Raid or no raid

Status
Not open for further replies.

Dantrag

Posts: 127   +0
i'm upgrading a system and there are 3 hdd's 2 smaller 1's (and older come of a P2 233) and 1 40gb maxtor(new hdd) do i need to use raid or some thing special to use them together and wil the older 1's run with the new 1 ?(problems with different interface or somthing)
 
I'm pretty sure with raid you have to have 2 identical HDD's. This will ensure that the sectors and stuff are equal and can take the raid setup. I have never done this, but am fairly positive this is correct.

If I am not I will soon be corrected :)
 
Originally posted by poertner_1274
I'm pretty sure with raid you have to have 2 identical HDD's. This will ensure that the sectors and stuff are equal and can take the raid setup. I have never done this, but am fairly positive this is correct.

If I am not I will soon be corrected :)

Not so.

You can make an array from any bunch of disks that you like.

However, the size of the array is always the size of the smallest disk, times the number of disk in the array.

For example,

1. 40 GB HDD.

2. 60 GB HDD.

3. 80 GB HDD.

4. 40 GB HDD.

Total size of the array is 4 x 40 GB = 160GB.

Why? Because 40GB is the smallest disk.

You have therefore wasted 60 GB of HDD space, because the total amount of disk space was 220 GB, but you could only use 160GB of that space.

Therefore, its much more sensible to use disks with the same capacity (i.e. 4 x 60 GB, etc)

Also, its claimed that one gets better results from using drives of the same make and model, etc. So yes, its this is perhaps a better strategy, but its not necessary, as I have illustrated.
 
i hear the performance gain is worth it

interesting phant, i wasn't aware of that
 
Thanks a lot Phant. I guess now that you have said it I have heard of it being possible with different HDD's, but everyone I know has bought the same ones. That is why I said they needed to be the same.

And I think it makes more sense to get the same if you can., but if you are planning on using the ones you have it seems kinda silly to raid them because of the 2 smaller ones, the 40gig will only work as large as the smallest one. You will be losing out on quite a bit of space. Something to think about.
 
You can also create a "volume set" where you would get, in my example, the full 220 GB, because this allows you to add the total space of several disks into one drive letter.

However, this volume set has none of the increased performance of RAID 0, its simply to allow you to consolidate the space from several HDDs into one.
 
....oh, and the speed of the array is the speed of the slowest disk times the number of disks in the array, in RAID 0.

I.e. if you mix 5,400 and 7,200 RPM disks, they will all perform like they are 5,400.
 
most raid controllers (especially motherboard integrated ones) should have the option to run the controller as regular IDE rather than RAID. So, yeah, I imagine that you can run them JBOD (i.e. "just a bunch of disks") no problem, yeah.
 
do i need special ide cables because there are only 2 end for hdd and my other is being used by dvd and cdrw
 
is it possible to keep the old disks unformatted and install win nt on the new 1 and boot from. the two other 1's i would like to stik it in the system but rather not formatt them
btw the 2 older 1's ran win nt
 
Could you please post a list of exactly what hard drives you have, to which controllers and points (i.e. master or slave) each of them are, what is currently on those partitions, etc.

Also, please explain clearly what you are trying to achieve.

I will then be only too pleased to give your question as much thought as it takes.
 
i want to take the master and use that as a slave on the new system (i dont want to formatt it,it has win nt on it) the old slave i'm going to formaat and use it as the master and install win nt on it. i'm alsow putting them on the same controller. is this possible srry but i dont know what drives they are but i'll be able to tell soon. (pc isnt at my house )
 
post back when you know exactly how many drives there are, what is on them, and how many you can to use in the machine.
 
2 drives one c: and one d: i'm going to formatt d: and install win nt on it (both disks used win nt before) and use it as the primary boot disk the c: i dont want to formatt and put it on the new system ,as d: was on the old pc, (it was the primary boot disk on the old pc) is this possible?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back