Raid Configuration

[instagater270]

I have built my first pc. Gigabyte ga-880ga-ud3h. I have a 750 GB Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive. Running W7 64 bit. What i was wondering is would it be better to add a second hard drive, and would it increase performance?

[absic]

Hi,

The simple answer is yes, if you get another HDD and build a RAID 0 Array, then you should see faster read/write speeds and an overall improvement in performance.

How much of a gain that you will actually see however, will be dependant on other factors such as how your PC is configured, if you are using other hard-drives and things like that.

The Southbridge on the motherboard, that controls the SATA3 ports, also shares bandwidth with the USB devices the SATA2 and IDE Channels as well as the PCI  Bus, Firewire, Floppy and Audio, which does mean you could have a lot of items sharing bandwidth, thus reducing the overall efficiency of your system.

[instagater270]

Cool. Will it be a problem to set it up since i already have the OS installed? Another question, I have an OEM version of Windows. Could i change HD's to something like a velocorapter or a SSD without having to get another OS?

[Dark Mantis]

As I have just found out to my cost and the same as others on this forum the Western Digital Black hard drives are no good for booting from as part of a RAID0 array. They have to be "Enterprise" versions if you plan to run a RAID configuration it is all to do with TLER. The ordinary drives tend to drop out of the RAID. If you want to setup a RAID0 configuration you must use Velociraptor SATA3 drives for the full speed benefit. You will need to reinstall your OS.

[absic]

Hi
as Dark Mantis says be very careful about your choice of Hard-drive or SSD make sure that the drives you choose are capable of running RAID Arrays.

As your OS is an OEM version you may have an issue over activation as Microsoft will see the RAID Array set-up as a different PC Configuration. I encountered this with my Retail Version and had to go through the telephone activation process and then sign in blood that I was only using the product key on one PC blah, blah, blah!. No real biggie but just another reason why I dislike Microc**p so much.

[instagater270]

Ok. Thanks for the help. I was talking to some other people that said i could use some imaging software to transfer everything to a backup HD (including the OS). Then maybe i could change over to a raid and restore. Does that sound like an option?

[absic]

To be honest it is not the route I would take and it could land you with more problems than it solves.

I have just switched to a RAID configuration (as part of some testing) and before reconfiguring my system I backed-up my original set-up using imaging software but I did this just in case there were problems with the RAID set-up and I wanted to revert to my old configuration.

I believe it is a much better idea to do a clean install when making such changes to your system and it is what I always do.

[Dark Mantis]

Quite right absic, also Windows would probably spot the difference and ask for a re-activation anyway.

[instagater270]

SO, is there anyway to switch to raid using my HD?

[Dark Mantis]

Yes sure. There is nothing stopping you from switching to RAID0 as long as you don't mind doing the work that it will entail. As you said you could image your drive or do a fresh install but either way you will need to re-activate Windows afterwards I expect.

[absic]

If you are thinking of using your current Western Digital HDD you will need to double check that it can be used for RAID before investing your money in a 2nd one.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes absic and I both made the mistake of buying a pair of Western Digital Blacks SATA3 to enable us to make the most of the new standard only to find that the desktop version doesn't support TLER and keeps dropping the RAID. Western Digital don't exactly adverrtise this though and if you need drives for a RAID array you need to buy the "Enterprise" versions.

[instagater270]

Thanks guys. I did some research on this and everything i have found is as you say. I think i will just stick with what i have for now. I can't afford the cash for such an adventure. Thanks for the advice.

[Dark Mantis]

Better to realise now than after you have bought the new hardware.