Raid 1 array setup

bigtom71

I have been trawling through old posts but haven't got a satisfactory answer to my problem. I have a self-built PC with the following specs:

MSI P43 Neo-F, Intel P43, ATX mobo
Samsung HD103UJ 1TB 32MB SATA II HDD
Intel Pentium Dualcore E5200 processor
4 gigs RAM
Windows 7 RC X64

I am gathering a lot of media files on my hard drive and am getting tired of backing it up onto an external drive. I am considering setting up a RAID 1 array by buying a second internal drive (another terrabyte). Can I set this up using my motherboard (i.e. is it capable of doing this from the BIOS or whatever), or can it be accomplished with Windows 7 RC, or do I have to get a RAID card?

Any help would be appreciated.

Tom...

stylie

I have been recomended it for my build. here is some information I was looking at online. hope it helps
http://www.pctechguide.com/tutorials/RAID.htm

Venom

bigtom71 wrote: »

I have been trawling through old posts but haven't got a satisfactory answer to my problem. I have a self-built PC with the following specs:

MSI P43 Neo-F, Intel P43, ATX mobo
Samsung HD103UJ 1TB 32MB SATA II HDD
Intel Pentium Dualcore E5200 processor
4 gigs RAM
Windows 7 RC X64

I am gathering a lot of media files on my hard drive and am getting tired of backing it up onto an external drive. I am considering setting up a RAID 1 array by buying a second internal drive (another terrabyte). Can I set this up using my motherboard (i.e. is it capable of doing this from the BIOS or whatever), or can it be accomplished with Windows 7 RC, or do I have to get a RAID card?

Any help would be appreciated.

Tom...

Check your bios/motherboard manual to see if you can set up a raid 1 array but I reckon you can. What sort of stuff do you need backing up as 1TB is a huge amount of space to have filled up. Personaly i just my 2 raptors in raid 0 for my os and related proggies and a 1TB for everything else like games/pics/movies and has been working fine.

bigtom71

Venom wrote: »

Check your bios/motherboard manual to see if you can set up a raid 1 array but I reckon you can. What sort of stuff do you need backing up as 1TB is a huge amount of space to have filled up.

Hi Venom,
I plan on backing up photos and Divx movies and TV Shows. At the moment, I am using up about 900GB with these and the X64 OS, although I don't know the split as I am away from my home PC. I am thinking of maybe getting another TB drive and a smaller one for the OS. That way, I'd only have a RAID array for my photos and movies and not the OS. How does that sound?

P.S. I will check the bios/mobo this evening.

Venom

bigtom71 wrote: »

Hi Venom,
I plan on backing up photos and Divx movies and TV Shows. At the moment, I am using up about 900GB with these and the X64 OS, although I don't know the split as I am away from my home PC. I am thinking of maybe getting another TB drive and a smaller one for the OS. That way, I'd only have a RAID array for my photos and movies and not the OS. How does that sound?

P.S. I will check the bios/mobo this evening.

I prefer a smaller/faster HD (Raptors or a SSD) setup for the OS and related programs like firewall/Anti virus etc and larger drives for everything else (games/movies/pics) as if you need reinstall OS which should be done every 6 months, you dont lose anything thats hard to replace such as games/movies/pics.

If you mirror your 1TB drive (2x 1TB drives in raid 1) you will still only have 1TB of space for storage (tho you will have a backup of all that data) which tbh is more of a business need than home user. Your idea of seperate drives for OS and then Raided TBs for data is what I would do.

bigtom71

Well, it seems my motherboard only allows IDE or AHCI mode, but not RAID. Too bad.
What are my options now? I heard that Windows XP Pro allowed RAID 0, 1 or 5. Can Windows 7 do the same?

Nietzschean

windows 7 will do raid 1...its a better option than using the bios raid 1 anyway. Both would be s/w raids and this way all that needs to survive is a h/d from the pc for ye to keep going

win7 versions vary, but there's also a built in backup system too...

Venom

bigtom71 wrote: »

Well, it seems my motherboard only allows IDE or AHCI mode, but not RAID. Too bad.
What are my options now? I heard that Windows XP Pro allowed RAID 0, 1 or 5. Can Windows 7 do the same?

Your motherboard supports raid going by its spec sheet..........

SATAII controller integrated in ICH10 chipset
- Up to 3Gb/s transfer speed.
- Supports six SATAII ports by ICH10

Raid is setup via bios and raid controller mate not from windows so make sure your checking in the right place

bigtom71

Thanks everyone for getting back to me. Yes, the BIOS seems to support ICH10, but I have read that it can cause problems on current hard drives when you switch over from IDE to ICH10. So, I am going to back up everything and then go for it. A reinstall of the OS is long overdue anyway.

Thanks,
Tom...

irishproduce

Hi lads,

Been reading this looking for a solution to my own problem. Is there anything I can do if my computer lost its array? My one is Raid 0 striped and it lost the array the other day. Nothing happens now. I get member disc and non raid disc on the black screen when I turn on

Thanks
Irish