nVidia RAID vs Silicone Image RAID

[David M]

I was wondering if anyone knows of any differences between nVidia RAID and Silicone Image RAID on the A8N board. I am considering going to a RAID 5 system in Silicone Image from a RAID 0+1 in nVidia.

Switching from RAID 0+1 over to RAID 5 of course means wiping the drives so its kind a of a big deal.

How would you set up your RAID array if you had 4 drives and RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and 0+1 to choose from...and especially why?

I have been told by one person whose advice I really trust
is that RAID 5 is more reliable when using 4 drives than is RAID 0+1. I would like to hear more personal experiences and opinions. I already understand the technical difference between the RAID configurations...I'm looking for personal experiences and reasons to make the change.

The reason I am asking is I had a hard drive die when I dropped it when my computer was in RAID 0+1 and there was no way to reconfigure the replacement drive (that I could find) without having to reinstall the OS

Even though RAID 0+1 has mirroring, there seems to be no point in having RAID 0+1 if you have to reinstall the OS if one of your four hard drives crashes. If this is the case then RAID 0+1 is the same as having 4 drives striped with the loss of half your drive capacity. This can't be true..or is it?

Thanks

[Tin]

the biggest difference between nV RAID and Silicon Image is that you can RAID ATA and SATA drives together with nV RAID. lets say you have an 80GB Maxtor IDE drive and an 80GB MAxtor SATA drive...assuming their specs are the same (aside from interface) you can run them in a RAID configuration. one other thing id like to add, you cant overclock with the Silicon Image because it is independent of the PCI lock.

[David M]

Thanks Tin...

Oh ouch...that rules out Silicone Image because my computer is set up for overclocking.

So that puts me back to square one. Obviously I want nVidia RAID then...and 0+1 does not do what it claims can be done (replace a failed HD without having to reinstall the OS). This leaves me with RAID 1 (mirroring). Can 4 drives be mirrored in RAID 1?..and does this make sense if it can be done? There is no way I am going to do RAID O (striping) and risk losing all my data if one drive fails..and eventually this will happen, especially with four drives thus four times the probability.

glc,
Are commercial servers RAID setups hardware driven? Is this why they are more reliable than the software driven RAID that we are seeing with home computers?

I guess I need to ask, whats the best setup that will allow me to overclock AND preserve data if a drive fails?..given my setup. I have four of the buggers for gawds sake...there must be something that will work?

[Tin]

id just run them in parallel. only thing you will notice with RAID 0 or a derivative of it is that Windows may boot 2 seconds faster. since you have the Raptors, running in parallel may not be a bad idea. i was running a RAID setup for a little while but grew tired of having my drives tied up that way and chose to run them in parallel instead.

[David M]

Not sure what parallel means? JBOD? In other words Drive E, F, G and H for example?

Would mirroring two of the drives and using the other two as parallel be a better setup? This way I would have two backup drives for installing the OS onto and for really important data and then two drives that are not backed up for loading games and less important stuff. I would lose only 1/4 of my drive capacity also...correct?

[Tin]

parellel is how IDE drives are normally run. you have your boot drive and the rest are slaves.

[David M]

Ok...thanks your your help Tin.

Looks like I am going to set up two drives that are mirrored (C: drive as master) and then two drives that are slave drives..(F: and G: ).

[glc]

Why a new thread, David?

For what you want to do, a 0+1 is the way to go if you don't have native RAID 5 support in the NVRaid. There is NO reason you need to reinstall an OS if one drive dumps with EITHER setup unless the NVRaid sucks so bad it doesn't have a hardware array rebuild ability. All you have now is a broken mirror, and you should be able to rebuild it from the striped pair that still works.

[David M]

glc,
The information and advice you gave me in the last thread and the PM was excellent. I did not mean to break the rules here. I thought my new questions were different enough from the last thread to warrant a new thread. My apologies.

****
Now I am really confused, theoretically RAID 0+1 is supposed to be able to recover your OS from a crashed drive but the reality is that after searching the internet for days and asking how to recover from a crashed drive in a RAID 0+1 setup in a number of forums, it's not possible from a pragmatic standpoint (no information is available on how to do this). My guess is very few people know how to do this because RAID 0+1 is a relatively rare thing. It's certainly not in the motherboard manual.

Where is this information seemingly buried? Does anyone know where to find this info? Any answers would be greatly appreciated .

Thanks

[glc]

Your array on the Sil or the NV?

If it's on the NV, here's a Foxconn manual that addresses the rebuild.

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/pdf/NF...anual-V1.0.pdf

[David M]

It's going to be nV RAID array so I can use the PCI lock. Per your recommendation, I am going to keep the RAID 0+1 config..now that I have instructions on how to replace a crashed drive.

That looks like it glc! Thanks so much. I bookmarked it and will work on it this evening. It's all spelled out step by step for the computer newbie like me.