Some newbie SATA questions..

[mike4realz]

Nevermind, you deleted the post I originally replied to.

Anyway, RAID5 is not a combination of both RAID 0 and RAID 1, like I said, and you said, its a totally different concept, not subject to confusion. I wouldn't even be refuring to RAID 5 because most mainstream home user motherboards dont support it.

RAID0 - Striped volumes do not provide fault tolerance, but offer the fastest performance

RAID1 - Mirrored volumes are the most basic type of fault tolerant RAID, but they suffer from relatively low efficiency. Fully 50 percent of the disk space devoted to the array is used to store redundant data

RAID5 - Striped volumes with parity provide fault tolerance (RAID1) with enhanced performance (RAID0) and a better level of efficiency than RAID1

RAID5 is generally used in servers

 

[Raphael Argus]

Thanks for all the information! Great stuff, I think I may actually have a shot at installing the SATA drive =)

A couple more quick questions.

So am I correct in that you can run just one SATA drive?

And since I use my PC for net surfing and gaming Raid 0 may be useful for some performance, but it requires 2 of the exact same drives? Or can I setup a raid 0 with just my one drive?

Again, thanks to everyone helping me out, I wish I had kept up with the newer technologies.

After doing some reading elsewhere I have read several times that if I enable the SATA controller in my BIOS (currently off) that I can install XP without a SATA driver disk. I may try doing that, since I can't seem to locate the darn file small enough for a floppy for my ECS 848P-A motherboard. I haven't found any files for download small enough to fit on a floppy, plus it's pretty confusing as they list different versions of the model number mobo I have. I can't find anything with my documentation that states a version number, so assuming I'm version 1.

 

[mike4realz]

yes u can run wid just one sata HD but setting up RAID will require at least 2 hard drives

 

[vagnozzi]

I have the exact same board you do. You do NOT need to install the SATA drivers. Just enabled SATA0 as master in BIOS, and you'll be fine. The motherboard will pick it up and all will be well.

There is also an option to run 'Combined Mode', which will let you operate SATA0/1 as master, and an IDE drive as slave, but you'll have to play around with it when you decide to go that route. Your SATA drive will be cake to install, just make sure SATA0 is master in BIOS

 

[shenlingstyle]

When setting up RAID 0, use two identical drives, both in size and brand.

 

[RicoDirenzo]

Hey guys......you don't need RAID!!! They are server functions!!! Dudes, Raid 0,1 if you want drive 1 and dirve 2 to mirror data....both drives contain the same data so if one fials you buy a new one and simply intechange their physical loacatons, SATA 0 and SATA 1 and you keep on trucking. RAID 5 is RAID stripping and two SATA's act as one large drive. If one drive fails you've lost all your data. So BaCK up SATA and Enhanced capacity. Just install the SATA dives SATA 0 (will be like the Master IDE) and SATA 1 (Like the IDE slave). Most modern servers use huge HD Arrays (either fibre channel or SATA) with like 500 TB of storage on 10 to 15k RPM HD's) A typical blade server for a large business can cost $250 k to a million bucks!!! You have no need for RAID!!!!!!

 

[shenlingstyle]

He wants to surf the net and play games and he has a RAID controller, so why shouldn't he set up RAID?

The only thing you need now is another hard drive. All-in-all, if you feel the need for more space and possibly more performance, do it, otherwise you'll be just as fine.

 

[RicoDirenzo]

Because it is totally unnecessary!! SATA drives run ins SATA 0 and SATA 1 run independently by Hardware mobo protocols on the systems Southbridge. They do not have the cabling and data access issues connected with IDE master/slave prototols. If they are mirrored he has cut his storage capaicty to the size of one drive. If you stripe them you have no back-up data storage protection and then wuld need to use data recovery software and then which SATA Drive has failed?????? Why put yorself in that predicament for no added performance? One drive goes they both go because the RAID array protocol sees both drives as, essentially, one drive. They are server functions for server arrays. It is my opion, that unless youare planning on RAIDing a large number of high speed drives in a server array it is simply not sensible. Why make things more complicated than they need to be? SATA 0 and SATA 1 (essentially Master/slave = with IDE) is simple, cable default and provides NO PERFORMANCE HINDERANCES!!!!!!! RAIDing two SATA drives on a home PC is just silly, in my opinion. If you gained some tangible performance from that platform then it would make sense but there is NO PERFORMANCE GAIN associated with RAIDING a home PC!!!

 

[Raphael Argus]

Thanks, All. I appreciate the great feedback. I've learned alot from this thread and as soon as my new PSU arrives (tomorrow) I'll be setting up my first SATA drive =)

And Vagnozzi, thanks a ton for letting me know as long as the onboard SATA0 drive is activated as master I won't need the drivers! I have spent so much time looking for drivers it's ridiculous. I figured if I can't find a floppy version of the drivers they must not be needed, plus I read a few other people didn't need them. (This also means I don't have to reconnect my floppy, although that's not a big deal)

I'll also run that 'combined' mode with my old IDE as slave just until I am confident I backed up all my files. Everytime I do a fresh install I always forget to backup some stuff, so when I realize something is missing I can just copy it over. Once I have everything all installed and operating smooth I'll mirror the contents over to the old IDE drive and use that for my future backup.

Again, thanks a bunch! I appreciate all the information.

 

[RicoDirenzo]

There is no master/slave protocol for SATA. The mobo will define the SATA drive as wither SATA 0 (the default SATA boot drive) and SATA 1 (as if it were a slave) by cable position from the mobo. My intel board automatically defaults to SATA 0 as the boot drive. You need to be aware of the fact that not all mobo's default this way. On ASUS boards, amoung others, there are drivers and the BIOS has to be set to see the SATA 0 (you can choose either SATA 0 0r 1 as the first boot device) as the first boot device or it will defualt to IDE master, if installed, or give you NTLDR error message at boot. So read your manual for your mobo about how to set up SATA.