setting up raid 0 and 1

dubdvd

Ive got 2 hard drives in my system ,No1 IS a 250 gb ata 133 which at the moment has my o/s on it then No2 , ive got a 200 sata .The mobo i have is the p4p800 deluxe ive also got a 120 gb ata 133 drive thats not in my rig ,what id like to do is set up a raid 0 which to my understanding ,is that windows runs on both drives which speeds up things ,but i,d also like to have these backed up as i beleive that if anything goes wrong with raid 0 even one of the drive. then the lot is messed up,so id like to back it up but how do you mirror a 2 drive raid or back it up ?.is any of this possible with what drives i have at the moment ,and how do i go about it? any help here would be great

Thanks in advance for any help

13

RAID 0 - (striping)
optimizes two identical hard disks to read and write in parrallel. So two drives perform the same work as a single drive but at a sustained transfer rate, thus improving data access and storage.

RAID 1 - (mirroring)
copies and mantains an identical image of data from one drive to another. If one drive fails, the disk array management software directs all applications to the surviving drive as it contains a complete copy of everything on the faulting one. This raid solution provides data protection and increases fault tolerance.

RAID 0+1 (striping and mirroring combined)
without parity (error) checks having to be calculated and written. The advantage of RAID 0+1 is fast data access (like raid 0), but with the ability to lose one drive and have a complete duplicate surviving drive (or set of drives)

if you want to setup a raid array you typically need two identical drives with similiar specs (space probably being the most prominent) otherwise you gotta use the smallest as your master and then stripe or mirror that to the other drive in the array.

in setting up a raid 0 config youll have to fdisk to format the array as a single harddrive.

if you would like to use an existing drive that already contains data and/or is the bootable drive in your system,make sure the new hdd you will use in the array has the same or larger capacity of that drive. (mirror only)

i would suggest using the RAID 0 mode and installing your 200GB drive as the first drive in the array, with the 250GB as the second. You could backup whatever you need onto your 120GB i guess?

Otherwise go for RAID 0+1 config if your mobo supports it. As far as i know, raid 1 (mirror option) is generally used for servers etc, so unless youre some kinda paranoid freak i wouldnt worry about it;p

my 2 cents, be good

ps forgot to say, after or if youve done all this dont forget to install Intels Application Accelerator software!

dubdvd

that has help me get to grips with this a bit better ill let yous know how it goes
thanks again