Help needed, raid 0 setup.

[Hellsteel]

Hi, i just ordered another harddrive, 500GB western digital blue, same one as i current have, i am planning on setting up a raid 0, for additional performance. I currently am using a Gigabyte P55M-UD2, i plan to upgrade to a UD4 to sli in the future, but for now i am curious about setting up my raid 0 set up.

MY first question is... should i be using GSATA2 or just SATA2 ports? i read an interesting artical here.
http://homeservershow.com/gigabyte-p55-usb3-intel-raid-vs-gsata2-or-jmicron-raid-in-windows-home-server.html

He stated the g-sata2 performance was abit better, but alot of others are stating its worse... i am quite confused what to use when i receive my hard drive in a few days and i am trying to avoid trying both and reinstalling os twice.

So what should i use? i have also seen people saying to download a gigabyte intel driver while setting up the raid.

Any feedback and info on this would be great, i have never setup a raid 0 before, an i am abit confused on which is the best route to go for performance. Also for latest driver while installing os would be cool too, so i can put on my pen drive.

My current system is:

Intel i5-750@3.8ghz
Gigabyte P55M-UD2
Corsair drr3 1600
Nvidia Gtx 470
2x Western digital blue sata II 500gb
XFX 850w

Thanks.

[Dark Mantis]

Well two things spring to mind when you asked that question.

The first is that Western Digital use a new firmware on their drives now that unless you pay the premium for "Enterprise" drives they are not TLER enabled and so are much more likely to be dropped from the array or not even found in the first place. You used to be able to "fix" this and enable the TLER on the drives but WD has put an end to that with this firmware.

Secondly for the best performance you will hjave to use the Intel ICH10R controller and ports. They are faster than either the Gigabyte or even the SATA3 ports. The SATA3 ports are fine for single drive s for data but you cannot run a RAID array on them.

[absic]

Hi there,

Just did some checking at Western Digital and the SATA2 Caviar Blue Drives are OK for RAID. Check here: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=793 for more info.

[Hellsteel]

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive


^ My current drive.

I believe my mobo is sata II ports, not sata 3. its p55m-ud2.

So what you suggest is to use my sataII 0 and 1 ports. ?and then install the intel drivers?

as far as i am aware, the orginal thing i would going to do was... put my Hardrives in port 0 and 1 (sataII) , then reinstall OS, merge the drives into raid 0, after bio change, and then pressing CTRL I. And after that during os installation i should be installing the drivers on a memory chip.

Others also say windows 7 will do it for you, i have windows 7.

my ports looks like this pretty much... http://www.images.clunk.org.uk/reviews/gigabyte/GA-X58A-UD7/IMG_2324.jpg

Are you meaning port 0 and 1 for sata II?

[Dark Mantis]

Yes you don't have the Marvell chip on your board so no SATA3.

[Hellsteel]

Ok no offense.. but i am getting information i dont need, and the question i asked has not been answered.. iknew i had sata 2 which is quite obvious, sata 3 is useless for me because i wont even be maxing out my sata2 speeds.  Secondly i knew my HDD's can be used in a raid setup because on reviews tons of people are using them in raid 0. Not trying to be rude, but i know this information.

What i need to know is , should i be using sata II port 0 and 1 to setup my raid 0, i also asked about Gsata2 according to that review the result was somewhat good. (you did say intel was best ect..)  but you never stated what specific ports i should be using and where the driver information is on how to set it up.

My main question is my confusion on which ports to use, i am guessing they are 0 and 1, but i just wanna get the information prior to doing it, rather then re-installing os two times, also the newest drivers for it would be great, i found some but i am not sure if 1.1 gigabyte sata ii is the newest.

If you could let me know which port on my mobo, and the driver for ICH10 that would be great.

[Dark Mantis]

Sorry about the erroneus information it wasn't needed and I can see that now after your last post. The best ports to use for speed are the Intel southbridge ports which are the blue ones at the bottom. Generally these perform better than the GSATA ports the white ones. You can download the latest drivewr sfor your board's chipset from here: http://www.giga-byte.co.uk/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3287&dl=1#driver
Hope that is what you wanted.

[Hellsteel]

Yes that was what i was looking for, and the information i needed . Sorry if i was being blunt previously.

Intel SATA RAID Driver

Was the driver you where referring to correct?

Thanks for the info.

[Dark Mantis]

No it was our fault, firstly for not checking the information re your board and also going too much in depth when you only needed a simple answer. Anyway we got there in the end.

Was the driver you where referring to correct?

The link I gave you was to the drivers for your board, the Intel one included. It is also available from the Intel site if you would rather.

[Hellsteel]

Alright thank you very much for the info, i think i just made this 10x more complicated for myself then it really was lol.

I cannot wait till later today... so i can try this out  

thx again.