I have looked at various forum replies about RAID and the Marvel 9128 controller and am now very confused and am not too sure what RAID controller and which connectors to use.
This is the build I have nearly finished and a brief description as to what I am trying to achieve……
Case: CM HAF X full tower
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9
CPU: Intel Core i7 980X
Graphic: 3 x Asus GTX580 in 3-way SLI
Memory: Corsair Dominator DDR3 12GB (3 x 4GB) CMP12GX3M3A1600C9
PSU: Corsair AX1200W Professional Series Gold (Modular)
CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-D14
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
SSD for the Operating System: Corsair CSSD-V128GB2-BRKT Nova
Hard Disks:
2 x Western Digital WD1002FAEX 1TB Caviar Black SATAIII 7200rpm 64MB Cache 6GB/s
External Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II - 2 x 1TB drives in RAID 1 (mirrored data)
Optical Drives:
LiteOn IHAS124-19 DVD Writer SATA
Pioneer Blu-ray/DVD/CD writer BDR-205BK SATA
I was thinking of getting a second SSD and run them both in RAID 1, still using them for the operating system. Also, in a few months time I would like to get 4 more HD’s and run them in RAID 10.
My initial thought was to put the optical drives on GSATA2_8/9 connectors using the Gigabyte SATA 2 controller, the SSD’s in RAID 1 on the SATA2_0-5 connectors using the ICH10R controller, the 4 new HD’s in RAID 10 also on the SATA2_0-5 connectors using the ICH10R controller (if that is possible) and the Caviar Blacks in RAID 0 on GSATA3_6/7 connectors using the SATA3 Marvel 9128 controller. But, because of the reported problems on the Marvel port I am now not too sure what to do and am very confused.
Would I be better not using the Caviar Black’s in RAID 0 but instead use the hot swap facility in the HAF X and use my SyncBackSE software to mirror the data on these drives? If I do this, does it matter which SATA port I use to plug the hot swap drives?
Would it be better not to buy 4 new HD’s later but to buy 2 more Caviar Blacks now and use all of them in RAID 10 using the ICH10R controller?
Would it be better to run the SSD’s in RAID 1 on the Marvel 9128 controller or would that cause problems?
Would it be better not to use the Marvel 9128 for RAID but connect my optical drives to it instead?
As you can probably tell, I am now so confused as to which options to use. Therefore, any help, guidance and advice in resolving my confusion would be extremely welcome.
Many thanks in advance.