, access etc, is not required to be super uber fast, but i dont want to set it up and do this and have it actually lag my system when trying to use the files that are on it.

well it would seem that by the sound of it i'm pretty much pooched then?

[shadowdr]

I probably mis spoke about the raid and single SSD on an Intel mobo, it cannot be done on an AMD without serious limitations on the SSD. So I guess it would depend on the platform, but still mixing different RPM speeds will probably cause timeout problems with the controller and Intel is not as reliable as other controllers(faster, yes but not as reliable). You can still use the IDE as an IDE and still use the other sata connections for the other drives seperately without issue. The problem with running 2x320 and 1x 160 is that for raid0 you would end up with 1x 480.

[shadowdr]

Wow, missed the whole post, should have refreshed. Win expansion is probably your best bet but I cannot comment on how it performs as I have never used it.

[Psycogeec]

i missed too, i should have known when he said how few ports that it was not the usual intel raid thing.

i dont like OS assembled raid, or OS dynamic expansion, if that was the choice i would rather have a nice fast 7200 (for sure) single drive item(s).
also
I have that same kind of thing on the other computer, it has intel raid but only 4 ports, and the IDE stuff. it is hard to assemble raid AND still have other disk items to move data safe, and backup and all, so it happily stays non-raid, and it is NOT "slower" , if i dont look at benchmarks :-) and i can still have stuff come and go , because all the drives are "normal" so it is way less trouble.

and heck we got it down to 1 new 1T now if you follow Shadowrs orignal idea :-)
.

[IFMU]

apologies for not putting in the motherboard, it's a gigabyte p35-ds3l.

as for the rest, i'm not sure i understand what it is you're trying to say?

i know the best route would be to just buy a larger drive, but i don't have the money to buy a drive.

so with 2 drives of being different speeds would cause that much of a problem?

crap.

thanks for the help.